Born a Monster

Chapter 51

Ambush

It is amazing how many people think that you can just sneak up on an encampment at night.

“They’re arriving.” I told Skelios. “Shall I wake the others, or do you want to do it?”

“Heh, waking the others means further from bandit blades. I’ll do the waking, you act the role of bait.”

It is incredibly difficult to pretend not to notice someone sneaking around in a wood. I mean, they have ears, too, and they have to know how much noise they’re making.

.....

And you just can’t keep it up when someone trips over the rope.

“Alarm!” I shouted, “Intruders!”

I jumped upon the fallen woman, striking the back of her shoulder with my claws before bandits started charging from the woods toward camp.

There were no immediate reinforcements from camp, so I fell back, repeating my warning.

Then I was too busy defending to pay attention. As unfair as I had thought being surrounded by four warriors with clubs, it helped when there were only three, and two of the clubs were wicked looking knives.

They moved with speed and surety, but they were too used to fighting people their own size.

[You have been struck for eight points of lacerating damage. After armor, no damage has been applied.]

Well, that was great, but if we fought long enough, one of them was sure to get a critical hit. I swept out with my knife, accomplishing nothing. Short arms.

There were sounds of fighting from elsewhere in camp; finally, Skelios had gotten word to someone.

Where the chainmail softened the blows, I took no damage. Where they struck exposed parts of me, I took two points. I did what I could to deflect every blow I could, but condition rapidly fell on both my shield and knife.

The club man brought his weapon down on my wrist, disarming me. Painful. But it was worth the look of surprise when I stepped in and brought my claws across this upper leg.

I’d like to say that I fought them off, but the truth is that Skelios got to show off how easy it is to stab someone in the back.

“Surround those men! Don’t let them escape!” called Gemina, on the other side of the camp.

One of the others was tackled by two men; the third got away.

“Rope.” I handed the coil of rope to one of the ones wrestling with the prisoner, and then set about looking for my knife.

“I think that’s a tidy bit of work for a night’s watch.” Skelios said. “If you need me, I’ll be in my cot, sawing logs.”

“Thank you, Skelios. I was beginning to think you’d gone to check the other side of the camp.”

“Well, I did. They had more men than on this side.”

The prisoners were bound, and loaded onto one of the carts. As planned, Nythia and her crew moved out under cover of darkness with the prisoners and the most wounded among us.

In the morning, we began tracking.

#

Rather, I should say that our experienced trackers began tracking. There were times when they knelt to examine something that I hadn’t noticed was out of order. Sometimes, I could tell what it was.

Other things, like missing nettles on one side of a plant? I wouldn’t have thought to look for that.

Then, after they found a clearing with scraps of linen and the blood trail ended, they ranged ahead and we followed.

Their camp, such as it was, was a makeshift affair, and they were making a mess of packing it all onto various pack animals.

And I mean various – wolves, a bear, oxen, two plains-cats, a mule – someone had the ability to harmonize with animals.

Alas, I had limited range on my mind-whispers. No telling which among them was a whom.

“Be mindful of the animals.” Warned Skelios.

“I’ve no intention of harming them if I don’t have to.”

Then someone sounded an alarm, and we advanced into camp.

A shield wall is simple enough, as formations go. You lock shields with the person to your left and right, and use the shields like a mobile fortification. As the shortest, I was at the far left of the formation.

Behind us, the archers picked their targets at will, sowing discord and injury among the bandits.

They had no formation, no concrete plan, and no chance of victory.

About half of them escaped with the animals, a quarter surrendered or were taken, and the rest were left there in the glade.

“That’s good enough!” Gemina called out. “Get them back to the carts and let’s get on home!”

Loose sporadic cries of victory resounded, and we made our way back to the carts.

And that day, the scout watched us leave from atop his hill.

When I returned from foraging, Helados was bound hand and foot with the male prisoners.

I stopped by Turmen, one of the guards assigned to the men. “What has Helados done? Special time with the female prisoners?”

“No, they’d have castrated him for that. Stealing food. Claims it was Skelios’ idea. Has Skelios said anything like that to you?”

“Once a night, after he proposed stabbing Uloned. I’ve no proof he acted on such words.”

“Well, we’ve all proposed stabbing Uloned.”

“Or slitting his throat.”

“Or slitting his throat.” Turmen agreed. “But at least our provisions run out tonight, and tomorrow we’ll be home.”

That night, there were generous portions of leaves, nuts, and vegetables that Uloned called a salad. Forage was thin that night, but not so lacking that I couldn’t make my maintenance payments.

The prisoners complained that they were starving; and of course they were; there was barely enough food even with forage to go around.

They were wretched and sunburned and ill by the time we turned them over to the guards at the gate.

Not that we were much better at that point; much as I disliked lye soap, I gave myself a good scouring during my bath that night.

#

Among the duties of any Truthspeaker is the tedious chore of testifying in court. Which bandits had we caught attacking our camp? How had we tracked them? What evidence did we have they were bandits?

I had no problems pointing out that Uloned had simply not provisioned us with enough food, going into detail what food he had given, and when, and how many servings.

“Stop helping them.” Gemina said. “At this rate, they’ll be released.”

I spread my hands. “The truth is the truth. This is a hall of justice, where only likelihood is needed to convict them.”

Indeed, those who had attacked our camp were offered a choice of a decade with the watch, or hanging. The others were offered two years with either the watch or the Guild (for the crime of poaching, not of banditry) or in the town prison.

Only two of them chose service with the guild. I could point out that both were women, but Depelome was an archeress, and Raisa was a Fire Adept. I would have traded Helados for either of them, and thought the Guild was much better for the inclusion of both.

“Oh, is that what you think?” asked Cosimo.

“Of course it is. A drover waiting to become a rapist versus either of the others? I don’t see how this is a loss.”

“The loss comes about when a good and loyal criminal is replaced by two of dubious quality. I suppose we should just assign you to show them the ropes, should we?”

“I would hope someone more experienced was available, but okay.”

“Some shining day, I hope to be able to place such cares in your hands. Today is not that day. Dismissed.”

Of course, I had to meet with Raisa.

“Miss Raisa? I have someone who would like to meet you.”

“Oh? Come in, please.”

“May I invoke Shroud on the room?”

“Of course.”

I did so, and opened Black Snake’s shell.

She came forth, and thought “Hello, Raisa.”

Raisa sat there. “Is that some manner of spirit?”

“A shadow spirit, yes.”

HELLO she sent again.

“She seems very shy.” Raisa said.

“Uhm, can you hear her trying to speak with you?”

.....

“No, I’m afraid I’ve never been able to hear the spirits, you must feel blessed that you can.”

“Physical things are stupid.” She said, and retreated to her shell.

“I do feel blessed, for many things. Your blessings must be different.”

“Aha, trying to find my weaknesses and figure out how to kill me already. I approve!”

“What? I ... no...”

She laughed. “You may relax, little kobold. I’ve already been warned about your violent tendencies.”

MY violent tendencies?

“I am not scared of you, little kobold, nor of your pet spirit. I actually think it’s kind of cute how you seem to try everything, yet master nothing. Was there anything else you wanted to ask of me?”

“No, Black Snake had questions about magic, I suppose I’ll be by again.”

“Sure thing, see you then. Bye.”

“Bye.”

#

Well, that was a disaster.

Was that how my Guild saw me? Some violent freak that lacked focus?

I didn’t want to work with someone like that.

Okay, and to be honest, I was easily distracted by my own thoughts.

And I didn’t really put effort into developing Charisma. Really, why did such a statistic even exist?

Relax. Breathe. I could be persuasive, when I wanted to. And knew the society. And the traditions. And –

No, I wasn’t going to make those excuses. Talking was HARD. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. What had talking gotten me?

I began to see why Rakkal felt as he did. He had the might to topple towns, why did he need to be polite about it?

I could defeat other children, and hold my own defensively against untrained civilian adults. I should probably remain polite for a bit. Maybe a century or so, at my current rate of growth.

Okay. What should I focus on?

Well, surviving until that time sure sounded like a good start.

So – I had me, a lot of debts, some petty gear enabling me to use my skills. Those skills included a few mystic attunements and a few handfuls of scattered utility spells.

Let’s see – Pankratios I’d learned a few of the simple holds.

Hunter – I really needed to learn a bow with this, but my understanding of animal psychology had improved vastly.

Water Adept and Shaman I’d gone over.

And not everyone seemed capable of thought-speech that I’d just figured was part of everyone’s System. Still, almost everyone I’d met – I just didn’t know. Most people used verbal languages to communicate, and I knew it was rare among the centaur tribes.

Hmm, I’d have to come back to that later.

Actually, I knew that goblins didn’t have a lot of their System inventories. My next inventory growth would be from four slots to six, costing a whopping thirty development points. Costly.

Oh, right, I needed to buy a new shield and knife soon.

No. Focus.

Okay, so I’d finished up my magical classes.

I had the ability to gather quality herbs, and brew them into basic potions – sometimes.

It had been a while since I’d actually cooked anything other than trail stew, I should probably get back to that as well.

I was a Manservant and Lumberjack, neither of which seemed oriented toward raw survival in combat.

And there was Truthsayer, which had a few social abilities that I just didn’t need... wait.

There was an ability that allowed me to detect lies, but that opened up a tree of Sense Motive abilities. Sense Hostility. Identify Motivation. Detect Racism. There was a whole slew of things, apparently hidden until just now.

Were there other abilities like that?

Indeed there were. Simple abilities unlocked other abilities above them.

I had discovered Ability Trees, revealed when I gained rank one of my System.

Now that – that had potential.

#