482 Reward

It was EXHAUSTING; I slept in past dawn the next day. What woke me was turning over on my side and getting a yank on the metal collar around my neck.

“Guk.” I said, opening my eyes.

I was chained to the central post of a once-white tent, that color it changes when you haven’t washed it in months. The smells were offal, blood, urine, and sage. Okay, still in a hospital. The tent was short and the roof sagged, flopping about in the wind.

“I’m back at Doctor Murgyn’s.” I said aloud.

“Ah, it stirs.” Ligrid said, slamming closed a massive ledger. “How do you feel about making potions today?”

I snorted. “Like all of my mana has been tapped out of my bodily orifices.” I said.

“That was theoretical.” she informed me. “You’re in contact with the topsoil, and sunlight is right there.”

“That’s not the same as...”

“I don’t care.” she said. “The doctor believes that’s how magic works, and YOU will not disappoint him. Gather enough mana for alchemy, or there will be no food for lunch. Can you make that work now?”

.....

Ugh. “I’m not making any of this up.” I said. “Magic works or doesn’t in the manner of its nature; I can’t just reforge its laws. Neither can I ignore them.”

She rose. “I was, perhaps, unclear. Get enough mana in the half hour or so that it takes me to get lunch. Tamm will take care of you after you fail.”

“As if I’m staying put for that.” I said, giving the chain a playful tug.

“Huh. And that, young worm, is why I can leave you to get food. You just focus on getting the mana.”

And she practically skipped out.

I set a System timer for two minutes, just to be sure. Then, I gave a meaningful yank on the chain.

CRACK! The ring pulled free of the tent post, leaving a considerable hole.

A set of clothes that fit me was hidden behind a crate. Raw, poorly woven wool, but clothes. And then I was gone from that tent.

So... was it better to go north, or south?

North would take me back to the Vardhamson family. South was the supply tent...

East... was wilderness, if I could get past the guards. I know how suspicious I looked.

So south it was, collar around my neck, chain down inside the shirt and then around my waist twice as a belt. The fit of the clothes wasn’t quite right. I wish I could say that wasn’t deliberate.

“You, slave!” one soldier called. “Where are you going?”

“To corporal Drikt’s supply tent.” I said.

He sneered. “So you haven’t heard, then. That way.”

“Heard what?” I asked.

He just chuckled. And it was like that, for about a quarter mile of winding my way among the tents. Merciful Loki may have expanded their brains, but I wasn’t convinced it was doing them any good.

And then I saw her, or rather it. Her head on a pike to the left of the tent door, Mohgson’s on the right. So much for everything being fine because it had gone through a proper duel.

That would leave Denson, Ayya, and Siegen.

Not a single one of whom was inside the supply tent. I looked into the face of a young hobgoblin boy, just above a wicked looking light crossbow. “We’re closed.” he said. “Move on to the next supply tent.”

“Where is that one?” I asked.

“Thor’s Hall of Hell if I care.” he said.

I sighed. Could I have argued, or tried to use Charisma skills? Sure, I could have. Instead, I pulled out of the doorway, and squatted down near Drikt’s pike to think. Where would the army have taken them?

And, I’m a moron. It wasn’t the army. I knew where the Inquisitors of the Forge kept their tents; that was back north.

I was heading that way, cooking up impractical rescue plans, when it happened.

“You! Slave! Stop right there!”

And, thinking they meant me, I did so. The slave they were actually chasing swung her chain at my face.

I fell back quickly enough, but also stumbled off my feet. She and the three guards chasing her were past before I began to rise.

A fourth guard huffed up to me, looking from side to side. Without waiting to be asked, I pointed the way the others had run. Breathing at a rate that spoke of several weeks without a Physical Regimen, he set off that direction.

Come to think of it, I needed to find time for my four regimens. It had been... crap, it had been by far too long.

historical

And you might think me inhuman, for not even thinking of interfering. Even if I weren’t human, she was a fellow slave. I mean, I was thinking of running tonight, wasn’t I?

But my feet kept me headed firmly north and west.

“Hey, where you off to now, slave?” It was one of the curious soldiers from earlier.

“Eyes of Fire.” I said.

He turned his head and spat. “Better you than me. Go on, then.”

I didn’t actually make it. Strong hands settled on the side of my belt, and hefted me high overhead.

“And there YOU are.” Tamm said, moving me upside down over the back of her left shoulder. “Heading right for the food tents.”

“Actually...”

She shook me lightly. “Nope, don’t care. You understand how upset you made the doctor? And Ligrid nearly cried.”

I sighed.

“Yeah. You be all silent like that, then. That was your last chance to say you were sorry.”

“I’m not sorry.” I said.

“What? Honesty? Now?” she shook her head. “Doctor’s orders, discipline is in the cut pieces out of you stage.”

I scrunched my face up, not that she could see it. “What parts, specifically?”

“I wanted a lung.” she said. “But the doctor says to take your health rather than your breath. I’m pretty sure he means a kidney. Or maybe a foot. Don’t worry, I’ll know after I secure you in your cage. And, in case you were wondering, that was your last chance to escape. Escape alive, in any case.”

“As if you or the doctor ever intended releasing me?” I asked.

“Hm, oh no. But Ligrid is done putting up with you; I think she may castrate you in the coming week or so. Just to prepare you for your inevitable loss.”

I sighed. “You do realize that only gives me even more incentive to hit you on the head, right?”

“HA!” she said. “One blow, and then I’ll have to beat you unconscious. Make it...”

[You have scored an ORANGE critical for four times damage.]

“...count.” she finished. She pitched forward, onto her knees, dropping me on my head. I stood up; she didn’t.

[Unconscious.] my reticule confirmed. [Concussion.]

I barely had time to shake my aching hand before two guardsmen tackled me to the ground.

“Get off!” I said. “Get OFF, I don’t want to hurt either of... WHUUF...”

One of them punched me in the stomach. Only eight points of damage, but I had no practical armor rating.

“Arm lock, Tae! Get his arm in a lock!” said one of them, grappling with my left arm.

Personal advice, don’t call out your tactics while wrestling with anyone who knows what they’re doing. I mean, unless you have four other folks to back you up, which those guys did.

It’s amazing what a level or two of combat training does; they didn’t take me down easily, but they DID repeatedly take me down until I was no longer able to rise.

My hands were tied together in the small of my back, and the kicking began.

I must have passed out, because when I awoke, my hands were free. A coil of rope, so sweaty and bloody it might count as having been salted, was still around my right wrist.

“Wha?” I asked, realizing many of my teeth were cracked, and would need to be regrown.

“He doesn’t seem all that smart.” a woman said. “You are certain this is the one?”

“Yes, captain. I’ll remember these eyes of his as long as I live.”

He held up my head for emphasis. I was staring directly into a mangled ruin of a face, the hair burned away on the left, a mass of... oh, it was her.

“I didn’t notice the burns last night.” I said.

“Didn’t have them until today.” she said, sounding un-naturally chipper. “Trial by endurance, and all that.”

She was leaning on a hobgoblin of unexpected burliness. I’d have said he was the largest hobgoblin I’d seen since then, but by the size of the fingers around my head, that one was even bigger.

“So.” she said. “I’m claiming you as my personal healing slave, on the advice of my father. What can you do about...”

She waved her hand by the charred remains of the side of her head.

I took a look. “This,” I said, “is going to take some time, if it can be fixed at all.”

For those of you familiar with Lord Gresham’s book, titled “The Barbarity of Loki; the First Tidelands War”, this was the closest I ever got to Ashley Barts, Breaker of Chains.

One of many epithets of the Inquisition.

.....