Chapter 27 #2
“In fading light, through terrain we don’t know, with a cart.” Arleria shook her head. “We camp nearby. Plus, this might well be an adventurer group that might know us.”
They continued forward.
The other group had set up in the valley’s best spot, near the stream where the ground was flattest. About fifteen people, Alsen counted.
Their gear looked solid, though, many having cuirasses and other steel armor.
Their gear varied greatly, so they were unlikely to be soldiers.
A sizable group of adventurers, most likely.
They also camped like adventurers, with five small tents, a large fire, and the sprawled arrangement of a group that treated camping like an extended lunch break.
Their leader spotted Arleria’s group approaching and stood.
A man in his mid-twenties, broad-shouldered, with a short sword at his hip and the easy smile of someone who had organized enough expeditions to feel comfortable but not enough to feel cautious.
“Evening,” he called. “We didn’t expect company out here. ”
Arleria approached. “Neither did we. We’re headed for the northern passes. You’re… Torben, right?”
His eyes slightly widened. “Never thought I would get recognized by Arleria herself. We must be doing something right.” He smiled. “Indeed, I’m Torben, and this is my party.”
More like a company. Alsen didn’t relax the tiniest bit.
Arleria formed a charming smile. “It’s good to meet fellow adventurers on the road.”
He nodded. “The merchant guild’s been paying us to patrol the lower roads.
” He glanced at her group, counting heads, assessing.
His eyes lingered on Alsen’s finery, on Derell’s heavy armor, on Malick’s warhammer.
“We’re mostly F and fresh E-ranks, so we aren’t hired for the actually dangerous work. I suppose that’s why you’re around.”
If Alsen recalled correctly, Arleria and one more person, most likely Kern, were D-ranks. The rest were seasoned E-ranks, though personally, he would have ranked Garrett closer to Kern than to Derell or Malick.
“Indeed.” Arleria glanced at Kern. He gave a slight nod. “We’ll set up on the far side of the stream.”
“Suit yourselves. Fire’s going if you want it.”
The two groups settled into an uneasy coexistence. Arleria’s people set up their camp with the least amount of talking necessary. Torben’s people sprawled, talked loudly, and passed around a skin of something that was almost certainly wine.
Luna ignored everyone else, setting herself up away from Arleria’s group, on the far side from Torben’s group. Behind a low ridge of rock that separated the two camps, where the ground was uneven but private, she unrolled her sleeping bag, set down her backpack, and began arranging her space.
“A bit far from the fire, aren’t you?” a man called.
She looked up.
One of Torben’s men had wandered over. Tall, broad-chested, with a friendly face marked by an ever-present smile.
“I’m fine here.”
“That’s a… specific sleeping bag. Where’d you get it?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, Hadric, I think I’ve found your sleeping bag.”
A second man walked over. Shorter than the first, stockier, with the weathered face of a not-fresh adventurer. He wore a scale armor set, with an arming sword at his hip, and a shield on his back. His eyes went to the sleeping bag, and something in his expression shifted. “That’s mine,” he said.
Luna looked up from where she crouched, mid-arrangement. “No, it isn’t.”
The man, Hadric, stepped closer. He pointed at the sleeping bag with a thick finger. “I had one just like that. Someone stole it from me a couple of months ago around Ambervale.”
“What a fascinating story. You should write a book about it. This one’s mine.”
Alsen watched from across the stream, where he sat beside Arleria. The distance was maybe forty paces. Close enough to hear the conversation carry in the evening air, far enough that intervening would take time. His body tensed, the way it always did when Luna’s tone went flat.
Hadric crossed his arms. “Look, I’m not trying to start trouble. I’m just saying that bag is mine. Same stitching, same color, same shape. I’m not saying you stole it yourself, but it’s still mine.”
Luna stood. She was a head shorter than him and half his weight. She held his gaze without blinking. “It’s mine. I’ve had it for months. Go look for yours somewhere else.”
“I’ll give you a few gold coins for it. That’s more than it’s worth.”
“Not for sale.”
“I’ve got a spare one to trade you.”
“Get lost or get hurt.”
The first man, the tall one with the friendly smile, hovered a few steps back. He glanced between them, his smile thinning but not vanishing. A few more of Torben’s people looked over from the fire.
Nobody moved to intervene.
Hadric exhaled through his nose. The dismissal clearly bothered him more than the refusal. A woman half his size, in a camp full of his people, telling him to get lost. Something tightened in his jaw.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m trying to be reasonable here—”
“Get. Lost,” Luna said. “Touch my things, and it’s going to go really badly for you.”
One of Torben’s men near the fire nudged another. The nudged man looked over. A few more heads turned. The argument had become entertainment.
That was the wrong audience to have.
Alsen saw it in Hadric’s posture before the man moved. The slight shift of weight, the squaring of shoulders, the jaw setting into something rigid. The crowd watching did something to him, flipped some switch, where backing down became worse than whatever happened next.
“Oh, really? And what’re you going to do, little girl?” Hadric walked past Luna. He bent down and grabbed the sleeping bag.
Alsen’s vision shifted. Out of nowhere, he saw himself in a space of pure white. Invisible force tore him apart in an instant. He blinked, and it was gone, his body covered in cold sweat. On instinct, the split second he came to, he flew up, casting the omnidirectional shield.
Before his mind started processing thought again, he flew twenty feet above the ground, the segmented shield all around him.
Luna stood a few feet in front of Hadric, her sleeping bag gripped in one hand. No sign of a weapon.
Everyone else just came to their senses too.
Hadric, who stood exactly where he’d been, his hand still in the exact position in which he held the sleeping bag, grunted, catching his side. Dark blood flowed over his fingers.
A shimmer hung over the campsite where Arleria had been sitting. Alsen could still feel her presence there, just hidden under a concealment spell so tight it bent light around her like a mirage.
Everyone else had drawn weapons.
Torben stood by the fire, his short sword out, his face the color of old parchment.
Derell had his longsword in a two-handed grip, positioned in front of the cart.
Malick held his warhammer like he’d forgotten how to put it down.
Kern aimed a drawn bow at Luna. Even the tall man with the friendly smile had a blade out, his smile gone.
Unbothered by them all, Luna dusted off the sleeping bag.
The man next to Hadric shouted, “Healer! We need a healer over here!”
The shout cracked the stillness. Half of Torben’s group rushed to Hadric, weapons lowered but not sheathed. Three of them got to him at once, one pulling his cuirass aside, another pressing cloth to the wound, a third shouting for supplies.
Even from up above, Alsen could see the wound. A dark hole in the man’s side, blood flooding out. Alsen remembered seeing Luna craft the twisted, three-bladed dagger. That looked like it would leave wounds like this.
“It’s too deep,” someone said. A woman with cropped hair who’d pushed through to examine it. She moved the cloth aside, looked, and put it back. Her face said the rest.
“How bad?” Torben asked. He hadn’t moved from his position.
The woman looked up at him. “All the way to the liver. There’s nothing I can do about this.”
“That’s a shame,” Luna said, glancing at the side. “I was hoping you could stop the bleeding, so he could spend the next few days dying of blood poisoning.”
A freezing chill ran down Alsen’s spine. In a cold, ruthless way, that sounded genuine.
“I’ll kill you,” Hadric spat. Blood flecked his lips. He shoved away the people trying to help him and drew his sword. The motion cost him, his face going gray, his stance unsteady, but the blade came out clean. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
Luna chuckled. “You are already dead.”
Torben stepped forward. “Hadric—”
“She stabbed me!”
“I know.” Torben’s voice was steady. The steadiness of a man carefully managing every word. He looked at Luna, then back at Hadric. His sword was still drawn. “At least fight her properly. You deserve that much.”
The camp went quiet again.
Alsen, floating above it all, understood what Torben was doing.
He’d felt… whatever that mirage of his own death was, too.
And now he was looking at his dying man, and at the woman who’d done it, and he was doing the only math that made sense.
Hadric was dead already. The wound was fatal.
Luna made sure it wouldn’t be something a common healer could treat.
But if Hadric charged at Luna and she cut him down while Torben tried to hold his people back, the situation could cascade. Fifteen people with swords, riding the adrenaline of just having experienced their own deaths, watching their friend die. Someone would do something stupid.
So, Torben offered the controlled option. A single combat. A contained death. Dignity for his man, and a reason for the rest not to intervene.
Smart, even if desperate.
Luna shrugged one shoulder. “Sure.” She gently put down her sleeping bag and stepped toward Hadric. “It makes no difference to me.”
Hadric took the shield off his back and charged. With whatever System boost he had, he almost blurred across the ground, smashing his shield at Luna.