Feral Mage: Chapter 1

The contract had recommended a full team of five mercenaries, the job was a dangerous one after all. The task was to harass the enemy’s supply line that supported the siege of some count’s castle in what was being called the Second Border War. The tension between the human kingdom of Volpin and the snow elf duchy of Frostveil had been at a boiling point for years.

 Bryce had taken the contract alone, something the guild master had allowed given his rank. The first three weeks of the job had gone well with him killing over thirty snow elves and ruining or burning several supply wagons. Then today something odd happened.

 Bryce watched from the shadows of the snow-covered pines as the lone snow elf rode her horse down the trail. This would be her fourth time patrolling the area today. Patrols weren’t uncommon, the elves had sent several trying to find him, but this was the first time they sent just one person.

 She had yet to spot him and wouldn’t unless he revealed himself to her. His magic made his senses far sharper than any human or elf. That had been what he thought anyway, at least until she hurled a throwing knife at where he was watching her from the trees.

 He landed on the trail from the trees and stood, dusting the snow off his clothing and cropped black hair. He turned and faced the snow elf, who was dismounting her horse as she frowned at him.

 “A human,” the snow elf said with a huff. “They drag me all the way out here for a mere human.”

 The snow elf snarled at him as she drew her sword. She pointed it at him.

 “Call your friends out here, my time has been wasted enough.”

 “Sorry, just me out here,” Bryce smiled at her and shrugged. “But I hate to waste your time. So feel free to leave.”

 She cursed in elvish.

 “Fine. I don’t like torture, but if that’s what it takes to get you to tell me where your compatriots are then so be it,” she said as she walked towards him with all the confidence in the world.

 Bryce smiled as he flexed his hands behind his back. Each of his fingers was tipped with a sharp black nail embedded with poison, something his magic gave him. He was an Aspect mage, though they were better known by their layman names of Feral mage and Monster mage.

 His eyes widened as the elf lunged at him.

 Shit, she’s fast.

 Her confidence wasn’t for nothing. Even with his aspect of the flightless manticore, he barely managed to dodge her strike.

 She had a surprise look on her face as he slipped by her sword and raked his black nails across her left cheek, leaving a shallow cut. He put some distance between them and smiled.

 “Bastard!” she shouted at him as she charged forward with her sword.

Oh shit!

 Bryce’s sword echoed throughout the snow-covered pine forest as his blade clashed against the sword of the snow elf who pursued him.

 Scary.

 He figured she would have killed him a dozen times already if it wasn’t for his Aspect Magic. Which the elf was keeping up with. Not an easy feat since the aspect he was channeling gave him the speed and reflexes of a manticore.

 Very scary.

 Her blade cut through the pine branch instead of Bryce’s arm. The snow elf was quick with the blade even with her being poisoned.

 But it's already over.

 She glared at him with her striking blue eyes as a trickle of blood ran down her cheek where he had scratched her, his poison running through her veins.

 “You’re looking tired,” Bryce teased.

 “Shut up, human!” the snow elf cursed as she struggled to catch her breath.

 Sweat clung to her brow and her movements had grown more sluggish and erratic. He could end this at any time now. But…

 He looked past her towards the castle in the distance that the snow elves had been trying to siege. Flames roared from the inferno that was consuming the structure. The Count was most likely dead, along with any hope of more gold. At least the Count had paid half of Bryce’s price upfront. He frowned at the sight. His job was done.

 “Congratulations looks like you won the war,” he said before looking back at her. “So let’s make a deal.”

 Bryce’s hand went to his neck and flipped the necklace out over his shirt, showing the piece of cursed steel that hung from it. The dog tag that marked him as a mercenary. Though he was unsure if the elf would know what it meant.

 She lunged at him with an overextended strike and he knocked her blade away with ease.

 “You’ve probably figured it out, but you're poisoned,” Bryce said as he flexed his hand, tipped with black nails.

 “A dirty cheap trick,” the elf growled as she readied herself to strike at him again.

 “It’s manticore poison,” he said and saw a hint of fear in her eyes. “I have the antidote, which I will trade for the best route to avoid the elf’s army. Any interest I have in this war just went up in smoke with the castle.”

 His hand slipped into his pocket and extracted a small vial. Her eyes latched on to it.

 “Why should I trust you?” she asked.

 “Because I have no reason to deceive you. The poison will kill you in about an hour when your organs shut down,” Bryce said as he dangled the vial before the elf. “I’m no longer making any money, so I want to get the hell out of here. What’s your name, elf?”

 “Callie,” she said with a grimace.

 He tilted his head toward her.

 “Callie, you’re a skilled swordswoman. Don’t waste your talents dying in the snow on the edge of a battlefield no longer being fought.”

 She glared at him for a moment.

 “East,” she said softly.

 “East,” Bryce said as he tossed the vial into the snow by her feet. “If you’re lying I’ll come back and find you.”

 He turned to leave, already planning how he would spend the gold the Count had paid. Though it was always the same way, drinking and stuffing his face until he was broke again.

 “Your name?” Callie demanded as she held the empty vial in her hand.

 Bryce looked back at her.

 “Bryce,” he answered.

 “Bryce, I will hunt you down,” she declared with a snarl.

 He smiled at her.

 “Until our next dance then,” he said with a cocky smile and a mental note to stay the hell away from the north for a while. The South’s climate suited him better anyway.

 Two weeks later, Bryce was staying in a human frontier town called Sawtown. It was located on the tip of where the Southern human kingdoms meet the vast untamed wilds. The settlement was little more than an overgrown logging camp, but still, it had a tavern.

 He lifted the beer from the rough oak table he was sitting at and took a sip. The same wood that was used to make the table was used for the rest of the town’s buildings and furnishings. Sawtown was an ugly eye-sore, but he was only staying here a little longer.

 “Is the beer sour? I can fetch you something else, Bryce,” a woman’s voice offered.

 He turned and looked at the snow elf who was talking to him.

 Callie, he thought. The snow elf had a striking resemblance to the swordswoman. So much so he had thought she had tracked him down when he first saw her.

 “No. The beer is fine, Snowflower,” he answered before smiling at her. “Is today the day you're going to tell me your real name?”

 The barmaid just gave him a smile that told him the answer was no. When she lingered at his table he realized she wanted something. A look around the tavern made it not hard to guess why she was at his table.

 The loss of the Northern Border war had caused a spike in tensions between elves and humans. More than a few hateful eyes lingered on Snowflower from the predominantly human patrons. She was one of the few elves in the town and the only snow elf. He didn’t know her story and why she was in this town, but he wasn’t about to pry.

 “You know what. I feel like playing a game of bones.” He looked at the hopeful young elf. “Do you know how to play?”

 Snowflower smiled at him.

 “Of course! I’ll let the bartender know I’ll be occupied so they can get another barmaid for the floor,” Snowflower said before hurrying to the bar.

 Moments later she returned with the domino set and they started to play. Bryce was piss-poor at the game and knew it, but Snowflower was letting him win. He guessed what she wanted, but knew for sure the third time he caught her staring at his dog tags.

 “What’s the job?” Bryce asked with a sigh.

 “What?!” Snowflower said startled and looked around before leaning forward.

 “You’ve been staring at my mercenary tags the entire game,” Bryce said. “I’m pretty pricey, but if you need me to rough up someone who got aggressive towards you, I'll give you a good deal.”

 Honestly, she couldn’t even afford that, but he didn’t like the looks the girl had been getting while he’d been there. He doubted the girl had many folks watching her back. The other elves probably wouldn’t risk their necks for her either.

 Snowflower bit her lip and leaned in closer to him.

 “I…I was just curious,” Snowflower said with a laugh after a moment. “Elves don’t use the same system to mark mercenaries.”

 Snowflower laid one of the dominoes on the table and they continued their game in silence for a bit longer.

 “The mayor of the town has had a job posted for a while. None of the locals will take it since it’s too dangerous. I don’t know if you are looking for work,” Snowflower said.

 Bryce sipped his beer and thought. More gold was always useful to him, but there was something else he was looking for. This close to the wilds he just might find it.

 “Know much about the job?” he asked.

 Snowflower shook her head.

 “No. Sorry, Bryce.”

 Bryce and Snowflower finished their game and she made the excuse of doing dishes to slip into the back of the tavern, away from the hateful stares. Bryce paid his tab for the beer and made his way out of the tavern into the town.

 Sawtown was a sea of ugly log buildings that blended into the dirt they were built upon. Wagons hauling logs to the nearby river where the sawmill was located were common sights in the town. He made his way to the largest of the ugly wooden buildings. He had taken enough bounties in small frontier towns to know the biggest building was saved for the mayor's ego. As soon as he walked inside the building he saw a woman sitting at a desk watching the door, two guards stood not far from her.

 This was the first building in the town that Bryce had been in that wasn’t the monotone rough wood color of the rest of the town. The interior had been painted white and was decorated with everything from framed art to animal skulls and hides.

 “Welcome to Sawtown, how might our beloved mayor help you today?” the woman asked chipperly.

 “Actually, I’m here to help you,” Bryce said. “Heard there’s a job up that’s been posted for a while.”

 The woman behind the counter paled and he saw the guard's posture shift. One even looked at him and shook his head in a warning. Bryce smiled, this job was looking like it could be a decent payday.

 The woman stood and made her way to a hallway adjacent to her desk. Bryce stood there with the guards for a moment as they gave him looks of pity as if he were a condemned man about to hang. A moment later the woman returned.

 “The mayor will see you,” she said and gestured to the hallway.

 Bryce made his way into the mayor’s office, the room was decorated with old swords and bits of maps showing the claims of the various human kingdoms. Such as the Selkie Islands to the west and the Northern Kingdoms, Volpin, Graystone, and Daleridge. However, Volpin now lacked some of its territory after what happened a few weeks ago. Surprisingly there was no map of the Southern Kingdoms, which the frontier town was a part of. However, the control the kingdoms had over frontier territories was almost non-existent.

 The man sitting behind the desk surprised him. Usually, boom towns on the frontier were controlled by fat and rich merchants who lucked out. Instead, a man who looked like he could wrestle a bear, with enough scars that Bryce could believe he tried to once, sat before him.

 “So, who sent you to your death?” the man asked, without looking up from some paperwork on his desk.

 Bryce raised an eyebrow at that question. The mayor finally looked up from his paperwork and met Bryce’s gaze.

 “Before I took down the poster for the job I had offered a finders fee for anyone that found someone that could complete it. Since the poster is gone now that means someone told you about the job,” the mayor stated.

 Bryce clicked his tongue.

 “So that was her angle,” Bryce said. “Snowflower from the tavern told me about the job.”

 The mayor laughed.

 “Trying to pay off her debt,” he said as his laughter died down. “I found her as an orphan during the first Northern Border war twenty years ago. Took her in, fed her, and clothed her. I know she wants to leave and try to return to the north, but I’m not letting her go until she pays her debt.”

 Bryce kept his face neutral. Debt slavery wasn’t uncommon. He knew many mercenaries who ended up in the profession due to the guild buying up their debt from its original owners. Because of this, he had heard the horror stories of what life was like for those chained by debt.

 “Enough to pay off her debt?” he asked.

 The mayor shook his head.

 “The finder fee will take a good chunk, but not the whole thing,” he said.

 “What about the reward money from the job? Would that completely cover the debt?” Bryce asked as he cursed himself internally.

 A sob story. How many of his fellow mercenaries died because of them? Such tales had become a joke and a warning in the guild halls. He would have told himself to take the gold and forget the girl, but the way the people looked at her in the tavern. She needed to get out of this town before she was killed or raped.

 “It would, but you don’t even know what the job entails,” the mayor said.

 “I figured a monster given the looks your guards wore when I mentioned the contract,” Bryce said.

 The mayor gave him a hard stare for a moment then nodded.

 “There’s a logging camp in the south that was harvesting the old growths of the wilds. Good wood and good money. A year back a monster took the place over as its territory, and slaughtered everyone I sent to take care of it,” the mayor gave him a dark look. “Accepting this contract is accepting your death.”

 Bryce smiled as he slipped his mercenary tags off his neck and tossed them to the mayor. He caught them.

 “So Snowflower conned a merc,” the mayor said as he looked the tags over for a moment.

 His gaze went back to Bryce.

 “I’ve served with mercenaries back when I was a soldier,” he said as he laid the tags on the table and slid them back to Bryce. “That tag is made of cursed steel, which means you’re something rather nasty.”