by J. T. Wright
“Fine! But you better…” Tersa didn’t know how to finish that thought. Cullen would survive, that wasn’t in doubt. The Sergeant probably wouldn’t appreciate it if she demanded he come back with a good story and a souvenir.
“Flaming piss! Come on, Trent. Let’s go.”
Trent nodded and moved to follow the retreating Recruit. He didn’t miss the flicker of astonishment Cullen shot him before he left. The Sergeant had forgotten about him again. Cullen’s orders had been strictly for Tersa; Trent’s safety never crossed his mind.
Cullen didn’t waste time contemplating the small masked Swordsman’s presence. That… runt… was supposed to be here. Of course, he was. He was just easy to miss because he was quiet and short. Never mind that the boy stood head and shoulders taller than Tersa. He was a Recruit? Had to be a Recruit. His name would come to Cullen later.
Right now, Cullen had to focus on a Beast that absolutely should not be here. Greater Ice Serpents roamed snow-swept plains and mountain ranges where spring never gained a foothold. They thrived in cold environments and inhabited caves they dug in glaciers. They did not lounge in forests or hunt Horned Hares in autumn temperatures.
This area couldn’t support a predator like the Greater Ice Serpent. High-leveled Beasts, like high-leveled Adventurers, needed to fight creatures of a similar Level if they wanted to grow. This Serpent could kill every Beast for a hundred miles and never level once.
It wasn’t unheard of for a high-leveled Beast to wander into a low-leveled zone. It happened from time to time. For most places in the Al’verren Kingdom, the appearance of this Serpent would be a catastrophe. Whole villages would be consumed by the giant snake, Adventurers would die in droves before it would be brought down.
In the Al'dross territory, Lewis employed Diviners to be on the lookout for Beasts like this. The only Seer Cullen had ever met ran a shop in Al’drossford. She was a horrible, disgusting, old woman, but she would have seen the Serpent long before it came close and alerted the Duke. The regular members of the Guard would be ordered to fall back and secure the territory while Cullen, Taylor, Lewis, or another member of the Duke’s companions met the irregular monster.
It bothered Cullen that the Serpent was out of its element. It annoyed him that he hadn’t had any forewarning. It occurred to the Sergeant that this Serpent might be further punishment sent by Terah to punish Tersa and he worried that the girl, and Trent, might be facing troubles of their own.
Most of all, Cullen felt excitement. This Serpent was a better opponent than the Dread Knight from the Land of the Undying Lord had been. If the goddess had sent the Beast, then Terah was going to lose a pet today. She could only blame herself. Cullen was hesitant to destroy a golem in a temple. He would have no regrets killing a Serpent in the forest.
The icy zone around the Serpent continued to grow. Cullen was in no hurry. He stretched his wrists and met the black soulless gaze of the Serpent with a hard look of his own. This was all part of the game. Beasts of this Level had Intelligence. They used magic and Skills and could be a real handful. It was only fair to let them know the mess they had walked into before you cut off their heads.
“Equip.”
Armor covered Cullen in an instant. The armor was made of hardened Beast skins, colored in shades of pale blue, instead of his preferred black plate. The leather was enchanted against ice spells and would be more useful in this situation. The suit had nearly the same armor rating as the plate, but its color wasn’t as intimidating.
Storage was a rare Ability for working Adventurers. It could be sold to merchants and nobles for ungodly sums. Adventurers were too greedy to keep the Ability for themselves. Dozens of Storage devices could be purchased with the money gained. Most thought those devices were good enough. Most Adventurers were stupid.
Storage devices didn’t hold a candle to the Ability from whence they took their name. Storage could be leveled, and once it was, all sorts of interesting features became available. Cullen had been starving and destitute when he found the Stone that gave him this Ability. Not selling it was one of the best decisions he had ever made.
How could money compare to the Armory function of Storage? With one word, Cullen could equip any of the suits of armor or weapons he had gathered over years of adventuring. No need for rings or accessories to hold the tools of his trade. No searching through devices for the right weapon in an emergency. Storage had saved his life many times.
“Equip Peacemaker.”
The weight of the double-bladed battle axe would send a lesser man to his knees. Cullen held it easily in one hand. He twisted his wrist, turning the axe from side to side, letting the Serpent get a good look at what was coming for it. It wasn’t the ideal weapon for killing a Greater Ice Serpent, but Cullen had already given up his preferred armor. That was the last sacrifice he would make today.
Cullen was the first to move. His figure blurred as he shot towards the Serpent. Before he had crossed a quarter of the clearing, the Serpent sprung towards him. Cullen was disappointed by its actions. The temperature must be affecting its reason. The Beast was thirty feet long, but it could only strike at half that distance. It had moved too early.
Everyone makes mistakes. Cullen realized his when the Serpent reached him long before he was ready to swing Peacemaker. It was a Skill; the Serpent’s first attack had been a Skill that greatly increased its striking range. Cullen swore as he brought his axe in position to shield his body.
Cullen was used to looming over others. It had been a long time since he had faced an opponent who made him feel so small. The Serpent’s head alone dwarfed the Sergeant’s body. Using a Skill of his own, Cullen stomped against the earth and launched himself into the air. He avoided the snake’s open jaws, and the Beast’s nose slammed into the flat side of Peacemaker’s blade.
Cullen was thrown backward, all his forward progress lost. A helpful tree stopped him from leaving the clearing. That was good; he didn’t want the snake to think he was running. Not so good for the tree though. Its trunk snapped under the impact of the airborne Sergeant and fell to the ground with a crash. It was only the first casualty of the battle.
Cullen’s knees bent as his feet touched down. There was no time to groan or complain. The Serpent was already slithering towards him, spitting ice. Cullen charged to meet it head-on. Bellowing a war cry not fit for the ears of children, the Guardsman’s action caused the Serpent to slow. At Level 200, the Greater Ice Serpent was not used to seeing such small prey shake off its assault.
Stupid, cowardly worm! Cullen cursed the snake in his heart. Its hesitation had thrown off his stride. He dodged too soon and activated his Skilled strike a little too early. Trent would have recognized the Long Slash Cullen employed. Cullen was a big believer in starting with the basics. However, Trent’s jaw would have dropped at the results of the Sergeant’s Skill.
When Trent used Long Slash, the Skill dealt minor damage and carried him five feet or so forward. Cullen traveled almost the full length of the Greater Ice Serpent, nearly thirty feet, and Peacemaker dug a furrow in the Beast’s hide. Scales, skin, and blood flew as the great axe carved away.
Cullen was not satisfied. Long Slash should have carried him past the thrice-damned snake! Instead, he stood next to the tip of its tail, a highly vulnerable place, as a snake this size used its whole body as a weapon. There was only one thing to do in this situation.
“If you want to fight, then fight.” Peacemaker went up and came flashing down. Cullen kicked away the two feet of tail he had severed. “I didn’t get all dressed up to dance! Quit fucking around!”
Cullen shifted his axe to his left hand. The Serpent writhed in pain. Blood sprayed Cullen from the wound he had inflicted as the Beast’s shortened body whipped by him inches away. Enraged, the Serpent’s head came striking towards the Sergeant. Icy mist and forked tongue lashed out towards the furious Guardsman, as three-foot fangs reached for him.
The Serpent’s jaws snapped shut, and blood fille
d its mouth. There was no comforting taste of axman flesh to accompany the blood when the Serpent swallowed. Only pain! The axman was nowhere to be seen, but the Serpent’s tongue was easily spotted, laying red and lifeless several feet away in the green grass.
The Serpent had no time to contemplate this result. Cullen owed it for the hit he had taken at the beginning. Peacemaker was a wonderful axe, but sometimes you had to get closer and use your own hands to make your point. It was a shame, really. It meant he had to use an Advanced Skill sooner than he preferred.
A white-hot flame covered the hand that Cullen swung against the snake’s midriff. Fist of the Fire God impacted the snake a third of the way down its body from its head. The amount of Stamina and Mana used by that Skill would have completely drained the combined MP and SP of Tersa and Trent. Cullen hardly felt the loss.
What Cullen did feel was a brief sense of accomplishment as the Serpent was given the same treatment it had inflicted on him. This accomplishment was lessened when the back half of the snake’s folding body caught him unawares and sent him flying as well. Four more trees heroically gave their lives to stop the momentum of Serpent and Sergeant.
Cullen picked himself up with a snarl. There was no landing on his feet this time. He spat dirt, and his fingers touched a freely bleeding cut on his forehead. He was glad he had sent Tersa away. At the time, it was because the Serpent’s icy breath could kill the Recruit in an instant. Now, it was because anyone who saw what had just happened would think he was slipping.
“Ambushing son of a bitch!” Cullen roared. “You want to play games! I'll show you how to play games!”
The stunned, burned, and bleeding Serpent coiled itself after breaking free from the broken tree trunk it was twisted around. It shot the Sergeant the most appalled look its face could form. The Greater Ice Serpent could understand the Common Tongue. It could even speak it, up until Cullen cut its tongue off.
To the Serpent, it sounded like the human was blaming it for what had happened! For the first time in its life, the Greater Ice Serpent wanted to explain itself to its prey. If it had still been capable of speaking, it would have hissed that it didn’t even know what had happened. It hadn’t intentionally struck the human!
There was no time for explanations. The axman was already coming for it. Curled up, the Serpent began spitting shards of hardened ice. It had no desire to close with the human again and fell back to using ranged attacks. It increased the amount of icy mist it produced, in order to slow the Guardsman down, as it hurled its attacks.
It was no use. Without a tongue, the Serpent had difficulty aiming its ice bolts. The human dodged its shards and never seemed to notice the air growing cold or his footing becoming slick. The axe in Cullen’s hand grew impossibly big to the Serpent as the weapon came for it.
The Greater Ice Serpent fled. It used its Enhanced Strike Skill, the Skill that had launched the Sergeant at first, to fling itself away from the monster coming for it. The snake didn’t have anything invested in this fight. It didn’t even know why it was here.
It had been sleeping in its den, surrounded by snow, stomach filled by a successful hunt. It had felt the sealing magic that had imprisoned it but was helpless to resist. The next thing it knew, the Serpent was uncomfortably warm, in a forest it had never seen before. In its rage, it had instinctively attacked the first thing it had seen.
The Serpent’s rage had deserted it. That anger had been transferred to the human chasing it. All the snake wanted now was to return to the familiar ice plains of home and concentrate on regenerating its tongue and tail!
Cullen wasn’t in favor of that! The Serpent’s retreat fueled the Sergeant’s aggression. His fury doubled when the snake was able to stay out of range of his axe. The mist the Beast summoned should have cooled him, but the Sergeant grew hotter as he was forced to run in pursuit.
“Don’t start a fight you can’t finish, Worm! Blood and Ash! Get back here and die!”
The sound of the human's voice seemed farther away to the giant snake. It was outrunning the axman! Vision wasn’t the strongest characteristic of the Greater Ice Serpent, but it could see open grassland ahead. In the open, away from the confining trees, the Beast was confident it could escape. Just a little bit further…
The tongue-less Beast issued a garbled cry as an explosion occurred behind its head. The Serpent thrashed and struggled uselessly. It was pinned to the ground! It tried to turn its head to see what was holding it and felt its wound tearing open.
“You are so fucking done!” The human’s low rumbling voice was barely able to penetrate the Serpent’s agony-filled mind. The axman stood in front of the Beast, that hateful weapon in hand. Hadn’t the Serpent outdistanced him? The Beast tried to rear up and strike, but whatever held it pinned refused to allow its head to move.
It let loose with a few more futile ice shard attacks, as the human walked towards it. None of them hit, and all too soon, the Guardsman disappeared from view again. It wouldn’t see him ever again.
The back half of the Serpent’s body blindly tried to whip towards Cullen, but the Sergeant wasn’t falling for that shit again. Timing his jump for a gap in the desperate, sinuous defense, Cullen leaped and brought Peacemaker hammering down on the Serpent between its head and where the lance he had thrown pierced the snake’s body.
Even Cullen’s Peacemaker wasn’t able to cut completely through the thickest part of the Serpent’s body with a single blow. It took three carefully timed Leaping Chops to separate the Beast’s head. It would be another hour before the Serpent’s thrashing body and snapping jaws stilled. Many trees were vanquished by the Beast’s death throes.
Cullen gained a Level from slaying the Serpent. He wasn’t too surprised by that. The Beast was Rare and at least 30 Levels higher than him. Cullen was a Dread Naught, and this battle barely fulfilled the requirements for a Level increase while just providing enough XP. He held a Legendary Class; a Rare Ranked Level 200 Beast wasn’t anything to brag about. He would, of course. Boasting was one of the best parts of being an Adventurer, but the kill left a sour taste in his mouth.
From beginning to end, if you counted the chase and the dying, the fight hadn’t lasted much more than two hours. In its natural environment, a Greater Ice Serpent was a deadly foe. Here, in warm temperatures far from home, it was deprived of many of its weapons. It wasn’t until the Beast was dead that Cullen recognized how out of its depth the snake was.
He puffed on his pipe and waited for the snake to finish dying. Dark thoughts clouded his mind. If the snake had been sent by Terah, it was poorly done, and there was no one Cullen could complain too. But Cullen suspected the goddess wasn’t to blame. An Ice Serpent wasn’t a minion of Terah’s. Someone else had a part in this but damned if Cullen knew who.
His pipe was stored, and a silver knife appeared in Cullen’s hand as the Serpent finally gave into defeat. Lots of good things on a Greater Ice Serpent, rare-ranked Beast Core, skin, heart, meat, all had their uses. He mustn’t forget to retrieve the Beast’s tongue from the clearing. It would be a shame if something ate it while he was busy.
Lieutenant Alistern Craw would have snarled if he had been there to see how quickly and neatly the Sergeant Harvested his prey. Cullen was pleased by the bounty the snake provided. It wasn’t until he picked up the forked tongue back in the clearing that he remembered he hadn’t been traveling alone.
When he did recall Tersa and… the other one… the coldness the Sergeant emitted was chill enough to put the Ice Serpent to shame. There were games being played here. Games Cullen hadn’t initiated. Gods preserve the bastard responsible if the Sergeant got his hands on whoever had!
Chapter 20
“I told ya this was the right way!” Tersa declared stepping out of the trees onto the road they had been sent to “You never want to listen to me, but I know stuff! Lots of stuff!”
Trent ignored his friend’s bragging. The truth was, Tersa had tried to get him to leave the trail and take a sho
rtcut no less than five times. Citing her new Advanced Class and the superior instincts it brought as the basis for her course corrections, she would confidently point in a direction and call for Trent to come along. If he had followed her, they would have been miles away, completely lost.
Trusting in his Map Ability more than Tersa, Trent had stuck to the trail. The path wandered and drifted through the forest, but his Ability said it was leading them more or less to the east. Tersa seemed determined to head north. Only his silent refusal to trundle after her kept Tersa trudging behind him. His silence didn’t prevent her from complaining about his lack of faith, though.
Now they were standing on a road, if you wanted to call it that. The long but narrow break in the trees hardly compared to the well-maintained roads of the Al’dross territory. Deeply rutted from travelers and washed out by seasonal storms, Trent thought it would be more difficult to walk along this track than it had been the meandering trail.
Was this how the various territories of the kingdom were connected? Thinking of the supply wagon the Guardsmen had brought on their training expedition, Trent couldn’t imagine even that sturdy vehicle navigating this mess. How did merchant convoys and Adventurers manage?
Trent’s questions were cleared up sooner than he expected. He was looking towards the southwest, the direction Map told him Al’drossford lay. Neither the alertness he had developed in the Land of the Undying Lord nor his new Attribute, Perception, served him in this instance. When a voice sounded behind him, Trent whirled, startled, and drew his sword.
“Young master! Young miss! Well met! We are well met, indeed!”
Trent wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he spun. Tersa, only slightly slower in responding than Trent, wasn’t either. Her axe, Cleaver, which she had carried constantly since acquiring it, came up, only to be lowered again. Cleaver had vanquished numerous branches and bushes on their journey from the clearing to the road, but now, its blade looked dull, and its size felt insignificant in her hands.