Chapter 114

Bertram Singer had joined the Blacktongue Mercenary Company when he was sixteen. He had spent the better part of his life fighting men and monsters, sacrificed his future for the privilege, and grown to the point where it was rare for him to meet anything or anyone who could challenge him. This boy, barely grown to a man and already wanted by a church inquisitor, had presented him with a rare opportunity.

That’s what he’d thought ten minutes ago, at least. Now he was getting just a bit frustrated with the whole thing. The guy had no presence whatsoever, not even as a level 1. That was obviously some skill that hid his XP, but Singer had never heard of anything that could eliminate it completely. The system just didn’t work that way.

It made it a bit disconcerting and hard to keep track of the kid, but nothing Singer couldn’t compensate for. The real problem was that this guy was either insanely high level, or he’d focused on pumping his agility to the detriment of everything else. Singer didn’t think it was the latter either, just judging by how strong the kid was and the fact that he hadn’t slowed down once since the fight started. If anything, he’d gotten even faster in the last minute or so.

Even chaining his [Speed Burst] skill as often as possible, Singer couldn’t keep up with him, which was not acceptable. This whole mission had turned into a disaster, with fully a quarter of his division confirmed dead, probably more. The kid was too fast, and smart enough not to sit still and let numbers overrun him.

Singer caught up to the apostle in the woods, half a mile or so from the base, and the only reason he’d even managed that was that the kid had stopped running. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why; he’d found what he was looking for. His dwifkin companion, the one that the client really wanted, had somehow managed to escape his apparently fucking incompetent underling. She was even somehow still tied up when Singer caught sight of her.

‘Disaster’ might have been too mild of a word.

He caught sight of them through the trees ahead. The boy was up in a tree, breaking the ropes binding his companion and helping her disentangle herself. With a soft sigh, Singer muttered to himself, “Both of you together? Can’t those idiots do anything right?”

The apostate dropped as soon as he noted Singer’s appearance, a smart move, if a hair too late. Singer lunged for the boy, hoping to catch him while he was still in the air, where his agility wouldn’t count for so much. Somehow, the kid managed to not only dodge the grab, but also used Singer’s arm as a contact point to shift his momentum laterally and move completely out of Singer’s reach.

He activated [Speed Burst] to push himself after the kid, relying on the skill’s rank 4 ability to alter his trajectory without loss of speed to keep him going in the right direction. Somehow, even in the air, the kid was outpacing him. When he hit the ground and skidded backwards, he was already perfectly balanced and ready to fend off Singer’s attack.

Singer slapped away the mace, some beautiful monstrosity of gleaming red silver and steel that should have cracked under the repeated stress of being subjected to his [Sunder] skill, but which was holding up remarkably well. There had to be a bit of magic in that, or possibly some sort of reinforcing skill the kid was using, but that didn’t feel right. The feedback he got from each hit made him think his skill was doing full damage to the weapon’s structure.

And yet, somehow, infuriatingly, that damn thing still hadn’t snapped. Singer was pretty sure if he could get rid of the mace, the kid would try to run again. That would suck, but Singer would rather recapture the dwifkin and lose the apostate than let them both get away, and at the speed the kid was moving at now, there was practically no way he was going to get a clean grab in. Singer needed that grapple to overpower the apostate, to exert some leverage to pin him down.

Unless whatever boost skill the kid was using left him with severe side effects when he came down from it, it wasn’t going to happen. The kid seemed like a pretty smart fighter, someone he would have been trying to recruit under other circumstances. He was a bit rough around the edges, but there was plenty to work with. Too bad. Unless Singer’s judgment was way off, that also meant the kid wasn’t going to pass out or give up whenever that skill ended.

They danced around for about fifteen seconds, with Singer trying to drive him back into a tree to cut off his options and the kid doing his best to run circles around him. Maybe that would have worked against someone else, but Singer was too fast and too experienced to fall for those kinds of tricks. He smacked that mace with another [Sunder] each time it came at him and watched closely to see if it would finally start to show any signs of damage.

Nothing. Damn.

Then the kid stumbled, just for an instant. It was the first time Singer had seen him misstep, and he recovered almost instantly, but the tell was there. His boost skill had kicked off. The kid was slower now, and when he came in for another swing, it was easy for Singer to deflect it and lash out with a low kick designed to take the kid at the ankle.

The apostate hopped over it, but it was a close thing. Singer grinned and started pushing him.

* * *

Luke knew it was a long shot, but he’d hoped he could bury the merc in a flurry of attacks before [Life Surge] gave out. The man had been too smart for that though. He might not have known the exact mechanics of how Luke’s skill worked, but he recognized the universal weakness of all those skills: they wore off.

Now that he was returning to his normal stats, or maybe slightly worse, it was harder to keep ahead of the merc. Worse, the man was doing something to his weapon. Luke couldn’t quite figure out what, but it felt… wobbly, for lack of a better term. Steel wasn’t supposed to be that malleable, and his whatever-the-fuck-it-was-made-out-of self-repairing mace should have been even stronger. God knew it had been expensive enough.

The longer this fight went on, the worse off he was going to be. Zea was still tangled up in the tree, apparently needing a lot longer than he expected to finish getting out of the ropes. The merc was showing no signs of slowing down and his defenses were just too good for Luke to get a clean shot in. More mercenaries could show up to assist him as any moment, though Luke was keeping an ear open so he’d at least have some warning.

The merc blocked another attack, then kicked at Luke’s ankles. Luke dodged, [Tactical Foresight] having predicted the move as soon as the merc shifted his weight. The attack was nothing but a feint designed to get him off balance and give the merc time to get inside Luke’s range. [Unarmed Martialist] had quite a bit to say about that, though. He smacked aside the merc’s arm when he tried to grab hold of Luke, then brought a knee up to check a second kick.

This fight was a bad match up for Luke. His only real advantage was his increased agility, something the merc was countering with his own speed boosting skill and a lot of practice using it. It would end eventually, but not any time soon, and time wasn’t on Luke’s side. He needed Zea to get free and make a run for it so that he could break off from the fight, but she was somehow still stuck up there.

Now that he thought about her, Luke realized she actually had managed to finish freeing herself and was doing something else instead of running. Shit. There was no way for him to get a message to her without also drawing the merc’s attention, and it was going to be hard enough for her to get away as it was. He just needed Zea to reach the open road, and he could come in behind her. She didn’t weigh anywhere close to enough to slow him down, and Luke was confident he could outrun the merc.

He'd thought she understood that plan, but instead of escaping, she was messing around with the rope she’d already freed herself from. Whatever she was doing, she was wholly focused on it, and all it would take was just one merc coming to investigate the sounds of fighting for her to be captured again.

* * *

The boy was losing focus, letting himself get distracted by too many worries outside of the battle. Singer didn’t blame him. He was young, inexperienced. Between that and skill fatigue from his boost skill, he was starting to make mistakes. They were little things, for now, nothing that would lead to a dramatic failure on his part, but they would pile up. They would create opportunities.

Singer was content to wait. Capturing both of them now was the best possible result of this whole shitstorm, though he supposed the kid had done him a favor and cleaned out some of the hopeless cases in his ranks. That was counterbalanced by the good men and women who’d also died trying to capture him, of course.

He’d get his, though. Being handed over to a Gods damned inquisitor was revenge enough for Singer’s slain comrades.

Hah, he was getting old. There he was, lost in thought just like the kid he’d been mentally berating. Still, he’d been in enough fights and knew his skills inside and out. If his mind wandered a bit, he wasn’t going to start making mistakes. Besides, that knee check the kid had just used to block a kick was the mistake that was going to end the fight.

Singer dropped in place and grabbed hold of the bottom of the apostate’s foot before he could retract it. He heaved upwards, his hand still locked on the boot, and overbalanced the kid. Singer kept pushing, putting all of his weight and his strength into it, and toppled the kid over. Rather than falling on his back, the bastard did some sort of handspring and moved with it, his whole body curved into an arch as his other foot came up and clipped Singer’s chin.

That wasn’t going to stop him, not now that he finally had his hands on the kid. Singer grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him sideways into a brief spin that resulted in the kid going around, then up overhead, then face down to slam into the ground. Any normal man would have been stunned, at least for a moment, from the impact, but not this kid. He literally bounced off the ground and started twisting like an eel to escape.

Singer knew he had him. The mace was still an issue to be dealt with, but even if he couldn’t shake it loose from the apostate’s grip, he’d have the boy locked up soon enough. He just needed to get a handle on… damn… “Slippery little shit, aren’t yo-huerk!”

Something looped around Singer’s neck and started constricting. He would have said it was a snake, but the texture told him otherwise. Somehow, someone had snuck up behind him and looped a rope around his neck. It was impossible! There was no one else even there. The dwifkin girl was still up in the tree, and the apostate was firmly in his grasp.

Singer reached up with his free hand to grab at the rope and pull it loose from his throat. His fingers had just brushed against it when the world went white, a roaring sound filled his ears, and pain tore through him. That was the last thing he ever experienced.