Chapter 15

Enraged shouts rang through the forest, along with the sound of swords striking steel and shield. As Raiel sped through the forest, he considered his options. He did not think they would attempt a direct pursuit, seeing as they had both numerical advantage, and superior positioning. If he had to guess, they were hurdling together in a group, likely expecting a throng to ambush them from one side or the other. That such a throng did not exist, they could not have known. After all, who would engage a host of fifteen armed and alert fighters by their lonesome?

If he was right, and they were gathered in some kind of formation, a surprise attack from the ground would be discovered immediately, and he wasn’t sure how well he’d do if they also turned out to be organized.

His hope was, that none of the slavers had happened to witness his execution of the first three bandits. Ideally then, he simply repeated what he did before, unexpectedly dropping from the trees and butchering as many as he could, before disappearing again.

Raiel kept running through the woods until the voices from the bandits faded into silence, only the chirping of birds and the hiss of the wind sounding in the air. He stopped and caught his breath, putting his hands on his knees. No matter how he tried, the grin on his face wouldn’t go away. If anyone had seen him without the improvised disguise, they would have considered him a complete and utter maniac for looked that elated after killing three people. And maybe he was.

But there was one thing he couldn’t run from: Whenever he was in a fight, the excitement he felt was palpable. If possible, not getting into a fight at all was definitely the best course to victory and survival, but when it became something that couldn’t be avoided, the feeling was like nothing else.

The furious rush of blood and fiery flow of energy, coursing through every limb and every fiber couldn’t be denied, as it urged him to take the shortest route back to those slavers and tearing their heads from their necks. In a sense, it scared him how much he changed when he went into battle mode. It was almost like he became a different person. Like he became a ferocious beast.

When he’d beaten Clavic and briefly fought the twins, there would have been no stopping him in his bloody endeavor, had one of the twins not sent him sprawling. It was both a gift and a curse. In his former life, strength and murder had ruled supreme. Kill the enemy, and don’t get killed yourself. That was the way to the top. It was simple and straightforward, with nothing in between. Nothing else.

Here, in his new life, it was the same – kill or be killed. But it was all cleverly veiled by facades, faces, and careful words. Martial strength was indeed a contributing factor, but before that, cunning was power. The wrathful beast inside him, clawing to be released, found itself caged in an environment where its forte was not principal.

There was a time and place for the beast to run free, and in order to survive, Raiel would have to learn to command it fully. Now, however, was one such time.

Raiel stood still and closed his eyes, focusing on his ears, subconsciously sending the mysterious substance in to improve his hearing. The bandit host had ceased their maddened screaming, and Raiel could only just barely hear the occasional filthy taunt accompanied by the metallic clang of a sword impacting a wooden shield. Likely, they hadn’t moved too much from the position he had left them in.

Raiel set of in an almost parallel direction to the one he’d come from, intending to hit them from the side this time. He weaved through the trees, keeping his eyes and ears open for any signal of a hostile force approaching. As he neared the trail once more, the shouts of the slavers became audible enough that he, with reasonable confidence, could confirm, that they weren’t moving from their position.

A flying arrow zoomed right past him, slashing open a shallow cut in his triceps, announced only by the quiet swish as it sailed through the air. Raiel threw himself flat on the ground, managing to keep his mouth shut through the pain and surprise. Another arrow whooshed over his head just as he landed, and he pressed his face into the ground as well, afraid of even glancing up, for fear of taking one of those deadly sticks in the eye.

Laying completely still, Raiel listened for the bandits’ advance, but no vigorous stomping of booted feet could be heard. He dared a brief look up, and then crawled a few paces forward, until the group was visible through the foliage, standing in tight formation, as he’d expected.

The slavers had placed the captives in front of them, so they could be used as potential meat shields against any incoming fire, with a few of the outlaws scattered about, scouting for suspicious movements. Occasionally, an archer would nock an arrow and let fly in seemingly random directions, which must have been what almost took Raiel out preemptively. He almost chuckled at the dark thought of those bastards spending the next couple of hours waiting anxiously for the attack of a boy they’d already killed by accident.

Raiel pulled back a bit and sought for a nice tree with many branches. He found one and scaled it quickly, beginning his advance towards their position, jumping, and sometimes simply stepping, from branch to branch. Humans had a bad habit of never looking up, thus making it easy for Raiel to elude their detection when he was in the trees. A flaw in his species, that he hoped to never develop. He had to swing around the group a bit, in order to find a path, but soon found himself almost right above two of the scouts. They moved with care, scanning the area with teeth clenched in nervousness. At least a few of them seemed unused to any real resistance on their raids, since the civilians they attacked probably didn’t put up much of a fight. Scum, the lot of them!

Raiel stood up on the branch and dropped towards the ground, landing on the shoulders of the first bandit, before he dug his fingers deep up under the man’s chin. An abrupt and forceful yank twisted and broke the man’s neck with a hollow crunch, Raiel landing on top of the fallen corpse, as he stared coldly into the terrified eyes of the other scout. He didn’t pay any attention to the appearances of the slavers, all of them nameless and irrelevant faces, and only stormed forward, going for the throat with a swift bite. The man’s life ended with a rasping gurgle, Raiel’s elongated fangs piercing through both skin and fabric.

When the warm, fresh blood splashed onto his tongue, something that had laid dormant for the past few months tore through his mind, and all he could do was utter a deep, bestial roar. All those who witnessed it froze for a moment, as they, with a mix of emotions, gazed at the bloody figure before them. The scarred body and the face wrapped in a now bloodied cloth, along with four canine teeth pierced through the face mask, made for a petrifying visage.

As they regained their composure, some of the bandits stepped around the cowering civilians, swords drawn and hesitant expressions on their faces, hands trembling.

A scream echoed through the clearing, and one of the captives fell to his knees with a red blotch spreading from collar to stomach. A younger slaver with a panicked look stood above the body, hyperventilating, with a sword in one hand and a curved, stained knife in the other.

Two others saw this, and each quickly grabbed a captive by the collars of their shirts – one little boy and an older woman, hauling them to the front and pressing knives firmly to their throats, yelling obscene threats to Raiel.

”Hey fucker! Get your insane ass outta here or the bitch and the kid dies.” one of the men, a gruff, bearded fellow with a pink scar over his nose, said, as he drew a red line across the woman’s throat with his knife. She sobbed and begged him to spare her life. His only response was a scowl and a painful knee in the small of her back, causing her to yelp helplessly in fear. ”Get a move on, already!” The bandit’s eyes were wide, as he bit his lower lip in apprehension.

Damnation! Raiel hadn’t thought they would actually be willing to use and kill their captives so easily. They were fifteen against one, for crying out loud! What were they so afraid of? A hundred man strong army hiding out in the bushes for half an hour? Not likely. He’d both hoped for- and thought a pursuit would ensue, where he could hide and pick the slavers off, one or two at a time.

Frankly, Raiel wasn’t sure how to proceed from here. A stalemate like this was not how he had wanted it to go. Running, staying still, attacking – none of the options would save those captives now. He’d commited a grave mistake, and although it was too late, he regretted it. He wasn’t accustomed to this world or its laws, and he knew it. He had not anticipated it, because he’d never experienced it before. In the past, it had all been straight battles, and the few fights he’d been in here had either been so one-sided, that a hostage situation was never necessary, or been over so quickly, that it hadn’t come to that.

His opponents would have regained some of their aggressiveness, if they could see the troubled expression on Raiel’s face, as he tried to figure out what to do.

”Get the fuck out of here!” the man screamed, his face reddening as spittle flew all over the woman’s dirty hair. Raiel considered obeying. As his hesitation became apparent, most of the bandits took a confrontational stance and begun yelling insults and threats. Maybe the best option would be to bac off and tell someone about it. Even if he could kill them all, and he certainly wasn’t sure of that in a fair fight, the captives would be slaughtered, as well. They were the whole reason he’d even decided to jump into this mess. It had been a stupid decision, he realized. He needed to learn to control his own temper.

He sighed, and prepared to walk away, when a flat thunk and a quiet groan preceded the dull sound of a person hitting the ground limply. The slaver who had held a knife to the child’s throat was on the ground, and behind him stood a shackled man with a sharp rock in his trembling hands. His face showed a mix of horror and fury, as he gazed down upon the slaver whose skull he’d cracked open. The child yelped and ran back to his family with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Everyone, Raiel included, stared dumbfounded at the shivering man. Then, all hell broke loose, when the bandits stormed forth, swords raised to cut the poor man to pieces. Raiel made a split-second decision as he howled and exploded towards the slavers. His powerful legs carried him there in but a moment, and his hands and teeth paved the way forward in a violent clash of blood and bone. Screams of rage and pain rang out on the trail, as the captured civilians were forced to join the fray with everything and anything they could muster. Lives on the line. Many of them were tired and hurt, but saw this moment as, perhaps, the first and only chance to reclaim the lives they had been robbed of so cruelly.

Raiel was a tornado of carnage, as he swept through the bloody riot, maiming and mutilating any bandit he reached. They fell quite easily, the energy circulating within his body responding more clearly and eargerly than ever before, almost beckoning for him to rampage even further. His pulse quickened and as the blood pumped more vigorously, so did his fury grow greater again, a shimmering haze settling in his mind, blinding him of reason.

The toothy grin plastered to his face widened, accompanied by a raspy chuckle from deep within his throat. He snarled bestially through teeth clenched about the throat of a weeping woman, who was trying to bury her sword in his back, but as her strength seeped out with her warm blood, all she could manage, however, was to cut four bloody gashes along his shoulder blades and ribs. Raiel hardly noticed the pain that followed, and only crunched down further, completely severing the windpipe.

He tore his head away, blood spraying through the air, as he looked around for his next victim. A number of slaves lay still in the blodied grass, eyes open in deathly terror, but many, both men and women, were still up and about, using rocks and fists in a final, desperate attempt to free themselves from a fate full of tears and hardship.

A painful blow to the back of his head sent Raiel reeling, his vision blackening for a moment, before it sailed back into existence. He went to a knee, only stopping himself from going all the way down by planting a palm firmly on the grass under him. As before, the sudden pain and disorientation pulled him from the bloodlust. A glance back allowed him to see the next attack early enough to throw himself away and avoid it, as a heavy, studded metal mace thumped into the soft soil, leaving a deep depression.

The attacker was a large, bearded man with considerably finer clothing and armor than his companions, muscles rippling through his shirt. The man growled and surprised Raiel when he dahsed forward with incredible speed, mace flying in a blur. Surprised as he were, Raiel’s heightened senses just barely caught the movement in time for him to side step with a sharp gasp, causing the mace to do no more than graze his shoulder. It still almost shaved the flesh off his arm with only that.

He countered with a swing of his own, bent fingers slashing the man’s exposed cheek with sharp claw-like nails. The bandit, whose skin felt as thick and strong as cured leather, paused and slowly looked at Raiel, regarding him with a calculating smile, that didn’t properly reach his eyes, as his tongue whipped out to lick some of the blood oozing from the three red scores on his face.

”Hah, boy... I may not be able to see your face, but your eyes are enough to give away your shock. What, you thought only you nobles could harness this power?” he said, looking at his own hand as he clenched it into a fist, to emphasize his point. ”Well, we can’t all be purebreds like you, can we? My father raped my mother, who was only a farmer’s daughter... When she came to him for help to raise me, he beat her for it, like you would beat a criminal!”

The man’s anger was becoming apparent. Was he just venting his frustrations because he thought Raiel was a noble’s son? The situation felt more than a little unfit for conversation, but perhaps the man simply didn’t feel threatened by the common rabble struggling against each other around him. ”Now I’m forced to be a pawn in their insane power games, running around and doing their dirty work!” he bellowed as he swung the mace again with all his strength, Raiel dodging by a hair’s breadth.

Having somewhat emerged from his rage, Raiel began to notice the injuries he’d suffered, some of them worse than others, but all bleeding. There were probably a couple of cracked ribs, as well.

”I may not...” the mace-wielding bandit shouted between attacks, as he came at Raiel, mace arching over his head. ”have the potential of a purebred, but...” From the ground, Raiel grabbed a sword belonging to a fallen slave, using the blade to throw up an awkward block, as the steel mace slammed into the edge with an ear-shattering, metallic clang, sending shivers down his spine.

”my power is enough to grind a shitty runt like you to dust!” he laughed, as the mace easily broke through the blade, continuing its deadly path, colliding with Raiel’s already wounded forearm. Raiel heard the bone in his arm break and uttered a shrill scream of agony, falling to his knees, cradling the broken limb against his chest. Only one or two of the other slavers still lived, overwhelmed by the sheer number of captives, who, in the chaos after the first few opponents died, had helped themselves to their weapons. The villagers all looked at Raiel when he went down, the previously renewed hope quickly leaving their eyes, as their all-powerful savior was defeated.

The bandit leader stood above Raiel, mace held against the boy’s temple in preparation for the final, lifestealing blow. The man considered the kneeling noble boy for a moment, before his finished it. He was a talented one, if he guessed the boy’s age correctly. A tall kid, certainly, but his body was clearly not fully developed yet. That the boy had managed to penetrate his skin with those long nails of his – the skin that had been strengthened to the utmost of the man’s abilities – was a commendable feat in itself. Alas, the deed had to be done.

The slaver raised his mace high above his head, about to slam the weapon down to sunder the boy’s skull, when Raiel abruptly howled in defiance, his maw closing tightly about the man’s throat, eyes wild and mad. It happened unpredictably, and faster than either of them could have reacted. Never approach a cornered beast, as they say. The man, with an astonished expression, tried to speak, but found a series of wheezing gasps to be the only thing he could manage. Still standing, the bandit’s blood began to pool by his feet, Raiel remaining fastened securely to his neck, unwilling to let go before life left his foe’s eyes.

The man coughed and then sighed slowly, his last breath drawn. It almost sounded content. The powerful opponent, whose name Raiel hadn’t known, and never would know, was gone. All that was left was a lifeless, empty shell. Raiel slowly released his hold on the slaver, and the man fell backwards, landing on his back with a thud that rang through the complete silence of the onlooking villagers. The men, women, and children gathered around erupted into cheers and sobs of relief.

Raiel stood paralyzed, blood still dripping from his chin, completely unfamiliar with the situation he found himself in, and with not a clue of how to react. He glanced at the many former captives, noticing that several were missing, lying dead in the reddened grass, scattered among the corpses of the slavers. Yet, the humans were smiling and laughing with joy, hugging and kissing each other. How odd.

He turned his back to them and started his walk back to the campus, his arm throbbing so painfully that he could only hope he wouldn’t fall unconscious on his face before making it back. This wasn’t a place where he belonged. He’d slaughtered so many people on a whim. A whim he still thought was justified, but nonetheless a whim. The people here were peaceful and harmonious, full of love for each other. But what was he? He wasn’t sure how to answer that question, but maybe his actions today spoke for themselves. He only managed a few uncertain steps before a voice called out to him from behind.

“Sir! Sir, please wait for just a moment!” Raiel slowly turned his head to glance at the speaker. It was an old man, who looked frail enough, that it was a surprise to see him among the survivors of that scuffle.

“Sir, you’ve saved us! Thank you, thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts!” the old man said with trembling voice and tears in his eyes. His gaze then fell on Raiel’s broken forearm. “Oh, but you’re hurt! Won’t you come to our village for treatment of your arm? We may not be able to offer medicine to the standards of one such as yourself, but we so wish to do something for you.”

Raiel studied him for a moment, slightly taken aback by the sudden stream of words of gratitude, and he felt his heart warm in his chest. As much as he wanted to go with the man and his friends, he knew that it was not a possibility. With Tali’s plans still a mystery, involving them would probably be a bad idea. “Thank you, but I can’t. I have to go.” he said quietly through his improvised mask.

The old man, who seemed to have somehow forgotten to look properly at Raiel’s face, suddenly cowered, if only a little, when he saw the drying blood covering the young man and the calculating eyes staring back at him. “Ah, yes, certainly, sir… It was presumptuous of me to assume…” he looked to the ground nervously, eyes darting around as he tried to think of what to say next. “Then, won’t you at least accept the spoils of victory?” he asked, gesturing wildly for two men behind him, who immediately began to go through the dead bandit leader’s pack and pockets.

“Spoils of… victory?”

“Y-yes, erh… From that last man you defeated.” He stuttered, as the pair came running up to them, holding a few items in their hands. Immediately, Raiel noticed the familiar clinking of coins against each other from a large leather pouch. The mace, and the buckler that had been carried on the bandit’s back was there, as well as a few items Raiel couldn’t identify.

“Sir, we also found these.” one of the men noted, holding two folded and bound documents out for Raiel to take. Raiel unfolded the first document on the ground with one arm and skimmed through it, acting calmer and more collected than he felt with his broken limb.

The document described the order to capture and transport the villagers to a destination Raiel didn’t know, so he just handed it back to the man, telling him that it was more useful in the possession of the village.

He unfolded the other document on the ground, as well, expecting to find something similar, but was astonished by the words written on the paper. It was just a few sentences long, which, at first glance, made it seem uninteresting and unimportant, but the content itself was anything but that.

‘Should the holder of this letter, by happenstance, encounter anyone of common birth, of any age, with abilities beyond the ordinary, someone would be eager to learn of it. Additionally, that someone would be willing to pay the usual amount as a reward for the information. Actions beyond reporting the discovery would not be appreciated.

In any other case, this letter should be disregarded.

-M’

Raiel felt his heart start pounding in his chest. Someone was hunting non-noble infusionists. And he certainly wasn’t a noble.