by Han Yang
Copyright © 2021 Han Yang.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ASIN: B09B5DMCJB
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.
Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Acknowledgements
Thank you for giving a new author a shot. This book is dedicated to my crazy children, loving wife, and the cat. Huge shout out to H.K. whose deviant account for commissions is in the back of the book. Actually the cat made this tougher, always hitting keys when I’m not looking. I’ll get you Spooky…
Prologue
Beginnings are hard.
Thankfully, I couldn’t remember my first ‘beginning’. After the blimp crash had wiped out most of my memories, all I could recall were the times I spent with the new friends and family I’d built in Gearnix.
Joanna, my lovely Baroness, with her pure white hair so radiant it outshone the moon.
Ginli, a close friend, one with whom I had shared many hardships over the past few months.
And many others. Corvo, once a spy, now a close aide. Delila, the stable master I had tempted from the neighboring city of Hexpa. Becky, the cheerful girl who was becoming fast friends with the new lady overseeing the animals she loved. Even Joanna’s parents, Leon and Lei, wanted to create a new adventurer's guild in my up-and-coming home.
Norn.
But things usually don’t go as planned. Luck had played a major part in my rapid successes, but if I didn’t play my cards right, the whole damn thing would come crashing down around my ears in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, the slide downward began with a simple question.
Chapter 1
“Where’s Ginli?”
I paused in my extraction of yet another pitiful Hydrox pill from the ant-like creature at my feet. Joanna’s previously contented expression had vanished, replaced by a look of confusion and worry as she glanced around the cave.
“I… don’t know?” I sheathed my steam dagger carefully as I turned to survey the area. Several members of the cleaning crew darted around as they cleansed the infestation while the rest worked in unison to hammer out the precious materials from the unyielding floor beneath our feet.
But… no Ginli.
It was hard to miss her, even in such a messy environment. After so long together, her tell-tale red hair sometimes seemed like a beacon, a signal calling out to us from wherever the flighty warrioress had landed herself.
A quick search of the cave system yielded no results. Despite the obvious answer that she might have gone back to the camp already, I still couldn’t fight the churning of dread deep in my stomach.
Joanna was the same. After we had asked every person in the cave about our companion, she led the way as we rushed back out onto the snowy mountainside. Only a few stood in the open, and most of those were venturebots. Even those few unlucky machines were quivering slightly as the chill bit at the oil running through their systems.
“Corvo!” I rushed over to the grizzled old general as he appeared from behind a tent. “We’re looking for -”
“Ginli?” He cut me off with an irritable huff. “I was going to ask her to join me for a patrol. I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Neither can we.” Joanna’s breath sent a wave of steam into the air as she glanced around the camp yet again. “Did she not leave a message? Is everyone else accounted for?”
Corvo froze up for a moment, and not because of the icy chill. “Wait, you don’t think that someone -”
“We don’t know anything yet.” I laid a gentle palm on Joanna’s shoulder to calm her before she could launch into a worried fit. “We need a full search. If we can’t find any sign of her, I’ll need to take a team back to Norn. It’s possible that she had to leave early.”
The explanation rang hollow, even to me, but there was a chance that Ginli had received a message of some kind that prompted her to return. Why she would brave the dangers of the wilds alone was another question entirely. With so much political maneuvering going on, though, there was a slight possibility someone had managed to force her hand.
And there was no way I’d accept that. At all.
“Fine. I’ll arrange the search. You wait here.” Corvo held up a palm to quiet my protests. “Just see it as overseeing. If the team spots their Baron rushing back and forth in the snow, they might realize something is amiss. The last place you want a panic is up in the mountains, doubly so in winter.”
After a moment, I sighed and agreed with his proposal. The same order went for Joanna when she tried to join the hunt, so we huddled together in the back of a wagon beside a puny steam heater as we waited for news.
Time passed slowly, painfully so. Several teams formed before our eyes as they systematically checked off every single member of the survey team. Once the headcount was completed, they broke off into groups to search the cave system and the surrounding mountainside.
Joanna shivered beside me, and somehow I could tell it wasn’t just because of the cold. The thought of losing a friend like Ginli had thrown me for a loop too, but after seeing my lady Baroness so distraught, I hurriedly pulled myself together.
“She’ll be fine. She always is.” I turned Joanna to face me so she could see my warm, confident smile. “Trust me. Trust her.”
“I- Fine.” Joanna bit her lip as she glanced back at the now almost completed search. “Why would she do this, though?”
“She’s always been a flighty one, Jo.” I nudged her a little to distract her from the sight before us. “Remember when she -”
“No sign of her!”
Corvo’s yell came at the worst time. A fair few of the team looked worried at Ginli’s disappearance. She had made a good impression on at least some of them, especially those she’d helped during the hard fought battles on the way from Norn.
“Volunteers!” I jumped down from the cart and helped Joanna to gracefully descend behind me. “Return trip to Norn, small team, same expense as -”
“Me.”
“I’ll do it!”
“Pick me!”
Several hands raised from the crowd as some of the team offered their assistance. Returning home early might seem like a sweet deal, but everyone knew the journey back to Norn would be fraught with peril.
“Corvo, arrange a balanced team.” I leaned in close to whisper, despite the old man’s enhanced hearing. “Stealth first, let’s make this quiet.”
Some of the group might have overheard the last part of my request, but I didn’t much mind. There was a chance that someone was spying on us, somehow, but that possibility didn’t mean I’d sit on my ass and wait for the trip to end.
Dragging the whole survey team back to Norn wasn’t possible. Well, it was, but the expenditure would be immense. We’d already cleared the most dangerous creatures along the route back, so the danger would be minimal. And if some bastards wanted to try to ambush us on the way back?
Then I’d ‘clear’ them out too.
Those chosen by Corvo seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. Each and every one of them had fully kitted themselves out for a r
eturn trip. Wagons would slow us down and, with such a tight nit group, the extra storage was unneeded.
If worst came to worst, we would have to sleep in the trees with a rotating watch.
“Jo.” I turned to Joanna with a conflicted expression on my face. “Maybe it’s best if you stay here.”
“... What?” Joanna slowly lowered the blunderbuss she’d been checking over for the trip. “Ginli is my friend too -”
“I know that, but there’s a chance she might come back here, right?” I gripped her shoulders, tight but not too tight. Our gazes met as tears formed at the corner of her eye. “You can send a message to Norn, and we’ll pick it up as soon as we arrive. At least then I won’t turn the whole place upside down searching for her, right?”
Joanna giggled a little, though it was clear the thought of staying behind still weighed on her heavily. We both knew that my reasoning was, at best, an excuse. If Ginli did return, Corvo could send a message just as easily as the Baroness…
But I couldn’t risk her, not now that she carried our child.
My child.
I hadn’t quite accepted the reality of it, but seeing her shivering in the snow brought it home. Persuading my lover to stay on a desolate mountainside in the middle of winter rather than returning home actually sounded like a stupid decision, but it would keep her safe.
Well… safer.
“Fine.” Joanna finally nodded as she reached up and clenched my hands with hers. “But if you do find her lounging around in the nearest gambling den, then -”
“I’ll keep her locked up until you get home to give her the just deserts she deserves.”
“Go, then. Before I change my mind!”
Joanna’s shoulders drooped as she returned to Corvo. I shared a quick nod with the old man, and it seemed like he’d received the unsaid request in my eyes.
‘Finish the job, keep her safe.’
I gathered the team around me and gave them a once over. Balanced to a tee, just like I’d have expected from Corvo. Not a single one of them seemed the type to idiotically leap at a return journey just because they wanted to go home early.
“This journey will be arduous, difficult, and dangerous.” I rested against my long rifle as I stared at the men and women arrayed before me. “If anyone wants to step out now, I won’t lay any blame at your feet. This is your last chance.”
All I received in response to my offer was a calm silent stare from the group. Not a flicker of fear showed in their eyes as they waited for my next word in absolute silence.
“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I hefted my rifle and swung it into the sling on my back. “Let’s get going, then! Boots and heels, at the double!”
I spotted Joanna watching us forlornly as we strode out of the camp. Corvo stood beside her like an ancient sentinel, already on the prowl in case anything might happen to the one he’d been sent to protect.
Even though she had one of the most effective guardians possible, it still hurt to leave her behind.
But soon, even that sight vanished from view. The snow picked up as we stomped down the mountainside toward the forest below. Tree coverage picked up bit by bit as we made our way toward the flatter plains of the wild lands.
No attacks came along the way, fortunately, though we didn’t drop our guards. I kept a careful eye on our environment, a trick I’d learned from Ginli herself. Sure, I might not receive a spear to the guts, but there was always the chance that an unseen predator might sneak close enough to ambush our relatively small group.
Tensions remained high as we walked into the forest proper. Sightlines were cut off one by one as the densely packed trees around us limited visibility. The path we’d taken had been covered in snow, but a few of those chosen by Corvo had good ranks in the scouting and tracking skills, so I allowed them to take point as we settled into a good rhythm.
The only sound that echoed out through the forest was the crunch of snow under our boots. Distant hoots and screeches rang out from the various monsters and beasts roaming the forest, but none of them were close enough to warrant more than a cautious glance in the direction of the sound.
My own thoughts drifted a little to my experiences since the blimp crash. The lost memories before that time still rankled, as did the hints of higher figures at play in my life. The trajectory of my life past that point had been on the up and up at the very least.
If whoever, or whatever, hadn’t messed with my memories, maybe I would not have ever met Joanna. Ginli likely would have been caught up in the takeover attempt at Langshire. Leon and Lei too.
Norn would have fallen. Another lucky soul stepping into the pit of vipers to pull that mess to the surface? Unlikely. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that even my current ‘allies’ hadn’t had a hand in its slow but steady downfall.
Hexpa?
While they accepted a trading contract, likely wouldn’t have been so forthcoming without Gearnix’s help.
Portin and Darden?
Even with the rumors about my protection, they still wanted war. They might even be related to Ginli’s disappearance, but I had a more likely suspect for that specific incident.
Langshire.
Cowards and sneak thieves, the lot of them. The seedy underbelly of the town seemed to have flipped over since the Mistress fell. Tarco had the feel of a slimy merchant from the one time we’d met, but the speed and efficiency of his takeover spoke to his actual skills.
Such a man wouldn’t think twice before taking the low and dirty road.
So, if I couldn’t find Ginli once I reached Norn, I at least had a target in mind. Maybe Gearnix wouldn’t help, but I had a plan to get into Langshire. From there, all I needed to do was get a few minutes alone with Tarco.
But before that, I needed to focus on the present. Visions of my revenge blurred as my thoughts returned to the here and now. Fortunately, I hadn’t missed anything, but I did spot one of the scouts moving toward me with a worried grimace.
“I’m sorry, Baron. We need to take a different route.”
“Why?” I glanced at the path ahead, searching for any blockage of danger I hadn’t spotted previously. “What’s wrong with the current one?”
“We’ve seen tracks, and I found this.” He passed me a small, crumpled bit of metal.
It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. After that, a hot rage passed through my soul as I tossed the badge to the side.
“Portin.”
Chapter 2
I wanted to search for the source of the tracks, but from the size of the deployment, it would be suicide. Fortunately, signs of our journey into the mountain had been hidden long ago, and the signs of Portin’s troops showed that they were heading away from the mountain area.
More specifically, they were moving toward Norn.
“They’ll need to travel slowly.” I let out a long, slow breath, filling the air with smog. My leg hissed, sending a gust of steam to join the growing crowd. “We can circle around and beat them to the city, right?”
“Of course, Baron.” The lead scout glanced at the rest of the team then back to me. “Do you want to send a message back? I believe we have a carrier -”
“No. If those bastards spot it, we’d lead them right back.” I growled, though I did pull myself together a bit as the tracker backed off worriedly. “Sorry. Send one person back and cover our tracks. Explain this to Corvo, but ensure no one else overhears. Especially -”
“The Baroness.” The scout leader nodded as he called out to a woman who had been waiting just off to the side. “You heard the mission. Do you accept it?”
“Gladly.” She bowed to me and shifted the weapon slings on her back. “You’ve turned my home around. If this is a chance to repay you, I’ll take it in a heartbeat.”
“Thank you.” I nodded to the woman who quickly darted off back up the path we’d taken. I saw her clearing the tracks we’d left and knew that it would take her a little longer to return to the camp t
han we’d taken to leave. “I’ll leave our return route to you, master scout. Time to earn your title.”
The scout leader grinned as he accepted my flippant offer. In reality, it was up to me what titles those under my rule gained. I might be a Baron Lord, but officially I was still a dictator. I could have named him ‘Overseer of the Magic Muffin Brigade,’ and no one would have been able to do a damn thing about it.
Master Scout was relatively tame, comparatively.
Still, the task I had given him wasn’t without its adversities. While the Portin deployment had passed us by, there was always the chance they had left stragglers behind to watch their backs. If even a single one of them caught wind of our little patrol…
I shook that thought away as our trek started up yet again. A small group such as ours could pass through the wilds at a speed impossible for a larger number, as long as we weren’t unlucky enough to run into another monster horde along the way.
Fortunately, the very same deployment who had caused us such grief would also act as a handy shield against such things. Their journey would be slow and arduous as they caught the attention of every remaining boss level creature in the vicinity. In a way, those idiots would accidentally serve as a barrier between us and the worst the wilds could offer.
And, if they were offering such a service, it wasn’t like I would decline.
Time passed slowly as we trekked through the forest. Occasionally, we spotted the odd creature lurking in the distance, but most fled before we even got in range for a long rifle shot. Luck seemed to be on our side as we looped around through the wilds, skirting the path taken by the Portin squad with a precise grace.
And then we were in front of the enemy team. I fought the urge to lay some vindictive traps in their way and instead allowed the trackers to focus on keeping signs of our own journey out of sight. If the Portin soldiers figured out they were tailing us, it might spook them into unnecessary actions.
Best to let them think their sly and cowardly invasion had yet to be discovered.
“I don’t get it.” One of the other members of our group finally spoke up after we’d cleared a large enough space between ourselves and the now lagging Portin squad. “How did they even get out here? Any group smaller than an army would be easily wiped-out trekking through the wilds from one city to another…”