Feral Mage Book 2: Chapter 1

Bryce drew a deep breath of the morning air as his eyes opened to the canopy of tree branches above him in the morning light. He should probably get up. They were on a contract after all, but the woman next to him was still asleep.

He smiled once his gaze drifted from the canopy to Vex sleeping soundly against him in his bedroll. Well, now their bedroll, he guessed. She still had one, but it usually remained in the back of the wagon. Her wolf ear twitched as he exhaled a breath, and she snuggled closer to him. Nearly a month had passed since he had barged into the fighting pit to save her, and the two of them became lovers. He felt light footsteps on the bedroll, but didn’t break his gaze from Vex.

She really has changed my lif— 

“Bleh.”

Bryce’s head turned from Vex to see Omelet standing on him, the griffin chick panting like a dog. Then slowly, he looked at the dead rat that said chicken dog had just dropped on his chest. He felt Vex stir as he stared at it.

“Good hunter, Omelet!” Vex gasped.

She slipped out of the bedroll and lifted the griffin into the air while praising him. The little bastard’s tail was wagging.

“Yeah, my life has changed,” Bryce said softly.

He grabbed the rat’s carcass by the tail, stood, and flung it out into the woods. Then he looked over the bedroll for any blood, which he found and groaned at the fact that he would now have to wash it.

“What was that?” Janna asked, still in her bedroll.

“Omelet hunted!” Vex answered excitedly.

Bryce moved to the back of the wagon, grabbing a canteen to wash up before starting breakfast.

“Either an overgrown rat or the pup of a giant rat,” Bryce clarified. “Either way, not what I was wanting to wake up to.”

Janna grimaced as she rolled out of her bedroll. She made her way to the remains of last night's campfire, grabbed a few pieces of wood, and with a flick of her wrist ignited it with her pyromancy. Bryce was making his way to her with the skillet, salted bacon, bread, and eggs. Mornings like these, he missed Alice traveling with them. She had spoiled them rotten by handling the camp chores as she called them. Now she was working as a barmaid in the Witchbrook Mercenary Guildhall.

“Bacon,” Vex called out, she quickly set Omelet down and made her way to the campfire.

Bryce glared at the little bastard as he raced into the woods, in the same direction he had just thrown the dead rat. He was of half a mind to drag the griffin chick back to camp and tie him to the wagon, but Bryce had two very hungry girls with sharp canines waiting on him to get breakfast going.

“We’re close to the town for the contract, right?” Janna asked, taking a bite of her eggs.

“We’ll be there before noon today. When we arrive, we’ll scout the town and surrounding areas for signs of the bandits, then the next morning, move to the road where the ambushes have been happening,” Bryce answered, as he put more bacon on Vex’s plate.

Janna sighed as her four tails, three black and one silver, fanned out behind her.

“It will be nice to sleep at an inn with a roof over our heads,” she said, then narrowed her eyes at Vex. “And walls between us.”

Bryce grimaced. He tried to be as discreet as possible about Vex and his alone time while traveling. Usually, when the two of them slipped off to a creek to bathe together, though it didn’t do much good given Janna’s heightened sense of hearing and smell, she always knew when they had.

Vex just smiled and said a few things in beastkin.

Janna narrowed her eyes at the wolfkin.

“Want to share in a language we all understand, Vex?” Janna asked hotly.

Vex’s smile grew wider.

“No,” she said, taking another bite of bacon.

Janna sighed and shook her head. The girls got along, for the most part. Honestly, they reminded Bryce of two sisters. Always on the verge of bickering with each other, but quick to team up. Usually against him.

“We’ll rest up, but we don’t want to linger too long. If the bandits aren’t complete idiots, they’ll have someone watching the town for marks or trouble,” he said.

Bryce had just finished eating when Omelet made his way back to camp, carrying that damn dead rat. The little griffin proudly dropped it by Bryce’s feet as he finished extinguishing the embers of their campfire.

“Just don’t take a hint, do you?” Bryce said with a sigh.

Omelet just stared up at him proudly as Bryce pulled on his Primal Troll Aspect. He felt his shirt grow tight as his muscles swelled. He smiled at the little griffin as he reached down and grabbed the dead rat by the tail, then he flung it over the tree tops deep into the forests. A squawk escaped Omelet as he watched his prize fly away from him once again, this time much further.

“Alright, let’s pack it in,” Bryce said, grinning at the little bastard. Omelet glared at him as his feathers puffed out.

The contract was in a small town located in the lowlands between Brook and Witchbrook. This close to the Winter River, much of the land in the area was marshes or wetlands, with a few scant hills providing dry ground. Shitty conditions to travel in, but provide plenty of choke points for bandits. Contracts picked up in Witchbrook to deal with them were not uncommon and were one of the safer jobs, like those Bryce swore he would start taking.

The horses pulled the wagon along one of the wooden bridges that intersected the marshes, the wheels making a rhythmic clacking sound that Bryce could already see was lulling Vex to sleep. The wolfkin’s eyes would start to close as her head lowered, only to pop back up a second later, blinking the sleep from her eyes. Janna and Bryce even shared a smirk at Vex’s efforts to fight off sleep before he returned to steering the wagon, and Janna returned to reading her book.

“Bryce,” Janna said, a grim look on her face. “I smell something dead up ahead.”

 Bryce frowned as he looked ahead at their destination. A town built on one of the hills, surrounded by a stone wall. The place looked peaceful and not too dissimilar from the other dozen small towns they had passed on their journey here, then he noticed the tree.

It was a large oak just outside the town’s stone walls and was probably as old as them, if not older, given its size. Bryce could make out a plaque nailed to the massive trunk of the tree, as well as the four bodies dangling from its thick branches.

“We might have come all this way for nothing,” Bryce said with a sigh.

Sure enough, as they drew closer to the tree with the hanged men in it, Bryce read the sign.

“Hanged for highway robbery,” Bryce said to Janna. “What do you want to bet these were the bandits our contract was for?”

 Janna grimaced at the day-old corpses. The bodies had yet to start rotting, but the ravens, vultures, and other carrion hadn’t waited. The eye sockets were picked clean, and strips of flesh were torn from the corpses’ faces.

“So no pay?” Janna asked as she turned away from the gruesome sight.

Bryce shook his head.

“Just the travel fee they gave us. We’ll check in the town to make sure the contract is void. Then probably rest for the night and head back to Witchbrook.”

Janna clicked her tongue.

“Joys of the mercenary life.”

A inn was the first building they crossed upon entering the town, which Bryce and the girls stopped at.

“Yeah, those were the bastards causing the trouble. Some of the local boys found them hiding in a cave and smoked them out,” the barkeeper told Bryce as he cleaned a mug.

So the contract is washed.

“That’s good news for all the travelers in the area,” Bryce said, glancing back to where the girls were sitting.

Both were focused on their plates of fried potatoes and beef. The first meal they’ve had since leaving Witchbrook that wasn’t salted and preserved or gained from hunting. Bryce looked back at the barkeeper.

“Does the mayor have any jobs posted?” he asked, hopeful.

The barkeeper shook his head as he poured another beer.

“Nothing past some menial jobs that pay a few coppers,” he answered. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a beer,” Bryce answered.

The barkeeper took a tankard and started to fill it with a dark liquid.

“My potato!” Vex said, followed by a man screaming.

Bryce turned back to the girls, his hand going for his sword. Vex held a fork, driven through a man’s hand, pinning him to the table. A potato wedge just outside the grasp of his fingers, where he had taken it from Vex’s plate.

“Let go, you crazy beastkin!” the man screamed as he reached for Vex with his other arm.

Vex pulled her knife free and slammed it into the palm of the hand reaching for her. The man’s screaming grew louder.

“Someone help me!” he shouted, his face twisted in pain.

The sound of chairs scraping across the floor resonated in the small tavern as three large men stood, only to pause and stare fearfully at Janna.

“Sit back down,” Janna said, glaring at the men. A fireball in her hand.

Bryce relaxed a bit and even took a sip of the beer the bartender had poured for him. The girls were handling this well enough, and he didn’t see a reason to step in, at least not yet.

After a moment, Vex pulled her knife and fork from the man’s hands, and he rushed from the tavern, leaving a blood trail as he went. When he was gone, Janna dismissed the fireball. The three men remained seated, though they glared at her.

“Making friends, Vex?” Bryce asked as he returned to the table, throwing a rag over the blood splatter on it.

“He tried to steal my potato!” Vex said defiantly.

“Well, sounds like he learned a valuable lesson,” Bryce said with a chuckle.

His gaze shifted to the three men, meeting each of their eyes. He wanted them to understand that if they decided to start anything, he would kill them. After each man looked sufficiently cowed, he brought his attention back to the girls.

“Though I think we’ll want to leave town after we eat,” Bryce said.

Both girls’ ears went flat, and they pouted at him. Bryce raised his hands up in defense.

“Hey, I want to sleep in a bed instead of on the ground as well, but we’ve been here less than a hour and already started shit. It’s best not to tempt trouble.”

Bryce sighed as he heard the door open and the wounded man walk back in, rags wrapped around his hands. Three of the town’s guards were right behind him.

It’s best not to tempt trouble… why did I say that?

A blood-soaked hand pointed at their table.

“That’s them! The little bitch stabbed me and the fox whore almost burned my friends with her witchcraft!”

The guard's hands went to the pommels of their swords. Vex let out a low growl, and Bryce turned in his chair to face them. He was about to pull on his Manticore Aspect when a voice called out to the guards.

“I wouldn’t mess with them, Cadin. The gentleman with the two ladies has a tag of steel around his neck. Do you know what that means?” a rough voice called out.

The guards instantly released their sword pommels and saluted. Bryce grimaced at the gesture and turned toward the speaker. A man with graying black hair, clad in armor, sat in the back corner of the tavern, nursing a tankard of ale.

“Captain Taylor!” the lead guard said.

Bryce locked eyes with the man in armor. His eyes were hard and tired, like those of someone who had seen their fill of fighting and death, but it was all he knew.

“I asked you a question, Cadin,” Captain Taylor said.

The guard looked at Bryce, his eyes fixated on the steel dog tag around his neck.

“It’s a mercenary tag, sir,” Cadin answered.

Captain Taylor stood and began walking toward Bryce’s table, the tankard of ale in hand.

“It’s a steel dog tag,” Captain Taylor replied, taking a seat at the table. “That means he’s a mercenary who could slaughter you and your men right now as easily as I sip my ale. So don’t reach for your sword again.”

Captain Taylor took a deep swig of his tankard and set it down, giving Bryce a smile and nod as he did. Then he turned and faced Cadin.

“Also, that man is a thief who tried to steal a potato wedge from the young wolfkin woman here. He got what he deserved, in my opinion.”

Cadin saluted and grabbed the thief firmly by the shoulder.

“I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. The boys and I will discuss the consequences of false reporting with the thief here.”

 The three guards led the bleeding man out of the tavern. He gave a pleading look at his friends as he was pushed out, but they kept their heads down at their table.

“Are you looking for work?” Captain Taylor asked.