by Rhys Thomas
Fork’s original owner on the other hand, shakily wiped his mouth and face smearing blood across them. He moved over to re-join the fight, ignoring his friends dying plea. The fucker then picked up my falchion and grinned menacingly at me.
I felt anger at myself for not having the foresight to warp the weapon to my inventory. Kukri still stood patiently behind them, waiting.
I blew out a steadying breath.
I took hint at hammer’s heavy breathing and thought that maybe our exchange and the adrenaline had taken more out of him than me. The fork-fucker with his greasy hands on my falchion was practically jittering and bouncing on the spot.
They moved together by some unspoken agreement, which told trouble for me, worse was that Kukri started to move out wide and to my right.
I felt like I knew this tactic. Kukri knew that her unspoken presence would draw my attention away from the men. The instant I did either, the other would bash me over the head or cut my throat.
That all ended the instant an arrow jutted through fork’s neck.
He stalled and stumbled further forward; his eyes wide and frightful, looking from me to hammer in surprise. The arrow moved with the twist of his head as blood leaked from the wound and then he fell flat on his face, the shaft snapping as he did so.
We all immediately stopped. The intruder worrying each of us.
I for one was feeling like a bastard and drove forward leading with my longsword. I stabbed out through hammer’s thigh nicking the skin of his opposite leg with the tip of my sword. No longer distracted he yelped in pain and tried to withdraw, bringing his hammer around in a horizontal swipe.
But his newly acquired injury threw him off balance and his swing when widely skywards as he fell to his ass. I rushed in swinging my sword like a baseball-bat severing both of his hands at the wrist as he finished his own swing. The hammer sailed off behind him by a few feet, blood spurted from the meaty end of his stumps caused by my bisection.
He gave a shrill scream and promptly fainted.
I gave him a quicker end by moving around and burying the tip of my longsword through his forehead. Leaving the sword there I fell back on my ass and just breathed. The scent around me was strongly metallic and made me queasy. I ignored Kukri woman whom seemed to have her attention focused elsewhere, most likely on our new guest. For me though; I stared at my hand’s as they shook.
The jade green of my runes were alight and glinting a wet murky orange reflection cast by the blazing farmhouse behind me and marred by the downpour of rain. I was soaked through and feeling suddenly tired.
“What a fucking start to my adventure,” I shook my head slowly in anger and disappointment. My emotions were projected at this world. It’s only saving grace so far had been the fact that Marisa was accompanying me.
The kukri wielding woman was twisting in circles now, trying the discern where the newcomer was. The answer came a second later from our left in the treeline. When the Kukri woman knocked aside an arrow streaking towards her so blindingly fast that I barely registered the move till the arrow was propelled past her and into a nearby tree with a splintering thwack!
Kukri lowered her stance as the new assailant burst through the tree line, sailing about 15-feet through the air. Launched from some sort of inky black sling that trailed out from behind her. At the precipice of the figure’s momentous jump they swung their hand into a chopping motion. A heartbeat later the black trail shot up and arched over the figure, swinging overhead.
Then a breath later a dark steeled axe head buried itself in the ground between me and Kukri. The figure then pulled the trail taut and was slung forward over the distance to land in a rolling crouch by us and retrieve the embedded axe.
I stared at the impossibly tight ass of my ‘supposed protector’ figuring this person for a woman, I couldn’t help but admired the tight dark-green leathers she wore. Though the tight leather breeches and knee-high boots she wore were black and hugged her glorious ass and long legs in a death grip.
She was also hooded, and with her back to me.
From there I looked, I squinted at the Kukri-woman and saw recognition in her eyes, recognition and uncertainty. I gathered that my saviour—if she could be called that—had thought me some muscled damsel in distress. Trying to flee my home when Scar and his buddies burned it down to draw me out. From there it was nothing but verbal abuse and then a fight with shitty odd’s.
“What’s a Valakhari doing here? Ain’t you suppose be in seclusion,” spat the Kukri wielder.
The hooded figure didn’t reply though. My head was spinning, my thoughts jumping rapidly. Valakhari, why does that sound familiar? The woman in front of me pivoted and readied her single bladed axe. Kukri sighed, spat on the ground and turned about fleeing into the woods.
My eyebrows were climbing pretty high at that, a groan off to my right alerted me that the pudgy-cleaver man was still alive. Though at this point he was lying flat on his back, the digging fork planted like some morbid flag for the people of the land in his gut.
I felt the calm coldness of the situation settle on me once again and a shudder ran through me involuntarily.
I always finish what I started.
Chapter Five
A quick death later and I withdrew my newly acquired longsword from cleaver’s head, having punctured the man’s ticket—or head, which ever you prefer.
Moving back to Scar’s body I started withdrawing the shoulder scabbard he wore. “Thank you,” I told the female stranger as I passed her by. “I really wasn’t in the mood to die today.”
I caught a glimpse of her front as I crouched down to loot Scar. Her face was mostly concealed by a dark purple cotton scarf. Striking violet eyes narrowed in my direction. I noticed a strand of black hair caress her forehead. After removing Scar’s scabbard, I sheathed the longsword and placed it on the ground. The rain was thankfully lessening now. It had doused the majority of the inferno tearing up the farmhouse.
I wasn’t about to start warping stuff to my inventory, nor would I remove my cloak to strap on the sheath.
Marisa was still soundly asleep, and until she was awake and could defend herself, I wouldn’t trust another soul around her.
“Why they even trying to fight in the first place?” she asked me, spinning her axe idly, the weapon emitting a breezy humming tone. Her accent had a vague Eastern-European lilt to it and was super sultry. The way she pronounced her word’s made me suspect that the language we were currently speaking was not her native one.
Now that I thought about it, Ra’al had mentioned that I myself would be able to speak all the languages within his domains.
The question was, how would I even tell which language I was speaking? “Would you believe me if I claimed mistaken identity?” I responded and her hooded head tilted for me to explain further.
“Those assholes,” I started, waving vaguely at the bodies around us. “There were more of them. Well, their leader this idiot here—Scar,” I said patting the dead body beneath me as I attempted to remove his armour. Who knew how many fastenings leather armour had.
“Well he and his crew of spectacular-something’s, thought I had stolen a stash of weapons and hid them—they were quite adamant about it really. Then they confronted me, from there it just sort of escalated.”
“Escalated?” she repeated my word back to me nodding.
“So, what brings you to this part of the woods? Oh, quick question, this doesn’t happen to be your house by any chance?” I asked her, hooking a thumb at the burning remains.
Looking to the cindering structure of lumber she shook her, “no. My home is far from here,” the woman replied looking to the west, back the way I’d come.
I grunted and finally loosen the fastening’s on Scar’s leather gambeson, the protective padding wouldn’t completely halt a sword’s point. After-all you couldn’t wear armour everywhere, there were weaknesses and gap’s that could be exploited in just about anything, especially at the joints
. That bit of knowledge froze me to the spot for a half second as I tried to figure out where it had come from. Shrugging and scratching at my cheek. I mentally listed what would be most preferable to equip myself with. Steel and leather brigandine armour to cover my torso, steel vambraces for my arms, glove’s and leather greaves.
I figured at the moment my speed and surprising strength were enough to keep me from falling into any serious danger.
I was strong, even more so than my muscular frame and height suggested. Another thought though, was my abnormal stamina rating, what exactly constituted a stamina abnormality? I hadn’t so much as felt a yawn since waking up. I’d fought and only felt mentally fatigued from the fight. Did it mean I could endure more and harsher punishments? All question’s and no answer’s to show for.
Marisa had stated that come daybreak tomorrow, I would once again suffer the intake of power. Oh shit. I’ve been on this world, but a few hours and I’ve killed how many people? Even those I indirectly killed like with the trapper.
Six? What a day.
Stripping Scar bear down to his skivvy’s proved rather comforting in its distracting meticulous way. I again laid everything off to the side but slid the vambraces with the scarred eye over my forearms.
The woman was still just standing there, axe in hand. I had completed forgotten her existence for a moment there. I wasn’t completely comfortable now that I realised that she was still just observing me.
“May I help you?” I asked innocently cautious. She nodded and planted her axe in grass. Then squatted to my crouched height.
“I am looking for someone. Was supposed to meet with them, though they did not know this,” she started to explain.
I couldn’t help but let my imagination wonder if she was describing an assassination target, I mean she was an incredibly deadly woman. I could tell that simply by looking at her.
Though the whole mysterious masking of her identity and leather clothing screamed Kate Beckinsale—for which I was thankful— and it was sexy as fuck.
I was also unnerved by her. Because, in a way she felt comfortable enough to chat and disarm herself around me, and that could only mean one thing. She was trained in fighting—and whatever those black tendrils were—meant she didn’t see me as a threat.
She twisted her wrists and rotated her hands in a searching gesture. “I was meant to escort them back to my home, where they would help us,” she informed me.
“Well. I’m sorry to hear that—truly. But I haven’t really seen anyone other my buddy’s here—and a few at the beach. Or barrier… Whatever they call it.”
“You sound…” she waved her hands again, searching. “Unfamiliar with this territory,” she noted.
I chuckled bitterly, “you have no idea how far from home I am.” I felt a pang of regret that I would most likely never see Earth again. No books or video games, TV and movies. The familiar sounds of the motorist clogging up the road outside my shitty apartment. The blare of my alarm clock as the vibrations drummed 6:30am at me. My hour-long breaks, spent just sat outside, listening to the activities of a daily complacent life at the back of the shop.
I mean, I was oddly comfortable here in this situation. I just felt bitter that I hadn’t really had a choice.
“I understand. I as well am far from home, not by choice but by charge and sign.”
I scratched at my cheek, feeling a numbness settle along my lower-back and for a moment my mind flashed to the car and the pain as it slammed into me folding me in two over the hood. “So, you were tasked to escort someone who didn’t know you were coming because the person who sent you saw a… Sign?” I asked her, my tone unintentionally dry.
The hooded woman tilted her head and more strands of black hair fell out to the side of her masked face. Her eye’s then scrunched in anger and annoyance, “the way you say it, makes me sound like a fool on an errant,” she huffed angrily.
I raised my hand’s in apology, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or to be rude. It’s just... It’s been a long, and rough couple of hours is all.”
“The person I’m searching for, was supposed to have… Fallen- uh you wouldn’t understand,” she said the latter part quietly to herself.
“Fallen, as in falling over? Like an accident?” I wasn’t sure what to make of this woman. She was either some kind of an assassin or part of some medieval legal support team for those making a workplace claims. Mentally chuckling at the very notion, I realised too late that she had become deathly quiet.
Her posture was completely ridged and the guarded expression her eyes gave me was fierce as her hand slowly claimed the wooden shaft of her axe.
The chestnut coloured shaft was bent in a smooth curve at about ¾’s of the way down to the pommel, where it was wrapped in dark-red leather strips.
My own hands were twitching with the itch of cold air. The hooded woman didn’t immediately retrieve her axe however instead she asked me an absurd question, “how do you know my order’s language, Haroxian man?” Practically hissing the words at me and I could actually hear her teeth grinding through her covered mouth.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled unsure. “We’ve been speaking the same language this whole time, you know that right,” I pointed out, which seemed to annoy her even more.
“We are—speaking Valakharian script right now,” she growled; and I actually thought she might try to kill me over supposedly speaking her language.
“But I don’t even—oh,” I had been wondering how I could possibly understand all the language’s within Ra’al domain’s.
Now that I actually considered it, what if the Scar and his crew had been speaking a different dialect all along, my voice and words sounded like spoken English, but what if they weren’t projected verbally as such.
“So, to be absolutely clear?” I started quickly raising a finger and paused as her axe snapped upward twirled and settle into her grip head rested on her shoulder, she stood up and readied herself.
I raised an eyebrow and sighed. People saw such little in each other here. Not that I could really blame them. I had been attack unprovoked twice now. Or was it unprovoked? There was also the comment she’d made, calling me Haroxian like it separated us from each other. Like different races and such.
“To clarify, we are currently speaking your language what did you call it? Valachians?”
“Valakharian,” she immediately corrected me, her hot accent coming on thick as she did so.
“Valakharian, right. Sorry. Could you do me favour though and speak the language we were using before?”
I was genuinely curious about the transition between the two and if I could notice the difference or not. After a solid minute of silence passed, I apologetically lower my hand a fraction, “please?” She sighed at me—It was a long good sigh as well—her whole body moving with the motion.
“Is this what you want?” She frowned asking.
“You’re… Speaking the previous language now?”
She nodded.
“Am I also speaking the same?” again she nodded. “Well fuck, that’s fascinating and utterly frustrating.”
There was no discernible gap that I could noticed. It was just all one language to me. I immediately knew with every molecule of my being that this gift was just as much a cruse in the disguise of a blessing. What about sign languages? Would I immediately know them well?
*Shut up… Stop thinking. Your mind is so crowded that your thought’s are passing over to me,* Marisa grouched mentally at me. I had the force of will to school my features as I was immediately flooded with relief at her conscious presence.
“Morning to you to grumpy,” I replied without thinking. Well shit. Reaching up under my cloak to scratch her along her jaw. She gave a sleepy purr and blinked her big orange eyes at me. I smiled and rubbed my head against her own.
“What is that?” Asked the woman breathlessly as she practically fell away from us.
*Can I- we trust her? I almost certain this person
she’s meant to escort is me as well,* I asked Marisa. She poked her feathered head out even further from my beneath cloak and peered at the hooded woman with a tilt of head.
*Yes,* she replied finally. *Though she is not whom she believes herself to be. She is of Fae blood, though isn’t aware. Her wings have been fused to her back as well, though again does not know this. Al, she was send by her father, who in turn received a sign about you from Ra’al.*
I nodded processing that, wondering how Marisa managed to gleam so much information and looked to the woman as I stood to my full height where she now only came to about my chest. “Before when I mentioned I was pretty far from home. Well imagine—otherworldly. My name is Alaric Rosen by the way, and I fell into your world from up there.” I finished by pointing a finger skyward, in all honesty I was going for the suave roguish Han Solo. So, I gave her my most disarming smile and stuck my hand out like an idiot missing the point. The woman just ignore my hand like one does shit 10metres in front of them.
No instead she clapped her axe against her back where it hung on a ‘U’ shaped hoop, lowered her hood and uncovered her face.
Her features were strikingly sharp and shockingly beautiful. Where Marisa’s face was heart shaped and tender. This woman’s; were focused and steely.
Yet none of that touched on her beauty, snow pale skin like ivory with perfect red lips. Her violet eyes were a tad angular and partly hidden by the veil of black silken hair as she swept it aside. Her hair was strands of shadow in the moonlight and as dark as the void of space.
You get my point.
Her high angular cheek bones were a faint red from the cold—which I still couldn’t feel—and she ducked her head in a nod. “I am Ariana Jessem, scout and ranger of the Valakharian order’s fourth circle,” she announced proudly.
At the mention of Ariana surname, Marisa head whipped up and stared at the scout. Ariana flinched and but didn’t shied away from the draconic phoenix’s scrutiny.