Wandering Warrior: Jury - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“I’m not alone out here.  I have a group of friends I can’t abandon just because you want a shortcut through the forest.”  I pulled myself free, surprising her with my own strength.  “What I can do is tell you how to get through the forest quickly.  Does that work?”

“That’s…that’s fine, yes.  Thank you.”  She showed a bit of her younger age, the indecision of the moment making her waiver from her earlier firm stance.  “Can you draw us a map?”

“Sure, but you won’t need it.”  I crouched down, tugging on her sleeve to pull her with me.  I drew some lines in the dirt, and placed a few rocks as placemarkers.  “This is the trail we’re on now.  In a few miles, you’ll run into a trail with an old shack at the intersection.  Take that trail past the shack until you see a burnt-out stone building that used to be a dairy farm.  The city is just north of it.  All you have to do is follow the cobblestone road from there.”

“We’re that close?”  She looked the map over, trying to gauge distances.  “Why can’t we just cut straight north through the forest at the intersection?”

“Because you have carts, and the trees are too dense.  Not to mention all the Paul’s running around in that section.  They’re a kind of one-legged creature that sneaks up on you and kicks you when you’re not looking.  You don’t want to stir up fae who are that devious if you don’t need to.”  I tapped the rock that symbolized the city.  “Besides, you want to approach on a road.  That’s where the gates are.  If you come in through some other way, you’ll just have to circle around until you find an entrance.  Which, if I’m not mistaken, is this exact gate I’m telling you to take.”

“Oh, right.”  She looked back at the rest of her group.  “Only Tew and I could jump the walls.  I have to think of the others.”  She stood, brushing off the imaginary dirt from her knees.  “Thank you again, stranger.  I hope to see you again, preferably under better circumstances.”

“Sure.  Maybe I could buy you dinner sometime.”  I flashed her a grin that had made actual queens blush.  She didn’t even notice, already walking back to her group.  “Or not, I guess.”

Her shouts made them hurry their pace, and they were quickly marching past.  I stood to the side, watching the platoon of Wardens march along.  Every one of them wore enchanted armor and carried rune-covered weapons.  They would be a welcome addition once Greendown was under siege.  The two Green Wardens brought up the rear, and I gave a little wave to them as they went by.

“You.”

I swear, the ground actually rumbled when the second Green Warden, the one I hadn’t met yet, stopped to speak to me.  It was impossible to see what he looked like under the hood, but he was taller, broader, and I got the impression this one was much older.  I would also bet he had the experience to go along with the strength he wielded.

“Name.”  The rumbling growl coming from under the cowl was strong enough to shake my chest.  There was more than a little mana used in whatever he was doing.

“What?”  I almost took a step back, but I didn’t let the clear attempt at intimidation push me.  “It’s hard to understand you over the fluttering in my chest, big guy.”

“Give.  Me.  Your.  Name.”  The Green Warden shifted under his cloak, exposing his hand gripping the hilt of a thick-bladed dagger hanging from his belt.  It had a green gem cap that flickered with an angry light.

I kinda wanted to steal it.

“Tew, leave the man alone.  He helped us.”  The Green Warden who reminded me of Sinthia tugged on his elbow, but she might as well have been trying to move an oak tree.  “We wouldn’t even know about the upcoming siege if it wasn’t for him.”

Apparently, being helpful didn’t count for much in the big guy’s book.  He gently stiff-armed his fellow Green Warden, pushing her away without moving from where he stood in front of me.

“Name.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…”  I thought furiously, knowing what would happen if I told him my real name.  Violence and blood would just be the start.

Now that I had stood next to both of the Green Wardens, I had a better gauge of where their power levels were at.  If I wasn’t suffering from Soul Burn, I wouldn’t even hesitate to take both of them on at once.  Stat-wise, I put the woman somewhere in the high thirties of my system for strength, flexibility, and vigor, while Tew’s presence felt like the middle forties.  They were certainly the strongest humans I had met on this world, but I bet I could beat them like a drum in a purely physical contest.  Humans were usually much easier than monsters in a straight-up fight, especially on unprepared ground.

The thing holding me back was that it wouldn’t be a straight-up fight.  From where they sat magically, I should be able to crush them.  Should didn’t mean could.  Both of them felt like they were in the low thirties for their mind stat, but it was impossible to gauge what their gear and weapons could do to boost them.

I also didn’t know what kind of spells they might know, or what their expertise was in.  It would really suck to have something crazy and exotic like an illusion spell or something trip me up.  And, just because they seemed to be weaker in their magic, didn’t mean they weren’t suppressing their own abilities.  Kinda like I was doing right now, to keep them from knowing how strong I was.

Since I took too long to answer, Tew got fed up with me and growled in anger, drawing his oversized dagger.  Holding up my hands, I activated my Paladin class and cast one of only four spells it gave me when I gained it.  “Be at ease.  Blessing.”

The flare of pure white light that pulsed over Tew made him pause, and he slowly sheathed his blade.  My magic slowly faded from the world, making it seem washed-out and gray.  It’s why I hated using that spell.  I’d feel…off, for at least the next day or two, and the only tangible benefits were going to be felt by Tew.  He’d be a little faster, stronger, and tougher for a few days, and sleep like a baby tonight.  Lucky jerk.

“You are a Paladin.”  Tew’s hidden features seemed pleased, and his voice didn’t try to shake the trees free from the ground anymore.

I didn’t know how I knew he was suddenly in a better mood, but I just knew it was true.  Maybe the voice was a clue.  The gem in his dagger dimmed as the tension between us ratcheted down, and I could literally feel my palms itch at the urge to snatch that thing.  It was a very nice dagger.

Tew nodded and held out his hand for me to shake it.  Now that he wasn’t enhancing his voice with mana, he sounded more like someone from my original world who had smoked two packs a day for the last twenty years or so, and less like a natural disaster with a voice.  “Should have said so.  Or wear your accouterments, like a normal Paladin.”

“Well, you guys aren’t exactly the best at communicating.  You like to jump straight to the fighting before I can even get a word out.”  I motioned at Tew’s dagger with my free hand as we clasped wrists, making my point.  His crushing grip was unsurprisingly stronger than the other Warden’s, and I squeezed back just hard enough to keep him from injuring me.

“Hmm…”  He turned away from me once he let go, looking back at his compatriot.  I still hadn’t seen his face under the hood, but I had the feeling he didn’t want to admit how close to the mark I had hit.  “Oriana, come.  This siege will be good training for you.  To become our new tenth, you must have many leadership challenges. ”  Tew looked over his shoulder at me, letting me catch sight of a close-trimmed beard that had gone completely gray.  “I’ll see you in the city.  A Paladin is meant to fight against undead.”

It wasn’t a question.  I simply gave him a smile, which he probably took as agreement.  The two Green Wardens gave each other a look I couldn’t see under their hoods before they turned to leave.  I let out a slow breath as they walked away without saying anything more, and did my best not to slump in relief.  Next time, I should listen to the native of the planet and just run away.

I watched the pair hurry to catch up to their departing platoon of Wardens, and caught the woman, Oriana, glancing back at me.  She gave me a little wave before they disappeared around the gradual curve of the trail, and I raised a hand in return.  That’s right, still got it, baby.

After they were out of sight, I started walking in a completely different direction than where our camp was located.  I didn’t know if they would leave someone behind to watch me or not, but I wasn’t going to take any chances by leading them right to us.

While I was walking, I replayed the encounter with the Wardens in my head, trying to suss out any nuggets of information I might have missed.  The detached feeling created by my Paladin spell actually helped for once, removing any emotion that might have colored events.

The obvious exchange between Tew and Oriana about her being in training felt like the most important bit I had heard.  Well, that, and the whole plan to hunt me down and kill me.  I had no doubt the orders came from their Oracle book, same as they had the last two times.  Somebody had a real murder hard-on for me, and I was more than ready to return the favor.

As soon as I found out who they were, of course.

If Oriana was only a Green Warden in training, that meant Tew better represented their normal baseline for power.  Considering there were only supposed to be ten Green Wardens, and Tew’s age was getting up there–a guess based entirely on the brief glimpse I caught of his beard–I thought Tew wanted to retire.  Oriana was going to be his replacement, and he had to get her up to snuff before he could hang up the hood.  I didn’t know what to do with the information, but it was never a bad thing to know more about your opponents.

There was no question they were my enemies, especially since they were the power that propped up the guilds that kept average people as little more than serfs.  Until I could convince them to change their ways–or crush them under my heel and force what remained to see things my way–I’d remain at odds with everyone in a Warden’s uniform.  Didn’t mean I hated them, though.  Well, maybe some of them, but it definitely wasn't a blanket hate.

After a few miles of wandering around in the middle of the forest for a bit, I was sure I didn’t have someone following me.  There were insect noises and little forest creatures running around all over the place, so I felt okay letting my guard down a bit as I swung back around toward camp.  They were the best indicator for predators and unnatural things like the undead.  When they went quiet and still, it meant something nasty was around.

While I walked through the underbrush, I thought over the plans I had been putting together over the past few weeks.  There had been a lot of gold and treasure we collected after killing the lich, and my very first step when we got to the city needed to be upgrading my wardrobe and armor.  If I was going to be rubbing elbows with the rich and influential, I needed to look like I belonged in the room.

It was an annoying lesson I hadn’t wanted to learn, but a particularly spiteful mentor who taught me my Soldier class from world three was very good at completely ignoring what I did and didn’t want to do.  Eyide had been the craziest woman I had ever been in a romantic relationship with, and I had learned a lot of lessons from her.

She once tied me up–naked–in bed, thinking something exciting was going to happen.  Well, something exciting did happen.  Once I was secure, she opened the bedroom door and let in four men with clubs to beat me to death.  Eyide had considered it a training exercise.  I had thought of it as attempted murder.  Our relationship didn’t last much longer after that.

Maybe two or three weeks longer.  Her crazy was only matched by her hotness and flexibility, but my stats had only been level fifteen or so at the time.  I wasn’t strong enough to handle that kind of combination, so I snuck out in the middle of the night while she slept.  The rest of my time on world three I had to watch my back, looking for the knife between my shoulder blades I was sure she was planning to put there.  That was one world-hopping portal I was happy to see when it showed up.

Finally, I could smell the makeshift smokehouse Leedy and Murphy had set up to make some jerky.  It had the distinct aroma of burnt pine sap and too many herbs, which seemed to be the norm for this world.  They liked a thick crust of whatever-the-hell on their meat, while I preferred mine a little more plain.  No sense disrespecting the animal like that, but to each their own I suppose.  I couldn’t complain too much, especially since I wasn’t the one making it.

We had set up against the edge of a tiny spring in a particularly thick section of forest, making it much harder to find our camp.  Unless you had a nose, of course.  Then all you had to do was follow the smell.  Which was why I had tried to say we didn’t need a smokehouse.  It was an argument I had lost almost immediately, especially since we did need some way to preserve meat when one of us killed something bigger than a rabbit.

Another point the others had made was that we moved often enough that the odds of someone finding us were really no different than random chance.  I brought up the fact that random chance had a bad habit of stabbing me in the face, but they just laughed at me.  For some reason, I don’t think they understood how serious I was when I said it.

The wind had picked up as I got closer to camp, and the few distant clouds in a mostly blue sky had quickly turned into heavy thunderheads that looked ready to let loose as they grew closer and the shadows got darker.  One of the worst things about this planet was the weather.  It was always changing, and somehow that change tended toward bad.  It had even snowed in the middle of the night with no warning a few weeks ago.  Snow, when it had been hot enough earlier during the day to make me miss air conditioning.

It didn’t match any weather patterns I knew about, but I wasn’t a freaking weatherman, and each world certainly had their quirks.  At least it wasn’t world eleven, where they had only one hour of daylight every twenty-four hour period, and it was covered by living nightmares constantly on the hunt for human flesh.  Or even worse, world fourteen, where they had perfect weather all the time, except everyone was absolutely bug-nuts crazy and went around dancing and singing everywhere they went.  They hadn’t even been good at singing, either.  Their church snapped up anyone with talent when they were young, and spirited them away to various monasteries and convents to ‘protect’ them from all the mindflayers running loose.  It was like being stuck on a planet filled with ‘Got Talent’ tone-deaf rejects.  I still woke up in cold sweats from that one.

Really, I had bad dreams from both of them, but the first one was expected.  The second one was something completely new.  PTSDD, or Post-Traumatic Singing-and-Dancing Disorder.  If I ever got back home and found a shrink that didn’t immediately lock me in an insane asylum and melt down the key for scrap, they would be able to discover a whole new field of study.  I’m sure they’d appreciate it, even though I didn’t.

I shook my head, imagining what that conversation would sound like.  There wasn’t a situation where I ended up outside of a padded room, no matter how free-thinking the doctor.  Talking about my experiences to other people from my world would never work.

A branch snapped to my right, and I shifted up against a tree, clearing my mind and focusing on the here and now.  That stupid Paladin spell had made my mind wander all over the place, otherwise I would have noticed the complete lack of sounds coming from small animals and insects much sooner.

I strained my ears, enhancing my senses and focusing on my surroundings.  There was no way I had been followed–at least a ninety-nine percent chance I hadn’t been–meaning the odds were heavily in favor of me stumbling across somebody already here.  From what I was hearing, I had walked up on a group that was slowly creeping up on the camp.  There was no way to know if it was Wardens, bandits, dinosaurs, wendigo, chupacabra, or undead, but the most likely enemy had to be undead.  Intelligent undead, because they knew to be quiet.  The worst kind.

Another twig snapped to my left, and I slowly turned my head to try and see through the thick underbrush.  A spur of bone scraped against a tree as a monstrously overgrown ghoul took a graceful step into the open before disappearing again out of sight.  It wasn’t fair that something so ugly could move so smoothly, or so quietly.  Three more cut through the same gap while I watched, each of them looking more deadly than the last.  The one in the back even turned around and checked their tail, like a proper rear guard.

Yep.  Intelligent undead, and they were headed straight for camp.  This was bad.

Thunder rumbled overhead, and the skies opened up, dumping buckets of rain in the blink of an eye.  I was soaked before I could pull up the hood of my waterproofed cloak.

It could be worse.  Nobody was singing.