A Soldier's Life - 278 - Handle With Care (Final Edit on 6-17-25, but still taking chap title suggestions before sending to editor)

Chapter 278: Handle With Care

While I worked, I pulsed earth speak regularly to ensure I had no more unwanted guests. The first thing I did was collect the essence from the corpses. The alpha yielded an apex essence of aether resistance, while four of the remaining five she-wolves yielded lesser essences. Two of the females had been pregnant, and they yielded an empathy and perception essence. The other one yielded a minor essence of strength. There was no guilt, as those babes would have been true-blood werewolves.

Flies were already starting to lay larvae on the bodies. Being soaked in blood, the flies found me a viable target as well. I considered walking to a stream to remove as much blood as possible, but thought to wait until after I confirmed the elf child was alive, because I may have another fight ahead of me.

Before leaving the hill, I cut the heads off of all the bodies and stacked them together. Werewolves wouldn’t regenerate like trolls, but it just felt like a smart move. That alpha’s willingness to impale itself on my sword worried me.

Also, I wasn’t sure if I should return with all the heads as proof of my kills. Raelia had said there wasn’t a reward from the village, but maybe the guild would pay me for my efforts. All the werewolves had been nearly naked, so there was nothing to loot. Their camp, however, might have something worth scavenging.

It was midday, and the sun’s heat was quickly drying my blood-soaked clothes to a crusty mess. I circled around and approached the werewolf camp from the far side. My earth pulses informed me there were only two small persons, probably children, in one of the three lean-to shelters. Still, I was cautious and even discovered a stash of coins buried under one lean-tos when looking for traps with a pulse.

When I entered the camp, I smelled the strong scent of urine. Curing meat hung inside one of the shelters, being smoked by a fire. The meat appeared to be mostly deer, but there were also parts of at least one skinned humanoid.

Before confronting the two victims, I returned my spear to my space and sheathed magebane. I walked into the open, and the children recoiled at the sight of me. I admitted, I did look a fright.

The children had torn and tattered clothing and heavy iron collars around their necks with chains attaching them to weights to keep them from running. One girl had a bite mark on her shoulder; the puncture marks showed evidence of recently dried blood.

The other young elf girl had a bite on her forearm that looked infected with yellow puss. She must have been picking the scabs regularly. The alpha was probably waiting for them to be fully infected before releasing them to join his pack.

I found and tossed them both blankets that were out of their reach, but they made no move to cover themselves. It was easy to tell which of the two had been recently abducted, as one of the girls was filthy with tangled brown hair while the other child was still relatively clean, and her hair was straight and sheen.

“The werewolf and the others are dead,” I told them in Elvish. They barely reacted, clearly petrified and wary. “I am with the adventurer’s guild and here to rescue you.” Still no response. “Do you know where the key is for your collars?” I hadn’t found anything on the bodies. Finally, the cleaner girl shook her head nervously to the negative.

I turned away to search the other two lean-to shelters for the key. One was being used for provisions and smoking the meat, while the other was for sleeping with nasty piles of blankets and clothes. In the provision shelter, I pulled the stubborn floorboards up to access the coins I detected, thinking the key might be with the coins.

The worn chest was buried in sandy soil and filled with silver and gold jewelry, some simple, some ornate. The coins were mostly silver, and I found it strange that the werewolf kept them due to their anathema with the silver. Three large gold coins and a dozen regular gold coins rounded out the collection.

The jewelry and coins should be enough rewards for me if the village or guild didn’t recognize my efforts. I sifted through the jewelry but didn’t notice any artifacts. I sent the entire chest to my dimensional space and looked up to see the two young elven girls staring at me.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked in as friendly a tone as I could muster. The newer victim nodded uncertainly, like I might be tricking her. The filthy one just stared at me, and I could see some feralness in her eyes. How close was she to being fully infected?

I approached them cautiously and held out four red pills. “Each of you needs to consume two of these. They will help you relax.” The cleaner of the two reached out tentatively and delicately took two of the oblivion pills. The other was not so gentle, her hard, yellow nails digging into my spider silk gloves. She had been trying to hurt me intentionally, but didn’t penetrate the gloves. She had bruised the skin underneath with her unnatural strength, but quickly healed. Maybe she was beyond saving, but it was not my decision.

“Water?” The first elf girl asked pitifully. Her voice was dry and cracked, and I could see where they had chained her; she didn’t have access to any. I went to the provision shelter and found a waterskin for them. I watched carefully as the two consumed the oblivion pills and collapsed into a deep sleep. I was suspicious of the dirty one and searched the rest of the camp before dealing with the two.

There was a store of weapons, but they were starting to rust. Werewolves preferred to claw and bite in a fight. I sent the seven swords, a dozen daggers, two bows, and forty odd arrows to storage. There were no runic weapons, but they were all of good quality and could be sold for a few gold each.

Walking back to the two elves, I had been right to be wary of the dirty one. A slurry of red-brown saliva had dribbled out of her mouth. She hadn’t swallowed the oblivion pills, but they had eventually worked on her anyway. I took some cordage and tied both girl’s legs together and then their arms behind their backs. I carefully used my dimensional space to cut the iron collars free. I stored the first elf, and while I waited for my aether to recover, I scavenged up a large sack. It was actually a waterproof sleeping bedroll.

When the second young elf joined the first in my dimensional space, I returned to the hill. All the heads went into the bedroll, which then went into my space. Looking at the bodies, I thought to burn them as I was not sure if scavengers could spread the infection. I transported all the bodies in my space to the shelter with the smoking meat.

It didn’t take long for the fire to spread and burn down the small structure. I moved out of range of the smell of burning flesh and hair. I judged the fire wouldn’t spread and I consumed the apex aether resistance essence. It was one of my weaker magical attributes, and I couldn’t recall consuming one before, but I had now consumed over a hundred essences.

As the essence spread from my abdomen out to my aether channels, I felt a chill overcoming me, as if I were freezing from the inside out. It passed as quickly as it had come, but it was one of my more unpleasant experiences.

It was early afternoon when I began my light run back to the Elven town of Esanor. I was relying on the blood compass as there was no way to follow my trail in a timely fashion. It was good practice moving silently and getting to use my earth speak. Still, I knew it was over twenty miles distant and would take me five to six hours.

I stopped when I found a suitable pool in a shallow, wide stream. I wish I had someone to watch my back when I cleaned my clothes and gear, but I would just pulse earth speak more frequently. Stripping, I put on fresh underclothes but scrubbed my armor and rinsed the bloody clothes. The spider gloves and shirt were easy to clean, but the leggings and other clothes were going to be permanently stained. At least I would be able to get the smell out of them. In damp clothes, I continued my trek back. I assumed my clothes would be dry by the time I arrive.

A sunset, the woods shifted from bird song to an orchestra of insects. I wasn’t as fortunate tonight as I was when I tracked the werewolf last night. A predator either picked up my movement, or I was not being as quiet as I thought. The thunderous crash of tree branches being snapped alerted me long before my night vision located the creature.

It was faster than I was, but it had the advantage of four legs. I focused on running while I tried to identify what beast it was. As it closed in, I was fairly certain it was an earth drake based on the feedback from my pulses. Unlike ordinary creatures, this one was clearly outlined, indicating it resonated with the earth affinity. It was not nearly as large as the one I had encountered in the Shimmering Labyrinth. I knew they were territorial, so I must have passed through its domain.

Hearne’s advice on encountering one was to learn how to run faster. They had a thick-scaled hide, and the larger they were, the harder they were to penetrate. They were probably the dumbest of the drake species, but you didn’t need a lot of smarts when your enemy couldn’t injure you.

I moved into a denser thicket of ancient trees. Although the trunks were spaced farther apart, this should slow the drake as it would have to weave around them instead of charging through. It would likely halt its pursuit if I could escape its territory. If it continued and got close enough, its life was forfeit.

The thundering pursuit scared anything in front of us out of our path. It was stubborn and still closing in on me, so I decided to confront the creature. I sheltered behind a massive oak, expecting it to snake around to one side. Instead, it used the tree to stop its momentum, shaking the ground and causing debris from the tree to fall all around us. Maybe it had thought I was trying to climb the tree to escape it and hoped to knock me down. It would have worked if that were what I had been doing.

The draconic head snaked around the tree, ready to snag its prey. I almost felt sorry for the look of confusion in its eyes as its head fell to the ground. I had only removed a thin slice of its neck, beheading the creature. The ground shook as the body settled to the forest floor a moment later. I watched the life leave the majestic creature’s eyes before sliding down to rest against the tree. It had certainly been an eventful day, and I deserved a rest.

I patted the snout of the drake, “Sorry, but I gave you a chance to let me go, big guy. Don’t worry, I won’t let your body go to waste. Earth drake hide makes great boots and armor.” A spray of blood from its nostrils seemed to disagree with me. It wasn’t alive, just expelling the air trapped in a cavity. I sighed, now speckled in blood. “That was not very nice, I just took a bath.”

I used the collector as soon as I had recovered enough aether. The drake was not large, just over thirty feet tail to snout, but it still yielded a major earth essence, which I consumed immediately. I washed it down with some water as the essence had a grainy texture as it dissolved and the after taste reminded me of dirt.

I could tell its effects were minor, but even minor improvements to the affinity extended the range of my earth speak. I then proceeded to skin the drake. I used a mix of dimensional cutting and Boris’ dungeon-forged blade. I got nineteen squares of the hide, scales still attached. The scales would have to be removed to treat and prepare the hide, but it was a few future sets of armor.

The chance encounter had stalled me for two hours. I arrived back in the village a little after midnight. Torches were lit around the town, probably in fear the werewolf returning. I could see Maveith sitting outside the merchant’s barn. He was sewing something, but clearly waiting for me to return.

I circled the village to approach the barn from the far side. There were torches here as well, but no sentries that I could detect. I placed the two elven children and the bag of heads on the ground. I started thinking I should only turn in the alpha’s head. Having carried the large sack, and two girls might appear conspicuous. The horses stirred in the barn, and I guessed it was the smell of drake blood on me.

Benito opened the door, glowstone in one hand, sword in the other. Mateo and Blaze followed behind him, but relaxed on seeing me standing there. Raelia and Baldo stirred atop the roof, gawking at me. They must have been sleeping, but had she been waiting for me up there? Baldo chirped, confused, his nostrils flaring at the unfamiliar bloody scents in the air. Maveith walked around the barn, grinning as he noticed me.

Blaze was the first to speak, “Is that your blood or the werewolf's blood?”

“Let’s go with the werewolf’s blood,” I huffed a chuckle. I pointed behind me, “I got a pair of kids if you want to tell the elves. Don’t untie them; they are both infected, and one is feral. I think I am going to clean up.” I could hear Ginger getting antsy in her stall when she heard my voice, so I went to check in with her before heading to a nearby stream. My companions were speechless as I walked past them, but I heard Benito mutter something about some elves that owed him some silver.

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