Feral Mage Book 2: Chapter 4

Bryce and the girls followed the maid to the second floor of the towerhouse, Omelet struggling against his leash as Vex pulled him along. This floor was less decorated, but had a small common room with seating and several doors that Bryce figured were the guest rooms. Sure enough, the maid gestured to one of the rooms as she turned toward him.

“This will be your room for your stay with the Baroness. Please let me know if there’s anything you require,” the maid said with a bow.

“Thank you,” Bryce said, already moving toward the door.

He had grabbed the handle and started turning it when the maid called back out.

“Umm, Miss Wolfkin, you’re room is over there—”

The brushing of a tail against his back told him Vex was right behind him and had turned around to glare at the maid.

“My Bryce!” Vex stated.

A sigh escaped Bryce as he finished turning the door knob and swung it open. He wasn’t even going to look back at the stunned expression on the maid.

“Sorry about Vex, she’s very possessive of her mate,” Janna said with a small laugh to the maid. “I would love for you to show me my room. Especially if it’s farther away from theirs.”

The room looked like one of the ones Bryce would stay in for a few weeks when he had completed a big job and had the extra coins to spend. There was a large canopy bed, a separate room with a wash basin, and a window that overlooked the small settlement outside the keep. There was also a dresser and a chest for their gear. Even from the door, Bryce could tell the mattress was stuffed with something far softer than the hay ones he usually slept on at inns. He heard the door close and caught movement rushing toward the bed.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Bryce said as he grabbed Omelet’s leash.

The tension was enough with the little monster’s momentum that Omelet flipped over onto his back. He stared at Bryce, clearly unhappy about being stopped.

“You’d destroy that mattress in a heartbeat,” Bryce cursed.

He was too busy glaring at the griffin chick, he didn’t see Vex running toward the bed and launching herself into the air. Bryce gritted his teeth as he heard the bed frame creak and saw a few goose feathers bursting from the mattress to float in the air.

“Soft!” Vex’s muffled voice exclaimed from where she was rubbing her face into a pillow.

She will break that bed, and I’ll be working as muscle for the Baroness to pay back the debt.

Bryce didn’t say anything, though. Instead, he hooked Omelet’s leash to the door and made his way to the bed, plopping down on it beside Vex, though far more gently. He felt his body sink into it, and for the first time, he actually thought a mattress could be too soft.

It reminded him of the time he fought a Poisonous King Toad in the swamps near Havenport. The ground was so saturated with water that he would start sinking into it if he stopped moving. He had wanted that monster. Its hide was covered in spikes that excreted poison and seemed like a potentially good Aspect. Unfortunately, after he had dealt a few deep wounds to the carriage-sized toad, it dug into the soft soil and vanished. Bryce had camped out in that swamp for three days trying to find it again. Either it got away or succumbed to its wounds underground. The sound of the door opening broke Bryce from the memory.

“Geeze, didn’t figure you two would start right away,” Janna’s voice called out. “Do you want me to come back later? Or are we discussing Baroness Julia’s offer now?”

“Bed. Soft.” Vex mumbled, her face still buried. “Go away, stupid fox!”

Bryce heard footsteps and turned to see Janna launching herself onto the bed and on top of Vex. The kitsune grabbed a pillow and pushed it over Vex’s head, causing the wolfkin to flail about.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me a that, you mangy mutt!” Janna growled.

Bryce watched the two girls play fight. Eventually, Vex threw the fox off her and drew a deep breath before grabbing a feather pillow and hurling it at Janna on the floor. She then jumped from the bed on top of the fox. He saw a handful of feathers float down through the air.

“All right! Settle down, you two, or I’m kicking you both out, and Omelet and I can discuss what to do,” Bryce stated.

Both Janna and Vex turned to look at him, ears perked and expression blank as if he had just said the stupidest thing possible. The girls looked at each other, then both threw a pillow at him.

Bryce moved the conversation to the common area on their floor since it offered seating and was pillow-free. If they wanted to be discreet, Vex and Janna could also hear when a maid was coming.

“So what’s the plan?” Janna asked.

Bryce looked at both Janna and Vex. The old him wanted to take the job. He didn’t doubt the Baroness would pay well, and they could use the coin. The new him wanted the girls nowhere near a mess like this.

“We’ll stay the night, then head out in the morning,” Bryce stated. “I don’t think we should take Baroness Julia’s offer.”

Both the girls’ ears went flat.

“Why not?” Janna asked.

Bryce’s gaze rested on the copper dog tag that hung from Janna’s neck. Vex wore a similar one. The dog tags marked both girls as entry-level members of the mercenary guild.

“This job would probably be iron rank at the guild, with a team. Perhaps even steel rank depending on what Mark can dig up on the people hired to do the raiding. This is too risky for us,” he answered.

Janna pouted.

“But…” the kitsune started to say.

“Bryce is right,” Vex said, pointing at the steel dog tag that hung from his neck.

Janna stared at the tag for a moment, then nodded in agreement. They would leave tomorrow.

Callie

The dried leaves crunched under Callie’s foot as she dashed through the forest in the early morning air. She had no idea if she was closer to the Red Pine Kingdom or the remnants of the Winter Kingdom. All she knew was the Hunters had found her. Movement caught her eye on the right, and she cursed as she pulled on her Bloodline of Thorns.

An elven man with a wicked smile stepped from behind a tree in front of her, armed with a spear. Callie was still in a full run when the man jabbed the weapon at her.

The spearhead slid past Callie, nicking her skin through an exposed section of her armor. The good steel she had originally been wearing when she came to the Red Pine Kingdom was now rusted and barely holding together. Countless ambushes had damaged it in the weeks since these bastards had started hunting her.

The elven spearman paled as Callie dodged the attack and plunged her sword into the man’s abdomen. She twisted the blade as he screamed and turned him toward her right. That was where she had spotted the movement. The twang of the string still sounded over the man’s screams, only for them to shift to gurgles as a bolt slammed through his back into his lungs.

“Damn it!” the human crossbowman yelled from a small incline. He hurriedly worked to load another bolt.

Callie wrenched her blade free from the elven man’s chest, letting the corpse fall to the ground as she took his spear and hurled it. The crossbowman abandoned his weapon and started to run, the spear grazing his back as he vanished over the incline.

“Coward,” Callie growled as she gave chase. A dead enemy today was one less to worry about tomorrow.

She saw his body lying in a pool of blood once she made it to the peak of the incline, his head was a caved-in mess. A human woman stood not far from the body wearing a set of plate armor. She held a shield and a blood-dripping flail in her hands.

“The organization has no use for cowards,” the woman said with a smile.

Callie looked the woman up and down. She was about the same build as herself, at least from a quick glance. That was good.

She’s not wearing a helmet.

“So far, that’s all I’ve seen in this ‘organization’,” Callie answered.

She knelt to pick up the spear, grabbing a palm-sized stone as well, and slipped it into a pouch on her belt. She stood and approached the human woman, spear in one hand and sword in the other.

“One must separate the chaff from the wheat. That’s what the Hunters are, a test for those who wish to join the organization. Once I turn in your head, I’ll become a full-fledged member,” the woman said, then started to say a prayer.

Paladin, as if it mattered.

The flail illuminated with a golden glow, the color the paladin associated with their deity. Faith magic was strange. Many people pointed to it as proof of the existence of various gods and goddesses. Others believed it was just the individual’s faith that created spells through a combination of their soul magic and ambient magic from the world. A scholar once claimed to have tested this by worshiping a wheel of cheese and performing rituals to it. He is said to have succeeded in casting faith magic by praying to it. Though the university responded by kicking him out and devouring his god with bread and wine.

The paladin spun the chain of the flail in the air. The golden glow growing brighter on the spike ball at the end of it. Then a bright ball of faith magic shot from it toward Callie, forcing her to dodge left to avoid it. She felt bits of earth hit her side where the spell had struck the ground.

“You will pay for what you did to agent Erica,” the paladin yelled.

Three more balls of faith magic flew from the weapon as Callie watched it. It seemed there was a certain number of rotations it had to make before the spell would launch. Before the fourth spell launched, Callie stopped dodging and made her strike.

She threw the spear at the paladin as her other hand slipped into the pouch, where she had placed the stone. As she expected, the shield batted the spear away.

“Pathetic. I expected more from the Frozen Rose—”

The paladin’s head whipped back as the stone struck her forehead. The golden glow on her weapon faded as she tipped backwards and fell to the ground.

“Idiot,” Callie huffed as she approached the unconscious woman.

The bitch didn’t stir until after Callie had stripped her of the plate armor. By then, she was tied securely to a dead pine tree. The dried needles were piled on top of her. She glared up at Callie, who was now wearing the woman’s armor.

“Kill me. I’m not going to talk,” the paladin growled, blood trickling down her forehead where the rock had struck her.

Callie tugged on the gauntlet over her hand. It was a little loose and heavier armor than what she typically wore, but it was better than the damaged set she had been wearing.

“Sure. I’m not very fond of torture,” Callie answered as she took a flask and poured oil onto the pine needles covering the woman’s bare legs.

“Wait…what are you doing?” the paladin asked, her stoic demeanor cracking with a hint of fear.

“Killing you. You Hunters have been a pain in my ass for weeks, I’m going to enjoy watching you burn,” Callie answered as she knelt down by the needles, taking out her flint and steel. “Pine burns hot and fast, so don’t expect the smoke to kill you before the flames cook you partway through.”

The paladin’s legs started to kick at the dead foliage around them, but there was too much, and most of it just ended under her.

“Stop!” the woman cried out. “Please, don’t burn me!”

Callie looked up at her, still holding the flint and steel in a position ready to strike.

“What do you want to know?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Have you found Bryce and his companions?” Callie asked.

The paladin shook her head.

“He escaped back into the human Kingdoms before we could locate him. Word has been sent by the organization to hunters in those Kingdoms to be on the lookout for him, but you’re the higher profile target.”

Good. 

No mention of Alice, so either the organization doesn’t know who she is, or isn’t telling their grunts.

“I was traveling with a dwarf mercenary. We parted ways weeks ago. What has happened to him?” Callie demanded.

The paladin fought against the bindings, then let out a sob.

“We found him, but he went to ground, literally. He crawled into a cave system, and we’ve been unable to flush him out. A group of hunters has set up camp by it.”

 So Darren is alive. 

When she learned Bryce had escaped with Alice, she had tried to convince the dwarf to help her find her again, but he had refused. She could tell the fool still believed the corpse was Alice.

“Where?” Callie asked.

Once the paladin told her the place, Callie stood.

“Thank you,” Callie said as she slipped the flint and steel back into her pouch.

She then picked up the flail and whipped the spiked steel ball at the woman’s head. Blood splattered the trunk of the dead pine as the paladin’s body went limp.

Callie kept her word. She hadn’t burned the woman. She did her best to always keep her word, but to the letter. Something she would remind Bryce of when she found him again. She gave her word she would stop trying to kill him, but with that Aspect that healed his wounds, she could do a lot to him without fear of his death. Callie licked her lips. Given the stunt he pulled with Alice, Bryce had a lot to pay for.