Chương 158: Survivor

Brawl grabbed the surviving attacker by his neck, then lifted him up and slammed him against the wall. He gasped and choked, clutching at the arrow in his chest.

"Anchor, keep watch," I said.

"Make sure nothing sneaks up on us." Anchor nocked another arrow and rushed to the door.

"Yes, Sarge." I stepped up in front of the man, then patted him down, searching for hidden daggers. Nothing. His flailing weakened by the second.

"Sage, if you've got a heal, now would be a good time…" I said.

"Pull the arrow out," she commanded. I didn't pause to question it. It'd be a terrible idea in any other circumstance. Here, though, I knew she could fix it. Gripping the arrow as tight as I could, I gave it a harsh tug, freeing it without breaking its tip off. The man choked and sputtered, and Anchor told us, "You won't have long. A group of local guards is racing up toward the hall." Took them long enough. Then again, it was probably purposeful.

They'd looked the other way, hoping that these would-be assassins could handle us while they weren't looking. Sage held a hand out. Morph, shaped like a chair, wobbled closer. Right before she reached the man, she forced herself to stand up, legs trembling. Her hands glowed, and the skin of the man's chest healed, weaving back together. Blood stopped pouring from the wound, but it still wet his robes, shimmering in the pale light of Welkinmere. The hole in the wall let enough of it in.

"Don't heal him all the way," I told Sage.

"Just enough to keep him alive." Wincing as she absorbed some of the pain of the healing, she nodded. I held my spear up to the man's chin.

"Who sent you?" Silence. Of course.

"You know, for an assassin, you're not very good. You don't seem like a career assassin," I said.

"What are the chances you're more loose-lipped?"

"If you think torture will get me to spill our secrets, you're a fool, Sir Levi. I've experienced far worse than your spear," the man grunted. His eyes were still blank and empty, and the markings on his head throbbed a brighter shade of red—even at night, when everything was so desaturated.

"What about a deal?" I hissed.

"We'll let you live if you answer our questions." The man gasped.

"What if I don't know the answers?" Brawl slammed him back into the wall, cracking the wood and making the man's jaw clench shut.

"Tell him!" Brawl insisted.

"We are running out of time."

"The guards are running up the stairs," Anchor said.

"We won't have much time."

"They will kill me when they arrive," the assailant grunted through clenched teeth. He shifted, reopening the wound on his chest.

"You will achieve nothing."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Negotiate."

"And give up my master? I will not. As it stands…I will still complete my mission." I blinked. My gaze drifted up to the markings on his head, the etched flesh. First, they glowed orange with maegen, but then shifted to blood-red. Sage gasped, still linked with him, and fell back onto Morph, clutching her head. How painful could it be if it made Sage recoil? The man's teeth clenched, and his eyes locked onto mine with determination.

"What's he doing, brother?" Brawl asked. I lifted my spear, pointing it closer to the man's chin. The spearhead poked in, piercing skin.

"I've got no idea."

"Kill him!" Anchor exclaimed, glancing back at us.

"Kill him now!" Something pulled on my flesh. It was like my body was stuck in a massive magnet, and that magnet could affect my flesh. My blood went first, pulled to the tips of my fingers, and my fingernails tried to fly out of my hands. The flesh below trembled. One of my nails cracked. I rammed my spear up through the man's chin, pushing it through his skull until it pierced out the top, shattering the bone. The markings dimmed, and the man fell limp. Whatever force was pulling on my flesh stopped.

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"What was he doing?" I asked Anchor.

"Do you know what that was?" Anchor seemed to recognize something.

"No time," Anchor said.

"The guards are coming. I'll delay them. Harvest his Presence." I reached into my kit bag and retrieved my siphon, then drew out the man's Presence with the siphon. I didn't stop there—I went around to every fallen assailant, trying a Presence out of their chests until I had a handful of blood-red aspect-tinged orbs. I only got seven in total, and I stuffed them back into my kit bag. We could distribute them after we dealt with the guards. Finally, Anchor and the other guards rushed in.

The guards checked the carnage, rushing around, almost as if they were checking to make sure the men were dead. I kept my fingers on my spear, gripping it tight, waiting for the guards to say anything.

"Are you unharmed, sir?" a guard said.

"I'm fine," I said, shaking out my hands, trying to get my blood circulating again. My fingernails stung, but if that was the worst of the damage, it wasn't the end of the world.

"Who were they?"

"They were bandits," said the old Dupe who had greeted us when we arrived. They obviously weren't just bandits. But I wasn't in the mood to argue. I could figure it out in the morning—with someone who could actually tell me what was going on. I had, at least, a little while before someone tried to kill me again. That didn't mean I would let my guard down, but it did mean we should try to rest until the morning.

"We're heading to the barracks," I said.

"We can't sleep here anymore." Besides, I needed to make sure the rest of the Dupes I'd brought were alright. I checked my squad, making sure there were no terrible injuries, then told the local guards, "Watch the hall, and make sure no one comes back."

"Yes, sir," one of them said.

"And have someone clean up this mess." I doubted we'd find anything incriminating on their bodies, except for the Presences that I'd harvested—we'd have to examine them further. Anchor seemed to think there was a clue there. After that, I led my squad out the hall, then over to the stables and barracks, where the rest of our soldiers were sleeping. I checked in with the guards—Dupes from the 294th—but they hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary.

I told them what happened and made sure they were on high alert, and checked the horses just to be sure. Nothing had happened to our mounts.

"You are getting jumpy, brother," Brawl said.

"I can't be too careful," I replied.

"We're walking a fine line here. Soon, though, it'll be over."

"We know Tunmod is behind this," Sage said.

"Why not kill him now? What can he actually help you with?"

"We need to make it public," I said.

"People need to see justice being done. There's no better time than the festival."

"You think you can fix this village's problems in a week?" Anchor asked.

"I think I can make a lot of changes. I can't guarantee things will get better instantly, but I bet we can make some improvements." After that, we found an unoccupied room in the barracks. Although it was a cramped closet meant for only three men, it worked. I kept watch for the first quarter of the night, and then we switched. During my watch, I inspected one of the Presences I'd harvested. Rolling it between my fingers, I held it up in front of our room's tiny window.

The moonlight—well, planet light, I supposed—passed through it, sending crimson ripples across the floor of the room. I pinched it between my fingers, drawing its energy. The regular Presence rushed in, but the aspected maegen stayed, swirling around my fingers. It tried to delve inside my flesh, but, being incompatible with my Blessing, it couldn't go any deeper than my skin. After a few seconds of tingling, I dispelled it.

Instead of dissipating into mist, the maegen splattered on the floor, turning into droplets of blood, before dissipating entirely. When Anchor woke up, ready to take the next watch, I whispered, "What's the aspect on these? What did you think we'd get out of them?"

"I've heard about this here and there," he replied, keeping his voice low so he didn't wake the others.

"When I was doing my time up at the front, there was a rumour about a certain cult who gained maegen by harvesting the vital energy of other living beings. They had blood-aspect maegen."

"Can you tell if it's blood aspect?" It seemed like it, judging by how it'd reacted on my fingers, but I didn't know enough about this world's magic to say for certain.

"I can't. Ask Sage in the morning." ~ ~ ~ When I woke up, and once everyone blinked the grogginess out of their mind, I brought the seven Presences to Sage.

"What's the aspect?" I asked.

"Anchor is right," she said.

"Blood aspect."

"Hey, how did you know that was what I said?" Anchor complained.

"I couldn't sleep last night," she said, shifting herself over onto Morph, who was shaped like a walking stool again.

"I heard your conversation."

"So we're dealing with blood-aspect cultists," I muttered.

"Wonderful. And I suppose they're on Tunmod's side. That assassination attempt was no accident."

"Probably not," Anchor told me. Brawl picked up his flail.

"What are you going to do about this, brother?"

"We're going to stick to the plan for today. I need to dig a big hole. We're going to start solving our problems one at a time. First things first, we have a gopher infestation to solve."

"And it sounds like they don't want you to solve that problem," Anchor replied.

"Something else was going on. If they were just looking to line their pockets, your suggestion should have satisfied them."

"Do you think they're going to try to stop us?" Sage asked.

"They already did try. They might keep trying. But I don't think they realize how little time they have left." I crossed my arms.

"We need to know more about these cultists, and while we work, I'm going to pick the mind of a local. I know exactly who to call on."