Chapter 133: Raggedy Bastion

The binding creaked under the strain. He returned to the tree and inspected the growing limb, confirming that the blood edge had done nothing to prevent the flesh from returning. It cut more cleanly than ordinary iron, but the damage healed just the same.

Useful to know, though less useful than he had hoped.

Next, he passed the scythe into his left hand and held his wounded palm over the dark fluid spreading beneath the creature. He reached for it in the same way he reached for his own blood. Nothing happened.

Rook frowned and tried again. His blood stirred along the scythe in his other hand, answering the attempt, while the Abomination’s remained where it was. It continued soaking into the leaves without so much as trembling.

“Come on. We’re not asking for much.”

The creature hissed and jerked against the grave rope. Rook kept his attention on the spreading stain, waiting for any sign that it had responded.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

He brought one drop of his own blood onto a clean leaf beside a streak of the creature’s. His drop rose when he called it. The other remained still, even when he focused on it alone.

Both were remembered blood, and both looked close enough beneath the lantern’s light. Only one belonged to him. Rook drew his blood back into his palm and stood, leaving the dark stain beneath the creature untouched.

“Right. Yours stays yours. I can’t control external blood, quite a shame.”

One lower arm had begun forming a new wrist. He cut it back before the fingers could grow, then held out his left hand and drew a thin strand of blood from his injured palm. It stretched between his hands, thickening until a narrow point formed at its end.

He had seen the Eleventh’s Manager do far more with far less effort. A small spike ought to be possible, and the shape held well enough while he concentrated on it. Rook aimed at the creature’s exposed shoulder and pushed.

The blood stretched forward, lost its point, and splashed against the grey skin. He stared at the result while the Abomination snapped its teeth at him, apparently determined to contribute to the experiment.

“Shut up. It didn’t even hurt you, stop overreacting.”

He tried again, forming the spike close to his palm this time. As he released it, he flicked his hand toward the creature’s shoulder. The hardened shape lasted barely beyond his fingertips before breaking into droplets. Several struck the Abomination, while others disappeared among the leaves.

“Well. That’s wasteful.”

He could still feel the blood on the creature while it was close, though drawing it back took more concentration than recalling it along the scythe. The drops among the leaves were harder to gather. A few remained behind, and he stopped trying before the search became another distraction.

The Manager could make projectiles. He was certain of that, but whatever she did to keep them solid after releasing them remained beyond him. He wiped his palm against his coat and looked over the half-formed limbs.

“No throwing things. No borrowing blood. No hardening outside physical contact…”

The creature pulled against the cord once more, making the knot shift against the bark. Rook stepped close enough to reach its chest and raised the scythe.

“But this part works.”

He drove the blade between its ribs, opened the chest, and found the core beneath. The blood edge cut through it before the flesh could close, leaving the creature rigid against the tree. Its mouth worked around a sound that broke into several voices, then its body began collapsing into grey dust.

The cord sagged as the weight disappeared. Rook watched until the last movement stopped, then pulled the rope free and shook it clean. That was his second Cull, and he should have felt something by now.

Looking at his arms for a moment, he realized no matter how many of these he culled, the brand would remain. Pitch black as the skies of the underworld. Unless he completes a contract, by getting a Soul out of this place, Rook knew this brand would be here, for a long time, and him alongside it.

He stood still while the blood returned along the weapon and entered his palm. The wound closed, and the scratches on his upper arm drew together more slowly, leaving his sleeve wet against skin that no longer hurt. There was no dizziness or sudden weakness in his knees.

He remembered Mara struggling to stay upright after using her Imprint. He had also watched experienced Reapers grow pale and lose strength when they asked too much of theirs. Rook flexed his fingers, looking for some small sign that he had spent more than he realized.

“Seems like I got more endurance. Or I may just not be utilizing this to its full potential.”

He had only just learned how to use it. An absence of warning did not mean there was no limit, and he had already left blood behind among the leaves.

He packed the grave rope, secured the coffin, and retrieved the lantern before returning to the two sets of boot prints.

For now, the period for testing things was over. Once he is within a bastion, he can head to a Reaper’s HQ and request for a private room to test his imprint. With a Death Imprint that has no known limitations, he’ll soon get to regret not having learned where those limitations stop. Especially if he were to go out arrogantly into the open fighting abominations, with an Imprint he didn’t know when it could simply stop working.

They continued past the tree where the creature had waited. Rook followed them deeper into the forest, slowing whenever the ground or the branches above gave him reason to look more carefully. He found another stretch of wire beside a shallow ditch and took the same route around it that Gascoigne had used.

Farther on, old boot prints joined the trail. More appeared after them, some heading toward the mountain and others deeper into the trees. By the time the trunks began thinning, the ground had become a mess of overlapping tracks.

Rook stopped beside a patch of damp earth and lowered the lantern. One print might have belonged to Mara, but another had crushed its heel. He searched the next stretch, found three different narrow treads, and swore quietly.

People had been using these paths regularly, too many of them and in both directions. Gascoigne’s larger boots no longer stood out, and Mara’s uneven stride meant little on ground broken by roots and holes. Rook straightened and looked beyond the thinning trees, where the Beacon shone across an open stretch of land.

He went toward it. There, he could resupply, find other people, and maybe have a better chance at finding Mara. It beats staying here in the open anyway.

The Bastion looked worse from below. From the mountain, its light had hidden most of the damage, but now he could see entire sections of wall rebuilt with whatever stone people could carry. One tower ended at half the height of its neighbor. Heavy beams supported a bulging section near the gate, and long cracks had been packed with pale mortar that stood out against the older masonry.

The Beacon still burned steadily above it. People moved along the walls, a cart stood inside the entrance, and someone was hammering metal farther in. The place was wounded, but it was working. Rook kept his scythe lowered as he approached the outer barricade.

Four Reapers waited beside a narrow opening. Their coats were patched and stained, and one had wrapped cloth around the shaft of a spear where the wood had split. Another sat on a block with a bandaged foot stretched in front of him, though he stood when he saw Rook. None looked pleased to have company.

“Stop there.”

Rook stopped outside the opening. The woman who had spoken examined his coffin, then the torn coat and dried blood covering him. Her attention lingered on the scythe before returning to his face.

“You’re not from around these parts.”

“What’s this now? Am I being mugged?” Rook snorted.

“Stop with the yap. You can clearly see we’re not in the mood for pleasantries. What do you want?”

“To get inside.” Rook Replied.

“What for?”

He looked past her toward the entrance. More tracks covered the ground there, churned together beneath cart wheels and boots. There was no point trying to pick Mara’s out of that.

“Resupplies, mainly, and I’m looking for someone.” He said.

“Name?”

“Doubt it’s his real name, he called himself, Gascoigne. Do any of you know him?” Rook said.

The spear came up first. The woman drew her sword, while the Reaper with the injured foot reached for a heavy hooked blade. Beside them, the fourth stepped sideways to block the gap in the barricade.

Rook looked from one weapon to the next. Apparently, it was not a name he should have mentioned lightly.