Steel and Fangs

by Sami Dougish

  That was when I remembered that there actually was a town of sorts between me and the Dukedom. I took a glance at the map again and saw that the town was called Ravengrove. Maybe I could stop there, and purchase supplies, and maybe a packhorse. It was a risk, however. The whole reason I was trying to avoid roads, was to keep myself hidden. Going amongst civilization would risky as well. Granted, As long as I kept my scales covered, my tongue behind my teeth, and my teeth hidden, I shouldn’t be seen as a drayzraac Still that meant, I couldn’t talk to people, and it would be difficult trying to buy supplies without words. Maybe a face covering?

  “Well that would look suspicious at all,” I sarcastically thought to myself.

  Still maybe if I wore a scarf of some sort covering my face it would be doable. It was risky though, if I was recognized, people would either try to kill me for my scales or get the guards to take me back to slavery. Neither of those were paths I had any intention of going down. Yes, it was a risk going into town while still in Thuum, but I also would be able to speed my journey up quite a bit if I was able to get a pack animal, and some supplies to keep me from having to forage the entire journey.

  I weighed both options in my mind and eventually decided that I would go to this town and use the money I had taken from the bandits to buy some supplies.

  With that decided, I gathered up all of my meager possessions. I was getting ready to climb down from the tree, when Raskorian growled, “Aren’t you forgetting to use your new Essence points?!”

  I paused for a minute, I hadn’t forgotten, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend the points yet. I had killed the entire group of bandits, and if they each gave me three points, then I should have about one hundred and thirty points. With those points, I could increase the majority of my first-tier upgrades. The idea of increased strength, to match my speed, along with the fact that recently breaking my leg, made the idea of a reinforced skeletal system very appealing. I also had no real armor to speak of besides the scales on my body. If I bought upgrades for my scale, I would have my own natural armor. Granted as they were, the scales were already strong, but could still be pierced easily enough with a sharp sword.

  What held me back though was the memory of stumbling around in the dark as I tried to navigate the forest at night. That had been difficult and painful. If I could buy the draconic upgrade that gave me an improved vision at night, I could travel much further into the day, as I wouldn’t have to rely on the sunlight less and less. The only problem was that it cost two hundred and fifty damn points to get. Basically, I needed to kill another forty people to be able to purchase the upgrade. I didn’t have an aversion to killing, but I also didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to myself. I had already messed that up, by losing my temper and attacking the villagers and killing a nobleman, but still, didn’t want to leave them a trail to follow, even if the trail was one of blood.

  “No, I didn’t forget, but I want to save them, to purchase that Nocturnal Predator upgrade.”

  “Hmph, well if you get us killed for not spending them now, I swear I will find a way to haunt you in death.”

  I rolled my eyes at the dragons’ words, and as I began climbing down the tree, I realized that I didn’t quite know which way was northeast. Sighing, I climbed back up the tree. Instead of stopping at my perch though, I pushed up through the thick canopy. After about a minute of cursing and hissing, I finally pushed past all the branches and leaves and popped my head out above the tree.

  The view I was greeted with was impressive. The forest had seemed large on the map, but now that I was actually looking out above the tree, I realized that for miles around, all I could see were trees. There was a slight breeze up here above the trees, and I took a second to just appreciate the feel of the wind, and the sun warming my face. Eventually, though, I shook myself, and focused back on the task at hand. I had noticed that since escaping, I had a tendency to get distracted by nature.

  The trees seemed to stretch for miles before me, and I could see that even the slopping hills were covered in trees. My sight was somewhat hindered by the taller trees and hills in front of me, but I was still able to see the sun. This in turn allowed me to judge which direction I needed to go. The direction in question was off to my right, and I mentally noted the direction, as I pulled myself back down beneath the branches.

  Now that I knew where to go, I continued the descent until I was once again standing on the forest floor. I did a quick rundown of all my gear, making sure my weapons were within easy grasp, and that the map was safely secured in the pouch at my waist. Once I was satisfied with all of my gear, I turned in the direction I had chosen, and set out at a brisk walk.

  Chapter 7

  The next week and a half was a mixture of calm yet extremely frustrating travel, fierce fighting, and intense mental dueling with Raskorian. The traveling was slow going. I ignored food for the first two days but finally relented, when the effort of climbing, walking, running, and fighting made my stomach rise up in revolt.

  The speed at which I traveled was further slowed, by the fact that navigating in a forest when the sun was barely visible was very difficult. It was easy to get turned around, to veer off course, and to even seemingly walk in circles. The trees played tricks on my mind, and many times I had found myself veering off course thinking that I was still headed in a straight line. I had solved the problem the best way I could. Every so often I would climb a tree and try to reorient myself by the sun's position. It worked, but this slowed my pace down even further. This wasn’t even taking into account that I had to stop and find water, and a suitable tree to bed down at night. These all combined to slow me to a crawl.

  Though much of the time was spent traveling in peace, I still had several run in’s with a variety of predators and monsters. While none had been able to maim or cripple me, I had taken numerous cuts, bruises, and bites. One of the monsters had looked like an overgrown monkey of sorts. It had been nearly as tall as me and had furry arms that had reached all the way down to the floor. Like me, it was deceptively fast for its size, and the speed at which it rained down blows with its meaty fists had been impressive. Still, that hadn’t stopped me from eventually lodging my hammer into its throat.

  That monkey hadn’t been the worst either. On the fourth day of travel, when I had been getting ready to fall asleep, I had the misfortune to have chosen a tree that apparently housed a giant fucking snake. The damn thing had lashed out and had clamped its fangs down on my scaled arm. While the scales kept the snake from piercing too far with its fangs, it didn’t hesitate to begin coiling its bulk all around my body. My hammer and mace had been ineffectual for dealing with the creature. Its bulk mixed with its long length, allowed it to absorb the blows, and keep squeezing me. I had resorted to stabbing at it with my daggers and ripping chunks out of the serpent with my teeth. By the time I had managed to kill it, I was nearly completely covered by the snake and felt as if my stomach had been pushed up my throat and out of my mouth. Still, I had survived, and the snake meat was actually delicious once I had cooked it over a small fire I built.

  The killing of the monsters did net me blood essence points. I realized that the beast I had fought earlier, had also given me blood essence, I just hadn’t noticed at the time. It turned out that these minsters while big, only netted me two points apiece. Altogether, from the monsters I had killed, I had earned ten points. Not enough to purchase the upgrade I wanted, but still points that pushed me closer to my goal.

  As all of these things had come and gone, what never changed were the conversations I had with Raskorian. The dragon still seemed to resent my lack of “Proper Respect,” But he had at honored a request of mine. As much as the dragon’s snarky and arrogant remarks grated at my nerves, he had been right about many things. One of the biggest was my lack of knowledge when it came to vocabulary and language.

  On the first day of travel, I had asked him if he could begin teaching my new words, and such. To my sur
prise and he actually was eager to help. Granted my mood had soured slightly when he had said, “I am only helping you, so I do not feel like I am conversing with a defective goat,” but he turned out to be an effective teacher. No matter what words I asked him about, he always knew the definition and explained to me how to best use them in sentences. I wouldn’t say that I was by any means eloquent, but I had expanded my vocabulary drastically over the past week and a half.

  I had even asked him to instruct me in some of the other languages he knew, but he flatly refused, saying I needed to learn common first, and once he was satisfied, he would possibly move on to the next. My willingness to learn though seemed to calm the dragon down a bit as well, and he actually would engage me in conversations occasionally throughout the day. I had begun to get used to carrying on conversations in my own mind, but still found it a bit disconcerting that I was having full-blown mental conversations.

  Still, all of my hard traveling paid off, as I now found myself perched in a tree, observing the settlement before me. Ravengrove was not the small town it had appeared to be on my map, Instead, it was a sprawling settlement, close to city size. I had been able to taste the smell of civilization several miles away from the city, and I had known that it would be larger than the map had made it out to be.

  The roads converged in this area and had all come to the main road that led to the entrance of the city. The entrance in question was a large gated area. In fact, the whole city, on this side at least, was completely enclosed in a much more impressive wall than the village I had saved had. This wall was at least fifteen feet high and looked to be made out of a mix of stone and wood. Guards could be seen patrolling the walls, and standards flapped in the wind all across the wall. The gate portion of the wall rose about four feet higher than the rest and had a covered command area at the top. I assumed that was where the gate commander could direct the gate operation, and also command battle lines in a fight. The men at the gate were stopping everyone who came through the gates, questioning them, and doing a quick inspection of whatever goods they brought in.

  This would be a problem. For me, if I had to speak to them, there was a chance my teeth would give me away. I could keep my tongue under control long enough, but my sharp, slightly elongated, teeth were a different matter.

  “Any suggestions?” I asked Raskorian as I studied the moving traffic of people.

  “Not really vessel, I do not interact with the lesser ones often, and have no advice on how to sneak into this filthy city.”

  I sighed as I went back to observing the crowd of people. It was odd that they were so thoroughly inspecting all the people, as I had seen the guards in the capital, just wave the mass of incoming traffic along. Granted they had to deal with a lot larger number of travelers, but still.

  Maybe I could stow onto one of the wagons? No, the guards were searching those. I could try paying them off with the money I took, but I didn’t know how much I had was worth, and I needed that money for supplies, not buying off guards.

  The largest problem was that I could be recognized by my mouth. I could cover it up, but the day was warm, and such a covering without a good reason would most likely raise suspicion. That was when a thought occurred to me. If I could supply them with a feasible reason why I had my face covered, then they might just quickly wave me on after inspecting my bag of weapons, and clothing. With all the weapons I was carrying, I had an idea of what excuse I could make for covering my face.

  I drew the dagger at my waist and then reached around to the sack I had been carrying and pulled out one of the shirts I had taken from the bandit boss. I cut a large strip of the shirt off and laid it across my knees. Quickly, I pulled the sleeve of my current shirt back, exposing the dark scales that adorned my arms. I then turned the blade on myself and jabbed the blade down into my scaled arm. I had to press a bit harder to penetrate the scaled surface, but once I did, I dragged the blade down about half an inch before I withdrew the blade. The cut wasn’t anything major, but it still caused me to grit my teeth slightly as I sliced through my own scales. Still, I had the blood I needed. I placed my arm over the strip of cloth and let the blood flow onto the fabric. Not enough to coat the rag, but enough to simulate a facial wound. Once I was satisfied with the look of the bloody fabric, I pulled my arm away and used the remainder of the shirt to wrap my arm quickly. I needed to get the bleeding to stop as fast as I could, so I could pull the sleeve back down, so the arm looked normal again.

  While I waited for my blood to clot, I picked up the bloody piece of shirt and wrapped it around my lower jaw in a makeshift bandage. My goal was to say that I was a mercenary, who had a run-in with some bandits. I had been wounded and didn’t have the proper skill to fully treat the wound. I had heard there was a town nearby, and I followed the roads here.

  I explained my plan to Raskorian, who only acknowledge with a dismissive snort. The dragon seemed to take little interest in things if I wasn’t killing or fighting. Still, I was working to try and get the dragon to be a more active companion. If I was stuck with him, I might as well get as much use as possible out of him. It would be nice to have someone that could help me memorize different sights and feed the information to me in the middle of conversations, unknown to others. Still, that was a work in process, and for now, I needed to get out of Thuum.

  I waited there for a time as I made sure my arm had stopped bleeding. Once it had, I unwrapped the shirt and tossed it aside, no longer needing the blood-stained garment. I climbed down the tree, and doubled back through the forest, and made my way to the main road.

  The road, this close to the city entrance, was heavily trafficked, and it was a simple matter to slip into the flow of people coming and going from the city. I had seen the roads, several times on my journey here, but they hadn’t been anywhere near as crowded as this. This was my first time in a large crowd of people since I had escaped, and the feeling of being in the crowd set me on edge. All it would take was one person catching a glimpse at my scales, and I would have a mob chasing after me. Still, I knew that I had covered up as best as I could and would just have to hope it was enough.

  One added benefit though of the bloody cloth around my face was that people seemed to avoid me when they saw me coming. I guess the combination of being a foot taller than most here and carrying weapons with a bloody mask was a combination that screamed I wasn’t in the mood to be slowed down. Still, when I came to the queue outside the gate, I had to join the line leading into the city.

  The line moved relatively fast, considering that the guards were stopping everyone, but it still took nearly an hour for me to reach the front of the line. The closer that I moved to the gate, the more and more nervous I became. What if they recognized me? What if they saw my scales? What if they refused me entrance to the city? At least if they just refused me entrance, I could make my way around the city and continue my journey, but would still be deprived of my supplies, which would speed my travel up exponentially. If I was recognized though, I would have to kill the guards as fast as I could before rushing off into the forest again. Either way, it was too late now, I was next in line, and one of the guards beckoned me forward without looking at me. I bit my tongue under the cloth to keep myself calm, and I walked up to the guard.

  “Name, the purpose of visit, and- “The bored sounding guard stopped as he properly caught sight of me. I towered over the guard, whose head only came up to my chest and only barely at that. He looked at my bloody bandaged face and stared at me dumbly for a second. Before he could say anything, I hastily answered his question.

  “Cedric, mercenary. Here to get some healing.”

  My answer seemed to jolt the guard out of his shock, and he shook himself, and asked, “Mercenary huh? Makes sense with them weapons you are carrying. What happened to your face? That why you need healing?”

  “Yes.”

  The guards raised his eyebrows expectantly and asked, “Well what happened? Damnit man, speak up!”

 
“Had a run-in with some forest bandits. Managed to kill them but took a nasty cut to my face. I think it might have fouled though and need to see a healer.”

  The guard nodded his head in acknowledgment and said, “Damn bandits, yeah we have been getting reports of a large band in the woods that have been looting small villages. They only started raiding recently, but they seem to know the terrain well and have sacked a number of villages, six in the last report. Glad to hear that you killed some of the bastards.

  I nodded in response, eager to be away from the human, and into the city, where I could get about my business and leave this city. The guard wasn’t finished though, and instead asked, “What happened to your armor? You have a streak of bad luck recently with contracts?”

  Shit, I forgot about my lack of armor, had to think fast, “After I got this damn wound, I needed to get here as soon as possible, and my armor was slowing me down, I figured losing my armor was better than losing my life.”

  “Aye, I see the wisdom in that friend.” The guard said with a small smile on his face now. Him calling me friend, almost made me growl, but I quickly forced the urge down. This was a good thing, he was smiling, which probably meant I could get into the town.

  The guard pointed at my bag and said, “I need to inspect the bag first before I let you enter the city.”

  I nodded, and slung the bag off of my shoulder, and placed it on the ground in front of him. He leaned over and began looking through my meager possessions. His eyes lit up though when he saw the small chest. He opened it, and his eyes widened as he saw the coins in the bag. Apparently, what I had there was worth a nice bit of gold.