Chapter 435: The First Blood

I watched from a distance as the warband descended on the hunters, clicking my tongue in appreciation as I saw the Drakespawn they were riding moving like shadows, their scaled bodies cutting through the tall grass with an eerie silence.

The Drakespawn I was riding eyed me, as if complaining that it was not among its kind, and I petted it again, drawing what I thought was an eyeroll from the beast.

The warband rode low in their saddles, weapons drawn, eyes fixed on their prey, and the hunters did not notice them until it was too late.

Ruggah was the first to reach them. His glaive swept through the air in a wide arc, and the blade caught the nearest rider, a human with a scarred face and long red hair, across the chest. The man had time to look down at the wound, to see the impossible depth of it, before his body separated into two pieces and fell from his mount in a spray of blood and viscera.

His tiger, Battle, did not hesitate. She lunged at the rider’s horse, her claws tearing through the animal’s flank, her teeth finding the throat. The horse screamed, a sound that was cut short as Battle ripped its windpipe out.

"What the..." another hunter started to say, reaching for his weapon.

He never finished the sentence. Ogg’s mace came down on his skull like a falling star. The head of the weapon connected with a sickening crunch, and the man’s head simply ceased to exist, replaced by a red mist that sprayed across the faces of his companions. The body slumped forward, twitching, before sliding off the horse.

The warband hit them like a wave, and I watched them without blinking, and I began to understand the sort of companions that I had with me.

∞

Thurrim was in his element. The dwarf’s axe was a blur of motion, cleaving through armor and bone with equal ease. He swung low, and the blade caught an orc across the knees. The creature screamed as its legs gave out beneath it, and Thurrim finished it with an upward swing that split it from groin to throat.

"Die, you bastards!" Thurrim roared, his voice carrying across the battlefield. "Die like the dogs you are!"

Another orc, a massive brute with tusks the size of daggers, charged at him with its weapon raised. Thurrim met the charge with a laugh, sidestepping at the last moment and burying his axe in the creature’s spine. The orc crumpled, its legs still trying to run even as its body went limp.

"That’s for my father," Thurrim spat, pulling the axe free.

As I watched them, my eyes suddenly itched, and a new notification pushed itself into my head, before the way I saw the world changed.

[Eldritch Perception: 26 → 29 → 30 (Initiate → Acolyte)]

My sight saw deeper into those before me, and I glanced at Tam, and nearly flinched as for a moment, I became him.

∞

Tam had never felt anything like this.

The sword in his hand was alive. He could feel it humming, singing, guiding his movements. It was as though the blade knew where he wanted to strike before he did, as though it was reading his thoughts and responding to his will.

An orc three times his size came at him, its weapon a massive club studded with iron spikes. Tam should have been afraid, he had seen so many other men who were far stronger than him die to an orc like this. He should have run like he did before, but the sword was singing in his hand, and he was not afraid.

He ducked under the club’s swing, feeling the wind of its passage ruffle his hair. Then he lunged, driving the sword forward, and the blade pierced through the orc’s chest as though it were made of paper.

The orc looked down at the blade protruding from its heart, confusion in its eyes, as if it could not believe it had been pierced by a human boy still smelling of his mother’s milk.

Tam twisted the blade and ripped it free, and the orc fell.

"YAAAAHHHH!" Tam screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy. "DIE! DIE! DIE!"

He was on the next one before the first had finished falling. The sword moved like water, no, like something that was not quite of this world. He cut down another orc, then a human, then something that had too many arms. Was that a Naga? Fuck it, he did not care.

He had never felt so alive.

∞

I pulled my sight away, gasping at the violation of being inside the mind of Tam, but almost against my will, my eyes were drawn to Ines.

Ines stood apart from the melee, her bow singing in her hands.

She had always been a good shot. Her father had taught her to hunt when she was barely old enough to hold a bow, and she had spent countless hours practicing, refining her aim until she could hit a sparrow at a hundred paces.

But this bow was different.

The string hummed with power. The arrows flew true, so true that they seemed to curve in the air, adjusting their trajectory to find their targets. And when they hit, they did not stop.

Ines loosed an arrow at a rider on the far side of the battlefield, a gnoll with a spotted hide and a cruel grin. She targeted him first, because he was clearly enjoying the scene of slaughter, and she did not like what that meant.

The arrow struck him in the eye, and instead of stopping, it continued through, punching out the back of the gnoll’s skull and continuing into the distance.

She saw the arrow fly, saw it pierce through another rider, and another, and another, until it vanished into the horizon, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.

"By the gods," Ines whispered.

She nocked another arrow and drew the string back. The bow sang, and another arrow flew, and another, and another. Each shot was a death sentence... each shot was a prayer answered.

I will keep him safe, Ma... your daughter is strong, Pa...

∞

I closed my eyes, growling in annoyance, and thankfully that seemed to help. I was still able to observe the battle but I was no longer losing myself inside the mind of another.

Reaching down, I tore a strip of clothing from my robes and tied it across my eyes, and it was more difficult than I expected. Sometimes it was not good to see too much, and there was something about my new talent that was too hungry to be left unchecked, and I feared it needed to be properly controlled before I saw something that I could not come back from.

I sighed and continued to watch the battle.

∞

The Shades moved through the chaos like ghosts. They did not fight with weapons, not in the traditional sense. They fought with the shadows.

One of them, Sil I think, appeared behind a rider and drove a dagger of shadow into the base of his skull. Before the body could fall, the Shade was gone, vanished into the shadow of a dying horse.

Another emerged from the darkness beneath a rider’s mount and slashed the animal’s tendons. The horse screamed and collapsed, pinning its rider beneath its bulk. The Shade was on him before he could scream, and then the Shade was gone.

They did not speak, they simply killed, one after another, and I wanted to pull the covering off my eyes to look into their souls, but I held myself back.