Daniel sat in the silence of the dead woodlands. Julia was where she had gone down, with her forehead against her brother’s shoulder and her hands in his shirt. Alys sat in the ice beside her with one arm around her, and a split ear crusted brown. The Maid stood a little way off with her hands folded, glaring at the tree line and bodies.
After two minutes, he stood.
“Alright. There’s about nine of them still out there.” Julia did not look up. “They went in every direction, and they know exactly what I look like. A shame everyone took it in this direction. But what is done is done.”
Alys’s mouth worked, cheeks still wet.
“Daniel—”
He shook his head.
“There’s no need for you to talk. There’s a wagon on the road north with three dozen slaves. Two guards.” He picked at a strap on a dead elf’s tunic. “I’ll deal with the stragglers, then that. After, I’ll come back. You won’t find Marg or Ralph here. I won’t be able to catch them either. I don’t expect you’ll see them in the city after what we’ll report.”
Daniel caught Alys’s shaky eyes and didn’t explain more.
He’d let her fill in the blanks from there.
He was not sure whether that was kindness or cruelty. It felt right in the moment, so it was what he did. She was too good a woman to wish them dead. He wasn’t so kind.
“What about my brother?”
Daniel gave her one glance before returning to scavenging what he could from the elf.
“What do you do to respect your dead here?”
“Bury… It’s expensive. If you can’t,” she choked back a hiccup. “Burn the body.”
“Don’t worry about money. Right now, rest. I’ll handle everything.”
He pulled a crossbow over his shoulder; he wasn’t proficient enough with a bow yet.
“I-I want to help,” Julia stammered.
“You are. We don’t want wild animals getting your brother.” His look made Julia’s tears flow again. “You’ll protect him. Right?”
“…Yes.”
Alys rubbed her own cheeks clean, the mark of her husband’s slap still imprinted on her face; it would bruise badly.
“I may be low on mana. But I can be useful. What are you going to do with the slaves?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Daniel admitted, showing her a small, encouraging smile. “But I’m not going to kill them. You won’t be alone… You. Attitude.”
“Me?”
The dark-haired teen maid turned to him with perfect grace, despite her bored expression.
“Gather what you can in a pile. Blankets, water, anything with food in it, and put the fire back together. It’s cold, and I’m not going to be quick.” He gestured at the brightening field. “Anybody comes over that rise who isn’t me. Well, do what you can.”
The Maid did a slow sweep of the camp and sniffed.
“There’s a wagon of dry goods to the north that nobody bled on. But sure, I’ll do the dirty work, My King. Even if you could just [Vault] it all.” Her nose wrinkled. “You want me to feed the crying ones too, or…”
“That would be lovely.”
“Ugh. What a drag.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait.”
He paused and glanced back at her. The teen was scowling up at him with her chin out and her ears red. Daniel blinked at her tight lips and hands on her hips.
“What, Maid?”
“Don’t call me Maid.”
“…Okay?”
“It’s not a name. It’s a job. I’m not that stupid old man. You wouldn’t like it if I just… Well, I do call you My King. But that’s because you are.” She was talking very fast. “You’d hate it if somebody looked at you and said hello, Sword. Wouldn’t you? You’d hate that.”
“I would hate that.” He smiled at her fire. “And for the record, you can call me whatever you want. Any complaints, send them right my way.”
“Splendid.” Her hands twisted together in front of her apron, and she looked away, cheeks coloring slightly. “I may not remember my True Name yet. But until then, use my number. The other maids talked about it with me. It’s the only bit that’s ours now.”
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“One has a good ring to it. You spoke to the other maids?”
“Just in the shadows… When will we have a place that isn’t darkness?”
He leaned back to look up at the morning light through the gnarled branches of the woodlands. It was a good question. He and Clara had been so focused on the immediate that they hadn’t even considered the citizens.
“Soon… I’ll talk to the queen about it. Fair?”
Her whole face changed.
“Yes.”
“Alright, One.” Daniel reached out and patted her on the head twice; she froze. “You did great work this morning. Thanks for your support. You’re a great help.”
“I know,” she mumbled, her ears going pink, and looked at the ground. “Obviously.”
“Keep them safe.”
“Obviously! Just get going already. Jeez.”
He tugged off the elf’s boots, matching his size. Throwing the pack over his shoulders, Daniel went to the trees smiling, which he had not expected to be doing. On impulse, the [Tarnished Sword] materialized in his hand, still active for over two hours.
Carl’s bird landed on his shoulder about a hundred yards in.
“I’m getting excited! It’s almost like we’re in a party together, Dan. I’m sure Clara is absolutely seething at that. She really is a possessive caged bird, isn’t she?”
“I could say the same about you, Carl.” He laughed, stretching out before breaking into a jog, following the ravens. “What are we going to do when this is all over?”
“Why do we need to ruin a good thing? Let’s enjoy ourselves while we’re gallivanting around, hunting down the evil slavers! There is loot to collect.”
“I can’t wait to figure out what your long game is here, Carl.”
“As am I eager to discover the game of your precious Angel Core. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And here’s a thought… What if she was responsible for your fall? What if she gave you amnesia?”
Daniel’s eyes locked onto the trail of blood left by one slaver.
“Carl, if Clara is all you claim, then I’d be in real trouble. Wouldn’t I? Unfortunately for you, she’s just that beautiful. Every time I see her face, all my demons and doubts are defeated.”
“Even angels are weak to the charms of a succubus, hmm? Perhaps that is how you fell.”
“Wouldn’t that be the reversal? And here I thought she was the klutz,” he snickered. “Face it, Carl, my heart is just too weak. That face, that blush of devotion, tears me down piece by piece. I’m afraid I’m already defeated, friend.”
“You truly are… I suppose that leaves me to save you, hmm?”
Daniel laughed, almost tripping.
“You’re a funny guy! You do what you want. Don’t blame me if Clara sinks her wings into you. She can be a scary woman, defending what is hers. As I am defending what is mine.”
“And you are a funny angel, Dan… I’m having fun.”
The first two took less than a minute. The one with the injured leg saw the crossbow come up and started to say something about coin, and Daniel put the bolt through him at nine feet. The second one ran three steps and met a raven at eye height, which was enough of a stumble. His sword did the rest. It was there that [Vault] took on a new and interesting property.
Daniel held it over the man’s belt to suck up supplies, only for it to register the body as non-living, so the whole thing could be stored. He thought about it. Then dismissed it with the thought of his wife getting a whole corpse flying out of the chest.
Yet, one option that blinked with the rectangular box that popped up was to extract the man’s human core.
“Sorry, friend,” he said as Carl watched from the branches. “You’re not really any different than the bunnies and skeletons. You chose to be my enemy. I’ll use what I can get.”
He accepted it. A red light peeled out of his chest into the card, taking everything he wore with it, including his clothes.
Convenient. One was right; I could just use Vault.
This makes things easy!
He started using it on every slaver he dispatched.
The three at the creek were harder to deal with. They had a rope and were trying to coordinate to pin him. He kicked one into the water. The second put a knife in his forearm while the third attempted to hook the rope around his throat.
To his credit, the slaver managed it, at the expense of his friend’s throat. A bit of grappling later, the dagger in his forearm was buried inside the man’s belly. Daniel let him keep it there and walked off, allowing skeletal bunnies to bounce in, bones rattling.
The screams faded as he found the third, coughing and shaking, on the bank a hundred feet down. The head tumbled into the river. His gear and core left with Daniel.
Elf, beastfolk, human, he hunted each one that escaped the bloody field, and [Vault] gobbled their items up. Once finished, he turned north.
The road came out of the trees about a mile from their site.
The wagon was exactly where Carl said it would be.
It was a long train, perhaps ten wagons in all. Each had four horses. Most were reinforced wood-and-steel-framed, housing the living merchandise. He spotted the two men.
One was asleep, sitting up with his mouth open. The other was on the ground beside the wheel, throwing stones at a stump.
“The one on the ground gets up every so often to check the far side,” Carl chuckled. “The human is jumpy. The sleeping elf is the lazy one of the group. Kill him last.”
“Want to distract the man?”
“I thought you’d never ask!”
The ravens went silent, and forty yards past the wagon something came out of the ditch on its hands and knees. It made a low moan and crawled toward the cages.
The man on the ground swore, drew his weapon, and went around the far side at a jog.
Daniel walked out of the treeline behind him, raised the crossbow’s final bolt, and shot the man through the throat. It almost didn’t seem fair. Every undead bird and critter around them was his spotter.
With one left out of over thirty men and women who had marked him as their prey that morning, Daniel took his sword and swiped. The elf jerked, hands flying to his throat as red leaked out. He fell off the seat to writhe on the ground.
He put the blade through his chest to end his suffering.
“That’s the last one, Carl?”
“The last one, Dan… We make a great team.”
Daniel stood over the corpse, feeling cold.
I know it had to be done. I gain an enormous amount from this. But it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth… It really didn’t have to be this way. So many secrets that fester. Everyone had their part to play. No one was totally without fault.
Daniel extracted the keys from [Vault], having obtained them from someone.
But choices were made. Consequences followed.
This world is far more brutal than I thought, and laced with discrimination.
He moved to the first cage and unlocked it.
Now, what to do with the slaves?