Chapter Thirteen
“Is that where your pull is coming from?” I whispered to Karrida as I tugged her closer to my side.
“Yes, I-I think so,” she stuttered. “I don’t know what’s in there, but whatever it is, it wants to be found.”
“Then let’s go,” I said as I supported most of her weight and helped her walk. “Be on your guard. If there’s a fire in there, someone had to have started it.”
And there weren’t usually friendly faces in the Mist Woods.
When we reached the cave mouth, its maw towered over us like a shark’s mouth. The blackened pits inside were lit up by the soft orange light of fire, and I could hear the sound of rock being chipped at by a pickaxe.
I counted three voices from within, and I carefully pulled Karrida behind a tree opposite the gaping maw so we could look inside and see who was in there.
“Fuck this,” a sweaty human man dressed in only a dirtied vest and loose black pants spat as he threw his pickaxe to the ground. “How come we get put on dig duty?”
“Someone had to do it, Wyn,” an elf with slicked-back blond hair and a rat-like face said as he kept chipping at the stone in front of them. “Unfortunately, we drew the short straw.”
“I mean, why not get a bloody magic-wielder to do it?” Wyn, the sweaty human with pitch-black hair that fell in curtains beside his eyes, asked. “You’re an elf, aren’t you, Saasha? Can’t you just move the rocks?”
“Hardly any of us have powers, you fool,” Saasha snapped as he paused in his picking. “It’s only the people in this part of Mystica that have had them come back because of the shard.”
“And if you haven’t noticed yet, Wyn, we haven’t found that yet, either,” the third man, a muscular half-orc with pale green skin and a shaved head, said dryly.
“I think it’s a waste of time myself,” Wyn scoffed as he kicked a loose rock with his boot. “Why does he have us digging in this random cave, anyway?”
“We don’t ask questions, do we?” Saasha asked. “We do as we’re told, and we’ll reap the rewards.”
“Which will be when, exactly?” the dark-haired human huffed. “I haven’t seen any kind of reward since I joined this fellowship.”
“Your reward is not being dead,” the half-orc grunted. “Consider yourself lucky.”
“Lucky?” Wyn barked out a laugh. “You think I should feel lucky while I’m sweating buckets in the middle of the Mist Woods digging into a cave that seems to not want to be hollowed out?”
“You can tell you’ve never done a day’s work in your life,” the half-orc grumbled, which made the blond elf snicker.
“Shut up, Hirr,” Wyn snapped. “I’ve done plenty of work in my time. I just usually get paid upfront for it.”
“Then I feel sorry for whoever hired you,” Hirr said. “Pick your axe back up, or else I’ll tell Shaar you’re slacking.”
Wyn made a noise similar to a mouse being caught under a cat’s claws, and he was quick to pick his axe back up and start frantically chipping away at the stone.
It was too dark to see any further into the cave. The fire they had lit only engulfed the entryway, but I did catch the faintest shimmer of something on the stone walls.
Why they were digging here wasn’t important right now, though. These men had just admitted they were working with Shaar, and that meant their purpose here had to be nefarious.
There was no time to question anything. We needed to get rid of them and fast.
“I’m going to attack,” I whispered to Karrida. “I know you don’t have your sword, so find any kind of rock you can and throw it to distract them. But don’t directly engage.”
“I don’t… think I could, even if I tried,” Karrida said through staggered breaths. “I know this is it, but it’s still tugging on my chest.”
“Then only do what you can,” I said as I rested my hand on her shoulder. “I’ll protect you.”
I considered using my Glock to pick off the men quickly, but I didn’t know if they had friends nearby who would hear the shots.
So, I slowly pulled my sword from its sheath instead, and thankfully, the metal didn’t hiss too loudly.
The sound of their pickaxes chipping away at the stone swallowed the sound, which gave me the perfect opportunity to sneak up on the three men.
Hirr was the biggest of the lot, so I would have to take him out first and worry about the other sniveling bandits after.
Saasha’s admission that he had no powers gave me hope, though. I wouldn’t need to use the shard, and it could remain in obscurity for a little longer.
My grip tightened on the hilt of my sword as I crept closer to Hirr’s towering form. When I was right behind him, Wyn did a double take as he spotted me, but it was too late.
Before the dark-haired bandit could warn his friend, I brought my sword down on Hirr’s neck. It wedged into the junction between his neck and shoulder, and a spray of blood spurted out and coated the wall.
Wyn cried out and fell back onto his ass, with his pickaxe discarded. Meanwhile, Saasha tightened his grip on his own pickaxe and crouched low to the ground with a sneer.
I yanked my sword free from Hirr’s neck, and the half-orc staggered backward as he blindly clutched at the oozing wound.
When he turned, I could see two wide brown eyes staring down at me in shock. But only a few seconds later, they rolled into the back of his head, and he fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.
“You bastard!” Wyn screeched. “S-Saasha, get him!”
“Pick up a weapon and fight, you coward,” Saasha hissed. “I’m not the only one standing here.”
“But I-I--”
Wyn wasn’t going to be much of an issue, so I lurched toward Saasha next. I jabbed my blade toward his stomach in a lunge, but the elf swung his pickaxe around and blocked the attack.
“Back off!” he snarled with yellowed teeth. “This cave isn’t worth dying for.”
“Y-Yes, y-you have no idea who you’re messing with!” Wyn chimed in despite his pale face and shaking limbs.
“Lieutenant Shaar, right?” I asked with a casual tilt of my head. “I think I know quite well.”
Both of the bandits’ eyes widened at my reveal, but their shock was stunted as a rock suddenly flew from the foliage outside the cave and hit Saasha’s temple.
Karrida’s hit had taken a chunk of skin off, and the small scrape was already bleeding, but the blond elf didn’t even flinch as he raised his pickaxe above his head and charged toward me.
I kicked my foot out when he got close enough, and my boot made direct contact with his stomach. I pushed with all of my weight, and the rat-faced bandit went stumbling back into the cave.
His foot slid on one of the branches they’d used to stoke the fire, and he fell ass first onto the small bundle of flames. He screeched as they licked at his skin, and he scrambled out of the fire on his hands and knees.
But his pickaxe was left behind to be swallowed by the fire.
Now weaponless, Saasha reached for a large rock that had been chipped away and raised it above his head. His clothes were still smoldering, and smoke was filling the cave mouth and making my eyes sting.
“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” I sneered.
“You’re a cocky son of a bitch, aren’t you?” the burnt elf spat. “I kill cocky men.”
“Do you really?” I hummed. “Well, give it a shot.”
Saasha’s face turned red with anger, and the blond charged forward again with the rock raised above his head. I stood still and waited for him to get closer, but before he could reach me, another rock flew through the air and hit his wrist.
The rock fell straight onto his head, and the impact made the bone give out. As soon as it collided with his skull, I heard a dull crack, and Saasha’s body fell to the ground with a thud.
“No!” Wyn wailed as he realized he was all alone. “No, no, please! I-I never wanted to work with them anyway! I just needed a bit of money is all!”
“Liar,” I growled as I turned my full attention to him. “Anyone who works for Shaar is just a lowlife thug wanting to make it big.”
“I-I swear I didn’t realize how brutal he could be!” the dark-haired bandit pleaded as he raised his shaking hands in front of his face. “Have mercy, good Sir. Please have mercy on me--”
“What were you ordered to do out here?” I demanded and cut off his whimpering.
“W-We were just ordered to dig and keep on digging,” Wyn stuttered with wide eyes. “That’s all I was told. It’s all I know, I swear!”
“Was Shaar trying to get you to find something?” I asked.
“I-I don’t know!” Wyn wailed and let his head drop to the dusty ground. “He wouldn’t tell us anything other than to dig and dig and dig and--”
I drove my blade through Wyn’s neck to silence him.
It was a quick and somewhat painless death.
I couldn’t let him live, even if I did take pity on him, but I stood by what I said earlier.
Anyone allying themselves with Shaar wasn’t a good person, and I wasn’t going to let a bastard like Wyn run back to the man out to get me with his tail tucked between his legs.
Blood pooled around Wyn’s body as his eyes slowly closed, and silence returned to the forest at last.
Karrida stumbled out from the treeline and limped over to me, and I quickly pulled my sword from the dead bandit and resheathed it so I could catch her.
“Easy,” I said as she leaned her entire weight on me. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I… I need to touch it,” Karrida said breathlessly as she glanced around the cave walls. “This is what is calling to me.”
I followed her gaze and was surprised to see the amount of ore sticking out of the walls like splinters.
Whatever it was, I’d never seen anything like it before in my life. The ore itself was purple and shimmery, as if entire galaxies had been bottled and trapped behind its surfaces.
“It’s beautiful,” I commented as I led Karrida over to a piece of the purple ore jutting out of the wall near Hirr.
“It’s yuriel,” she said in an awed tone as she placed her hand against the metal.
As soon as her hand made contact with it, she gasped, and I felt her take most of her body weight back.
“This is it,” she whispered as she placed her other hand against the wall. “Noah, this is what was calling to me.”
“But why?” I asked as I placed my hand on the ore, too.