NOVEL NEXT Chapter Seventy-One – A Survivor
Reality is tracking...
“One man on horseback, a dozen wolves in pursuit,” Sama informed Briggs, as their course suddenly shifted.
He acknowledged the path through the grass with a glance, looking for signs of blood… and finding a few. “Injured horse. He won’t be able to outrun them.”
“Aye, but the forest isn’t far. He reaches the trees, he might still be alive if nothing has come to help them… or maybe even if they have,” Sama said, her pace picking up and now exceeding the swiftest of horses.
“Depending how high he can climb?”
“Or if other watchers drew them off. There are a ton of Rangers moving in this area already, and I refuse to think this group wasn’t being shadowed, and you know they won’t leave a trail.”
“Rangers in favored terrain, no tracks, right.” Briggs frowned, Reach ready to snap up and start sniping.
“If he was treed by wolves, they’d howl and bring people in… unless they were drawn off. They could smoke him out and kill him fairly easily, if they didn’t want to climb up or snipe him.”
“Didn’t see any sign of missile weapons. Not likely,” grunted Briggs, and then stood up with a grunt. “I see a dead horse at the tree line.”
“All that standing around must be good for something!” she shot back instantly, and he grinned, feeling the wind cutting past his Vajra and doing nothing, as if he was frictionless. No need to squint or brace against it.
“Don’t hear anything, and don’t see any crows,” he murmured, scanning the area. The treeline grew closer, and they slowed as they came upon the horse.
It looked to have been run to death by its posture, and then had been torn apart and feasted upon by creatures with large and powerful jaws. They scattered a bunch of scavenger birds as they swept up, and Sama reached down to scoop up the saddlebags, still tied to the saddle that had been torn out of the way. She tossed them to Briggs, who set them down behind him without looking through them.
“Footsteps, running, heading further in.” Sama squinted up at the towering trees ahead. “That one, I bet. It’s the only one with a branch down low enough.”
“In armor?” Briggs asked, not unreasonably. It was still ten feet off the ground.
Sama pointed, and Briggs saw scattered pieces of armor scattered around, as if they had all been expelled from the body of their wearer at the same moment.
“Oh, nice, a reversed Instant Donning. Clever.” Tremble glowed, and the different pieces started to move, flipping through the air and landing in a neat stack atop the saddle bags. “Wolves followed him.” He could see the trail, clear as mud on the leaves and dirt.
“Yeah, but at a run, so they were a little behind him, at least.” She glided toward the tree only fifty yards away, looking around carefully. “Okay, coming up on the tree now, they are slowing, circling the tree, his tracks go right up it…” She reached up to a scuff mark on the bark, and Briggs reached up to touch a smear on the green moss of that waist-thick branch.
“Eh.” Sama’s head was already turning when Briggs jerked his thumb, and she looked around him to see the carcass of a Warp Wolf sprawled in the undergrowth, two arrows in its side. “Ah ha! They took off that way.” She pointed to the other side of the big tree, and Briggs leaned around the massive trunk, seeing the trail of the wolves moving off into the undergrowth.
“If their calls brought in help, no way his rescuers could have come back soon. They might even have been run down.”
“They probably would have come back here to check if that were true, but the pursuit might have involved most of the force, with wolves giving tongue.” Sama craned her head back, looking up into the tree. “Too much brush. Trem?”
“I sense nothing, but it is tall…” The Sword leapt free of Sama’s hand and zipped up into the tree, adroitly moving around the many branches, and turning this way and that as she scanned the many branching limbs.
“Oh!” The bloody-glowing Blade stopped. “He’s right here, Sama! He looks unconscious, however… and he’s still not showing on my Detect…”
Briggs met Sama’s eyes. Either not a human, or Warded?
“Be right up.” Sama went right up the side of the tree with Dragon Walk, smoothly gaining height with vertical brachiation parkour to shame a monkey acrobat. In a breath or two, she was eighty feet above the ground, braced between two limbs in a crook of a tree, where their target was wedged.
Briggs watched her unwrap her Amulet, there was a glow of light, and he knew she’d used Healing Soul to stabilize whoever it was.
A moment later, she was crashing down from the tree with a burden on her shoulder, zipping through the branches with uncaring precision. A foot from the ground, her ankle-Tats lit up with misty light, billowing in every direction as she abruptly slowed down, and one second later touched down as gently as a drifting leaf, stopping an inch above the leaves.
“And we have our first recruit!” Briggs sang out knowingly as she skated back towards him. “Oh, hey!” His violet eyes popped for a moment as he hopped off the Disk, and Sama flopped her limp load down, using the saddlebags as a backrest.
He was a young man, maybe just hit his teens, wearing the rough leather padding worn underneath plate armor. He was a handsome young fellow, brown-haired, honest face, and athletic build, looking a little wan and pale from several bloody injuries obvious on his padding.
“Is it me, or am I feeling a Paladin’s Aura?” he asked her, interested in their new acquaintance.
“I’m thinking the same.” She strolled over to the Alchemy Cabinet, popped it open, and drew out a Potion from within.
“Not just using more Soul Healing because-?” he asked, as the Compressed Potion popped back to full size in her hand.
“Blood loss, needs fluids.” She kicked off and glided over without doing more. “Open his mouth and hold his nose.” Briggs deftly did that, as she upended the contents of the flask into his mouth, her Vajra making sure it was scoured clean and dry as she poured it slowly down his throat. He twitched, and Briggs clamped the young fellow’s mouth shut with remorseless pressure.
There was a hiss, and pink steam rose from four different places around his body, rapidly trailing off. His head wanted to thrash, and he first tried to spit out the Potion, then breathe and expel it, but Briggs totally denied him that option. The boy had no option but to either swallow the Potion or let it dissolve into him.
It took six seconds for his eyes to suddenly jump open, and his hands flew to his mouth, trying to breathe.
“Swallow,” said Briggs, very firmly, looking into the dark eyes. “SWALLOW,” he repeated, dropping his voice down to an imposing baritone as the boy stared at him.
There was a long and deliberate swallow, and Briggs let go.
The boy gasped and hacked and started to bend over, but Briggs jerked him back upright and tilted his head back by dint of grabbing his skull. “Now sit there and breathe while the Potion runs its course. You aren’t going to waste a hundred gold poured down your throat right there, now, are you?” he rumbled, not unkindly.
The young man blinked at him, straining despite himself, and found he simply could not move his head. He swallowed again, and shivered slightly as the Fast Healing effect of the Potion ran its course, first restoring damage to flesh and bone before going to work on Soak.
His color was a lot better by the time Briggs let go, and his breathing was free and clear. He blinked a few times, and slowly sat up as he first looked at Briggs, and then found Sama waiting impatiently for him on the other side.
“Um, hello, goodfolk. It seems I have to thank you for saving me?” he asked politely, voice only a little strained. “I am Estemar, Squire to Sir Banswroth of the Order of the Ruby Heart…” His voice trailed off as bad memories came rushing back.
“We weren’t the ones who saved you,” Briggs offered smoothly, spinning the Disk and throwing a thumb to indicate the dead Warp Wolf. “Someone on the ground shot that and drew the pack pursuing you off. If we can find them, they are your saviors.
“Be that as it may, I’m Briggs, and she’s Sama.”
Estemar looked back and forth between them, then nodded calmly. “If ever I find them, I shall indeed thank them, ah, Masters Briggs and Sama. And the Order will certainly recompense you for your Potion, if I can return to them.”
Sama waved it off. “It’s fine. Finding a young Paladin out here was surprising enough.” Her expression was a bit incredulous. “How old are you, twelve? Do they start Paladins so young in the Order?”
He flushed despite himself as he swung his legs off the Disk carefully, and regained his feet. He was slightly taller than Briggs was, not too unreasonable since he was definitely older, but that would change soon. “I have not been blessed by Mithar long, my lady,” he admitted, a bit awkwardly, but there was no disguising the noble upbringing in his manner. “But I will endeavor to serve Him as best I can!”
“Lost your sword in the fight and sent off to get word out after the others forced a small opening, right?” He flushed and looked away at Sama’s words, arcs of pain flashing across his eyes. “Not a problem. There were plenty of broken swords, we’ll smith you up a new one tonight, won’t be an issue.”
“Meh, let him use Doc,” Briggs said, and Sama raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously. He’s going to need the healing, and he’s a Paladin. They get all the weapon profs, right?”
Part of Sama’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Right. Give the young Paladin a +Vier Weapon right off, why not?” She looked him up and down. “You fought late last night. Are your White Hands recharged? If so, use them.”
He was trying not to stare at her Tattooed face, especially the Whiskers and blackened nose. He blinked. “Ah, yes.” He crossed his hands on his chest, closed his eyes, and there was a gentle silver-white glow from them, swirling around him for a quick moment.
“Ah, I regret to say I only have the four of them, my lady.” He looked rather ashamed of himself. “I do not think I can fully restore myself with them…”