Ruthless: Path of Conquest

James walked up to speak with the people he’d just saved from death—or worse.

They greeted him with a cacophony of praise.

“Thank you for saving us!”

“That was amazing.”

“You rescued us again.”

“Thank you, James!”

The survivors were all happy to see him still standing, alive and apparently well, though several of them were unsurprisingly more preoccupied with healing their wounded than acknowledging their savior.

“Anyone else need healing?” James asked. “I still have some fuel in the tank.”

Those who weren’t already healing friends or loved ones looked around at each other and then shook their heads or responded with verbal “No”s.

A couple of Healers looked up from their charges only to say, “I got this,” or “No worries.”

And no one actually looked critically injured. The few people who were in the midst of being healed weren’t in danger of death. They were concussed or bleeding badly, but not badly enough to die while receiving magical healing as they were.

James had seen the sorts of injuries that it took to produce that result, back when he fought the wolfpack. He remembered the dead woman’s face, then forced it from his mind.

Maybe I could take a moment and actually heal my hand. The blackened, slightly smoky ruin of the left half of his left hand was still agonizingly painful.

But then James noticed Sierra, who was ominously silent. She looked up from where she sat slumped against the trunk of the tree she’d been tied to, and gave him a weak nod and a very faint smile. Her face was drenched in sweat.

He looked down and realized that she was using Laying On Hands to regrow a severed hand.

Wow. She’s surprisingly tough. I remember when we did that for Cliff, and he passed out from pain.

“Do you want help?” he asked.

“I, ah, got it,” she breathed. “You’ve got problems of your own.” She tilted her head at his maimed hand.

James glanced down at it again and winced.

“Just a scratch,” he forced himself to say, smiling. It looked even worse than it felt. But he knew that the appearance was more reliable than his body’s sense of pain. The hand reminded him of Camila’s necrotic flesh when he first met her. The skin around his ring looked dead.

It might be better to cut it off and grow a whole new one, he thought.

And was it just his imagination, or had the affected area grown slightly? James’s memory had improved a great deal, so he dragged up the image of his hand from a minute or so before, when he’d last examined it closely.

But no. When he compared the images, there didn’t seem to be any difference. It must have just just been a trick of the light, or something up with his eyes for a moment.

James decided he’d talk to the Rodriguezes for the last few minutes of Orientation.

No, wait, why did I specifically check on Sierra before? He remembered now. I needed her to use that Skill of hers on Damien and Luna!

But she probably needed all the Mana she could spare for her arm.

She caught him glancing down at her again and cocked an eyebrow at him, as if to say, What?

“A couple of our people were infected with some kind of medical issue by the undead we just killed,” he said in answer to her unspoken question. “I was hoping to get you to use your Skill on them. The one that removes foreign influences.”

She started to rise to her feet, a little unsteadily, but he raised a hand to signal that she should stop.

“No, if we have to go, I’ll carry you. You can’t walk the distance in the condition you’re in, and I can move much faster anyway. Seems like time is a factor.” He tilted his head to the lower left, to indicate where the timer should be in her field of vision.

She nodded, allowed herself to slump back down—and stopped healing her arm. It was just as he’d imagined. She was low on Mana, so she was conserving it in case the group needed her. She’s a much better team player than I figured. But he really preferred not to let her sit there, partially regenerated, with a stump for a hand, for longer than absolutely necessary.

He sent a telepathic message to his wolves. How are Luna and Damien—that’s the human I left with you—doing? I killed all of the enemies here, including the ones who infected them. Do they seem any better?

A response came quickly.

Yes, my King. The smell of the corruption seems to have vanished from their bodies. Also, the Werewolf awakened when the System announcement came. He said, “I knew he could do it,” before he passed out again. Both of them are healing well.

So Sierra didn’t need to save her Mana after all. And they didn’t need to make a literal last-minute rush from the scene of battle to where Damien and Luna had fallen. He told Sierra as much, and then he thanked the wolfpack.

“You know, you’re more responsible than I thought,” she said. The words sounded begrudging, and James sensed a deeper respect underneath the surface of what she’d said. Perhaps the real meaning was something like, You’re not a half bad leader. Then again, maybe that was just his preferred interpretation.

After that, she focused all her attention on finishing her regeneration.

James turned to the Rodriguezes and opened a discussion about plans for the future.

“So what do you guys want to do when you get back to Earth?”

There were a flurry of answers, including a more than healthy amount of speculation about what condition they’d find the Earth in upon their return.

They only had time for a few snippets of conversation, though.

[00:00:53]

The timer was winding quickly through its last minute. As it drew close to the end, James used one final Skill. An ability that would, as Anansi had suggested, become his bread and butter. For now, he infused his dead skin cells with Mana, to create a pair of Skin Cell Dust Devils. He pressed the creatures into the hands of Ramon Rodriguez and one of the members of Damien’s group who had been kidnapped alongside them.

“They’re basically walkie-talkies,” he explained quickly. “They’re connected to me telepathically. They’ll help you find me back in the real—back on Earth.”

The member of Damien’s group, a young man with East Asian features, smiled and accepted the weird little ball of constantly shifting cells. Ramon shook his head in disbelief at the strange gift, but he also accepted the creature. Across the swamp, James’s last remaining Skin Balloon was closing in on Moishe Rose. Hopefully it would reach him and help him find James after Orientation.

There were other people he wanted to help find him. Alan and Mitzi, of course. Damien. Hilda Rohm, in spite of her participation in the Moloch cult. She had more than proven her worth. The trackers who had helped him catch up to the Wolf King and his pack.

Really, he wanted everyone who’d played a part in this journey to come find him. James would keep them safe. Gradually, he hoped, he would make the world safe. But he wanted those who had helped him at the outset of his journey to reap their just rewards.

There were so many people who were deserving of his protection. His gratitude. His loyalty.

How many of them would be able to survive if they didn’t find him on Earth? Anansi had indicated that any monsters that didn’t die during Orientation would reappear on Earth. Some of James’s weaker allies would surely be killed without his power shielding them.

But he could only reach a few. He wasn’t sure exactly which tent Alan and Mitzi were in, while Moishe was outdoors, standing watch. With less than a minute to find a human to guide, he had been the one James’s monster saw.

At least the wolfpack shouldn’t have any trouble. They would still be bonded to him telepathically, after all.

Nevertheless, it was a frustrating situation. James had saved these people’s lives again and again. He hated the idea of them being ripped away from him and their loved ones, just because he couldn’t reach them in time. Each and every one of them was a valued asset.

A valuable future resident of the country that James would build in the wreckage that this apocalypse would make of the once proud United States of America.

But that was a thought for the future.

James tore his attention away from his imagined losses for long enough to infuse Mana into his horribly scorched left little finger.

The blackened bit of flesh and bone began to spring to life even before James had separated it from his body, although he quickly rectified that. He bit through the knuckle connecting it to his hand. He was getting sloppy, not having severed this body part before it sprang to life.

But these were his final moments in this place. He didn’t have time to be precise.

He spat the finger out into the palm of his good hand. He ignored the blood slowly trickling out of the torn stump of his maimed hand. Instead of looking at that, he looked at the people he’d saved.

Without a word, he stuck out his hand, offering the severed finger to different people in turn. A couple of them appeared disturbed by its appearance, despite all that they’d seen.

But James thought that someone would have sense enough to want it.

Many of the people in Damien’s group, in particular, hadn’t come from the same general area when they were transported to Orientation. One person in that group having a way of reaching James didn’t mean they all did.

First one person, then another, shook their heads. A few looked disgusted, but most of them just looked around as if they thought someone else among them was more worthy.

Yet no one stepped forward.

James offered it to Sierra.

She responded with a quick shake of the head, and he realized he had expected that from her.

“Good luck,” he mouthed. Despite her physical weakness, he thought she might do well making her own way in the world. Somehow or other. Despite her untrusting attitude, she was a good team player. The way she’d handled the last few minutes proved that wasn’t just an act. She was a scrappy survivor type, he thought. With just enough empathy and care for others that the people around her would want to keep her alive too.

And most importantly, now, neither of them would have to worry about the other.

James sincerely wished her well.

He thought she smiled.

Then he turned away again, still holding the severed piece of his hand outstretched, still confident that someone would seize the lifeline, no matter how grotesque it might look. And finally, a member of Damien’s group eagerly pushed himself forward from among the others. He grasped the Scorched Flesh and Bone Golem, seized it as if it were a winning lottery ticket. Which, in a very real sense, James thought it was.

He didn’t know the name of the man who’d snatched the severed finger, barely remembered the face. It was an incredibly ordinary face. Almost instantly forgettable.

But not the man’s eyes. In the moment when James’s eyes met the man’s, it felt a little bit as if he was locking gazes with a zealous religious believer. Someone who had been handed the bones of an extraordinary figure with the power to bless or preserve them, like a saint. Which, in a very real sense, James thought he probably was.

Then he blinked, and he was back in the pure white room he had visited before Orientation.

Time ran out, he thought. Just when I’d done everything I could.

“Hi Sisco,” James said, smiling like the cat that just ate the canary.