The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

“The dogs can follow the corpse back where it came from. You don’t really think a dead thing wandered ten miles over a ridge line and through the forest to here, do you, Papa? It would go downhill and follow the terrain. That leads away to the northeast. The only way it would end up here is if something dragged it up to the hills so it would follow the slopes down when it woke up.”

Her father’s face was getting flinty. She had gently prodded him over the years to keep up with his shooting and hunting, and he was a fine skeet shooter. The fact she saved him and the other kids a lot of money on ammo was a thing.

She didn’t touch a firearm herself, of course, although she encouraged all of her siblings. When they saw how good she was with a crossbow, none of them bothered to say anything about it.

And they all knew where the silver bullets were kept.

“So, you want to find out where he died, and what actually killed him, Samantha?”

“Papa, they left the corpse to walk down this way. That means they aren’t that far away. They got their taste of killing someone. They’re going to kill again.”

“Yeah, they are.” He looked up at the sky. “It’s probably too late to set out tonight. How about we get ready and set out at first light tomorrow?”

Samantha nodded slowly, looking at the suddenly ominous woods. “I’m going to get my crossbow and scout the first mile back with the dogs.”

“Be careful, Samantha,” he said, totally unnecessarily. She’d been shooting game in the forest since she was four. He could still remember the scene of her walking out of the woods with a fully dressed-out six-point stag being towed behind Bowser using a custom harness when she was five years old. She had ground up the horns long ago for some alchemical concoction...

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What she called Rune Chemistry was without a doubt extremely valuable to the family, and she quietly sold stuff online that generated a great deal of money over time. Concentrated rations, water pills, and the like saved a lot of weight when hiking. Most of it she re-invested in more stuff to sell, taking off some for buying special projects.

The mithral-edged short sword was only twenty-four inches long, but she wasn’t truly strong enough to use a full sword right now, and she wasn’t going to be dragging a rapier around in the woods. Just that edging of starsilver had cost ten thousand dollars, but she wasn’t going to be putting alchemical silver that couldn’t hold a decent edge on a Weapon.

The rest of the family would have been astounded to know that she actually had a magical Weapon... but she was a Natural Swordswoman, and she needed a sword nigh as much as she needed to breathe.

Powered Level, Primos Practice. Hard to practice without a decent Weapon. If you couldn’t butcher your way to fast Levels in combat, there was only dry, endless repetition, learning, improving, conditioning, and creating positive Karma for yourself that way.

She had carefully been encouraging her whole family into this or that activity, and her siblings didn’t know it, but they were all Nulls now, and so were some of their friends. She had been showing them the basics of Rune Chemistry, and Jill and William were particularly enthusiastic about it, and even her mother liked to work on some of the simpler stuff, spinning useful stuff out of weeds and berries and good, hard work...

As planned, her mother had leaked some of the easier stuff, with low sales potential, out to her circle of friends, and they were slowly being distributed. How to make proper Dreamcatchers; Embroidery effects, designs, and Patterns that made subtle Wards and reinforced a Threshold; actual recipes for poultices that worked; and other minor effects. Using Alchemical variations of them would have cost an arm and a leg, but with steady time and effort they were spreading out.

One of the neighboring farmers had protested that such things didn’t actually have any power. His affronted wife had brought in Sister Evana from the temple to Flora, who had acclaimed in delight at how subtle and marvelous the designs of the simple hangings on the walls were at reinforcing the house’s Threshold and keeping out random minor spirits. Bocephus Durkon had shut his mouth and never said another word about it, while the tale got around, and sewing circles suddenly became A Thing with real purpose behind them.

These things couldn’t actually be made by Powered, and so couldn’t be made by arcane devices. Rune Chemistry, totally Natural Alchemy. Hedge Magic and Folk Magic, huffed the arcanists and Alchemists, but they couldn’t dispute the fact that such things actually worked... and given the internet age, the whole thing could proliferate very quickly.

Herb gardens had been popular for a long time, if only because they could be sold to local Alchemists or healers for something. They were now rapidly becoming essential for any family that wanted to protect themselves better.

Her time was coming, and she had to prepare to step away from her family to protect them.

The book she was writing was nearly done. Then she would need to design the production process, and see it implemented.

It would make her a decent amount of money, without failing. Natural Alchemy was going to help spread the broad, low power, and prepare the way for the Forsaken.

But first, there was a werewolf who couldn’t control himself that needed to be killed.

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There hadn’t been anything around the immediate trail, the dogs had no problems following the trail out for a mile.

She wasn’t actually expecting anything, but she had the dogs sniffing to see if anything had followed the trail.

But it wasn’t nightfall yet, and the night is when weres had the most problem maintaining control.

She was expecting the were to come down to check on its victim this night... and the dogs would smell it if it did. By stopping here, she would distract it by thinking this was as far as they’d pursued the matter.

She looked at the short cliff in front of her, easily fifty high. Chomps and Cujo related that he’d hit the ground dead here, then Animated and slowly ambled around, heading downhill over a great deal of time.

Getting up to the top of the hill in front of her would mean taking a mile detour out of the way... which was probably the whole reason for this.

But they wouldn’t be wasting so much time tomorrow.

Smiling tightly, she turned to head back to the farm.

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The moon was waning, but still almost full, according to the almanac. It was hard to verify with the Haze always up there.

Sama was sitting in the middle of the barn, meditating, when two of the cats kept around to keep the mice down ran across her lap.

She opened her eyes, hit the buzzer on the house com as she stood up, and calmly fit a quarrel to her crossbow, the broadhead glinting brightly in a stray moonbeam coming through the windows above. She had asked the cats to prowl along the treeline back there, and come running back if something bad was moving through that area to warn them.

“I need everyone to remain very quiet,” she said to the whole barn, and the animals there stopped whuffling and snorting at the sudden motion. “Cujo, where is it?”

The mastiff was in their kennel, silent in the shadows on the back side of the barn. There was a dog door into the barn, and another one in the front, so they weren’t actually trapped in the kennel.

He growled low, his ears perked up, listening through the moaning night wind, and smelling for it.

Sama put two drops into her eyes and blinked several times as the barn suddenly lit up, going from murky darkness to merely twilight. She flicked open the gunport, the wind coming in, and looked into the darkness. It was like early evening out there now.

To the right and outside, Cujo growled, and Sama narrowed her eyes. An apelike form was moving on all fours across the back yard, cautiously moving and sniffing, lifting a muzzled head and looking all about repeatedly and warily.

And well you should be careful, Sama thought, bringing up her crossbow. Fifty yards... she was pretty sure she could nail it easily, but no reason to waste a quarrel, as she certainly wouldn’t kill it, and it would run away.

“Inside,” she whispered, and Cujo withdrew quietly from the kennel into the barn, joining Chomps behind her. She put one end of a rope in his mouth, Chomps holding the other, and watched the werewolf coming closer.

The lack of any reaction from the farm seemed to embolden it. Its scent carried in through the gunport, and Sama softly shushed the animals behind her. “We’re going to kill it,” she whispered, and they calmed down at the danger in her voice, reassured. “Kingly, be ready.” There was a whuff from behind her, and a tail swished.

The werewolf came closer, reaching the area where the zombie had died, and sniffed around it carefully. Its muzzled head turned towards the house sitting there, a single porch Light glowing with eternal brightness, and the gentle clinking of dreamcatchers dancing in the wind filling it with subtle unease.

It didn’t see the attic window was open, and the barrel of the shotgun aimed at it.

Inexorably, its head turned towards the barn, and wide jaws opened, white fangs dripping hungrily. With careful purpose, it started in the direction of the barn.

Sama calmly stepped backwards, vestigial lightfoot enough to make sure the thick boards didn’t creak under her, moving back past both of the dogs, who were trying not to growl, tense and poised.

She watched the outside bar lift and turn, and slowly, slowly, the door edged open.

Framed nicely against the light from outside, she pulled the trigger at her target.

With a faint buzz, the silver bolt punched into the creature’s gut, making it jerk in shock and reflexively leap back... just as the two dogs slammed into the doors and smashed both of them open, growling loudly to either side of it as they swept past. As it reflexively swiped at them with gleaming claws, they dipped their heads, the rope between them caught it at the ankles, and promptly dumped it flat on its face.

There was a booming echo from the attic, and the body of the werewolf jerked and was kicked sideways by the impact of the silver slug, while Sama reached out and opened the gate of Kingly’s stall.

The spirited black stallion surged out and through the opening, aiming right for the sprawled form that was trying to scramble on the ground. The light caught the shining of bright metal on his front hooves as he reared up and came down on the hapless were.

Bones cracked and broke under the mass of the horse’s silver-clamped hooves, and a very canine yelp of pain came out of the throat of the were. However, it was supernaturally tough, still alive, and thrashed and rolled away as Kingly kicked it again, sending it sprawling across the yard with another kick.

The second boom of the shotgun roared, and blood fountained as Sama trotted out, her crossbow up and reloaded, closing on it calmly. As it jerked, one arm obviously broken and a leg twisted, it heard her coming, and looked up just in time to be perfectly framed in her sights.

Feeling no pity, she pulled the trigger.