125. Ranged: Tabitha

It turns out running through the city in a full-length dress is not an easy feat, even with the two-leg slits as high as my hips. We paused, and I took my knife to it, cutting it off above the knees. Gwaed did the same to hers. I wouldn’t be showing them to the tailor ever again. Gwaed’s front was soaked in blood anyway. We took off again, Gwaed in the lead as she could track her bond Sugnwr. I followed, took over the Engulfing Shadows from Nyx, and sent Nyx on ahead to find Wiremu. He needed warning that Lady Death could be bearing down on him. Ruku followed me.

It turns out these dresses were full-length for a reason. Without the length of material, the dress would frequently fly up, and I would get an eyeful of Gwaed’s arse. It was a nice one, too, even though it was still covered in dark coarse fur. I remember saying, ‘they don’t give a rat's arse’ when they don’t care about something, but I am starting to like this rat's arse. It occurred to me I was flashing my arse to Ruku, and there was no fur on my butt. I darkened the shadows under my skirt, so I didn't give the poor guy a heart attack. If Eluf hadn’t been so careless in killing the corpse, he could have been the one following me.

“So tell me what you know about the Death Affinity,” I shot over my shoulder to Ruku.

Gwaed replied, “It should be called the Rot Affinity as that is what it actually does. It Rots everything, including flesh and blood.”

“That’s right,” Ruku said, “Most of what the military knows is just theory, but that does sum it up. Skills revolve around rot and poison. I don’t think anyone alive has seen Animate Corpse in action.”

“Until today,” I added.

“The day’s not over yet,” Gwaed said cheerfully.

“The theory is the corpse must be infected with the rot, but it may be possible to infect an already dead body and use it,” Ruku continued. “It is thought that the number of corpses is a function of Spiritual Strength, and they must be in the Spiritual Sensing range of the Affinity user. The corpses need muscles and tendons to move, and that is why Eluf said to disable the limbs, and then it can’t do anything. It just becomes a Spiritual drain on the controller. They are mostly used to spread the infection.”

“We are lucky lady death decided to animate human corpses,” Gwaed said. “If she had bought in rodent or insect corpses, she could have wiped out the local nobility.”

That was a sobering thought. “You obviously have Skills to counter the rot?” I asked Gwaed.

“Yes. Blood is life. It can also be death, but mostly it is for life and to enhance life.” She replied.

We were coming up on the northern wall. There was no sign of guards or invaders or Wiremu and Modrica. We entered the already open door to the guard tower to climb the stairs to the top of the wall and found the desiccated bodies of the guards stationed there. At the top of the wall, I saw some of the bodies with arrows in them, especially ones close to the alarm bell. Either the assassin is an archer, or she infected the arrows for her archers. The first is scarier than the second, but they are both pretty bad. Think Wiremu with deadlier arrows than he already has.

Gwaed reached down and grabbed a shield, sword and knife from one of the remains. I grabbed a second knife while I was at it, as I hadn't got my other one back off Eluf before I left. Ruku had got some spears and a shield. A shield might not be a bad idea if we are going against a ranged Death Affinity user. I decided to stick with my dual-wielding and mobility.

We moved to the wall's outer edge, where we found a ladder and several ropes. Once the wall guards were down, the first wave came up the ladder and lowered ropes for the others. The trick was making sure nobody could ring the alarm bell.

We moved to grab a rope each, and suddenly Gwaed shoved me to the side and deflected an arrow with her shield. I saw Ruku also duck behind a crenellation. Gwaed then threw her knife with a powerful throw toward something in the tree line outside my Sensing range. My Hearing Aid heard running footsteps. We are dealing with a ranged Death Assassin.

“How did you find her? The bushes interfered with my Sonar,” Ruku asked.

“Infrared Vision combined with Sense Blood.” she said, swinging herself over the wall edge and onto one of the ropes. “Stay alert,” she added, “this kid’s good.” She got halfway down the rope when I heard, “But I will take her down.”

I followed her down the wall with Ruku beside me. The kid might be good, but it was looking like Gwaed had earned the nightmare myths that circulated about the Elven Blood Witch. Gwrach Waed, indeed.

We entered the tree line, moving fast but carefully. The forests north of Obalno are mostly Pine and Spruce, so uunderfootwas a layer of needles, and it was reasonably open under the trees. None of us were trackers, not even Ruku, so we were reliant on Gwaed following Sugnwr. Nyx had not found Wiremu yet.

We ran through the forest cautiously. My Spatial Awareness was good but too short-ranged for this. I am best at close fighting. My Darksight still worked well, and my Hearing Aid just moved into The Apprentice Levels. I was the least capable one of sensing in this environment. By the time my Spatial Awareness picked up an arrow coming at me, I would have very little time to react, and even a scratch from these arrows could be deadly. I think the most I have achieved to date is to move, so an arrow is nonfatal, but they have still struck me every time. I was not ashamed to be running slightly behind Ruku and Gwaed.

I got the impression from Nyx that she had found Wiremu but couldn’t communicate because he was busy using his bow and dodging return arrows. I spoke up, “Apparently, Wiremu is in a ranged duel with the attackers.”

“Not sure who Wiremu is, but I am assuming it is the same person as Sten?” Gwaed said, “Sugnwr has arrived at the coast, and her targets are being ferried out to ships, yes, ships, plural. There are two, not one. We are about an hour away from the bay.”

“And Lady Death is ahead of us,” I said,

“Probably not that far ahead, 5-10 minutes at most.” Ruku added.

We would be travelling slower than everybody, partly because of Ruku’s foot and partly through caution. The second ship made sense. The Swiftwave didn’t travel to their base to resupply but to meet the other ship, which is where all the extra attackers came from. Being 5-10 minutes behind Lady Death is not good. She could kill everyone in that time. We picked up the pace.

I checked Tāoke on my shoulder, and he was calm. I told him, “Tāoke, can you try to get through to Wiremu that the Death assassin is coming in behind him, and he needs to watch out.” I really don’t know how much he understood or could communicate through their bond, but it was the best I could do. Tāoke looked at me a flicked his tongue out. We will see.

We crested a hill, and the sea came into view, at least for Ruku, who had the Darksight, Farsight combo. “I can see two sets of masts. One is bigger than the other,” he said. “One set of masts looked like a Baracuda Class Warship from the Empire. They are fast and moderately well-armed. They have a lower deck for slave rowers, which makes them faster than our equivalent ships. An Empire warship in Kingdom waters is an act of war, not even counting the fact that they raided a Kingdom city.”

We pushed on down toward the bay. “What kind of forces are on this Barracuda ship?” I asked.

“They configure them in different ways. The most common uses are for scouting and hit-and-run raids, just like this. Usually, there are 50-100 troops, plus twenty sailors and 30-50 enslaved people, for various tasks, including rowing when necessary. All sailors are trained in basic archer and sword work. The troops will have various specialities depending on the platoons assigned. The ship’s bow is strengthened and enchanted for ramming other ships, and there are usually at least ten cannons with various alchemical and physical loadouts to be fired from them.”

“So there is no way we can take it,” I said.

“No. We would struggle with the Swiftwave, although if I can get the munitions placed, we have a chance at sinking that.” Ruku replied. “Add in the fact we know there is an affinity user on board, and our chances get slimmer. There may be more than one affinity user as they are often assigned to ships.”

“What do we do then?” I asked.

“We try to rescue the civilians and see if we can stall them so the Navy can get here,” Ruku replied.