Steelforged Legacy 2 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It turned out that the situation at the gate was even easier than Casey had expected. There were no guards standing watch on the inside of the gate. Instead, he heard voices from the small hut to one side of the passage, voices and the rattle of dice on wood.

They waited a few minutes for the patrols on top of the curtain wall to get far enough away, then hurried forward with Magnus close at his heels. The elk had kept quiet for the short walk from the tavern to the gate, eerily so as its hoof-steps made not a sound on the thick cobblestones while Casey’s boots still made quiet clicks.

The thick, iron banded timber that barred the gates closed at night had to weigh several hundred pounds. It took Casey two tries to get it up and out of the cradles. His first try wasn’t enough to do more than shift it a few inches because of the angle.

His second, though, was more than enough to lift it as he pulsed qi through his body, as Maude had taught him to boost his strength during his second battle with Fomori.

Setting the bar down as quietly as possible, Casey eased the large door open. Magnus didn’t wait for a signal, trotting through and immediately veering to the right as soon as he was past the doorway. Casey followed after, pushing the doors together once he was past. The weight of the doors helped them to swing closed, so he hoped that would cover their exit for as long as possible.

“Loki, look after you, Thom. As well as your family and the barkeeper,” Casey muttered as he crept out of the passage and followed Magnus onto the thick grass at the base of the wall.

He hoped that invoking Loki for them would help, as this definitely qualified as pulling a trick on the Bronze Fist drengr. Loki had professed to being a reformed trickster, but Casey was betting on there being no such thing in reality.

The actual escape from the town was anticlimactic enough that Casey felt a bit let down. He and Magnus had managed to escape without more than a sideways glance from any of the people on the street. And he’d not even had to confront the men inside the tavern.

To be fair, I did book it before trouble showed up. Sure, they were looking for the man with the elk, but that didn’t mean they were going to do anything. And the old man warning me about the local clan wanting to cause trouble as well. That felt a little odd, too. Well timed.

The Fates do not always lay things out to cause problems, Casey. Sometimes their plans are for good things to happen, Maude reminded him. He’d drawn her as soon as they were out the gate, needing the reassuring weight of his partner in his hand while they threaded through the dark trees. Magnus, you should head for the road. Traveling at night is going to be hard enough, but the road will let you both make better time away from town.

The elk huffed quietly, letting Maude know he heard and understood. Casey followed the elk over the cleared land between the walls and the treeline, silently hoping that they could continue to evade notice from the patrols on the walls.

Fortune was with them, though, and they made it across the field of ancient and sun-rotted stumps without a sound coming from the city wall at their rear. Magnus turned and paced the edge of the forest to guide them towards the road, moving with a purpose but pausing every so often to glance over his shoulder to ensure Casey was keeping up.

Moving over the rough and grassy terrain was a little more difficult than the road, but Casey pushed himself so that he would not fall behind. Magnus walked like he was on a road, his nature as a Gladewalker Elk allowing him to pass without issues.

“Okay, let’s get some distance,” Casey said as they finally reached the slight depression the road sat in. He didn’t bother to be quiet, as they were several hundred yards from the city wall now. “Make the most of the moonlight we have.”

Magnus tossed his antlers and trotted out onto the road, with Casey breaking into an easy jog to follow him. In only a minute, they were out of sight of the city wall, following the road as it curved into the trees. It was only then that Casey began to relax as the thick shadows of the night crept in from the surrounding treeline, while branches slowly knitted together overhead.

The arrow that raced out of the bushes and grazed one of Magnus’ broad shoulders startled them both. Magnus darted forward and away to escape the threat, and Casey didn’t hesitate when three forms surged out of the thick brush a moment later.

“Get him, boys! I knew they’d scare up the spy in town, being so loud!” crowed one of the trio, wielding a shadow shaped like a bow that he dropped. A moment later, the ringing noise of a sword being drawn came from the man, but Casey couldn’t spare him any more thought.

The two in the lead spread out, one to each side, and Casey knew that they were going to try to split his attention. The move had an eerie resemblance to the maneuver that Mikhail’s guards had tried to pull on him, and so he rushed the one on his right, slashing out with Maude.

His target had not expected Casey to rush him, and stumbled in the darkness as he threw himself back from the blow. As Casey pushed past the man, he jammed his left hand into his hip pouch, fumbling for his goal.

“Get up, you idiot!” barked the shadow who’d had the bow. “Take him alive. We need answers of how much they know!”

“I suppose it wouldn’t help if I told you that I wasn’t a spy?” Casey growled, circling to put the downed man between himself and the other two.

“Don’t care. No one creeping along the roads at this hour has an honest reason for it,” snapped the speaker for the group. “Maybe after we beat on you some, you’ll answer us straight. We’ll find out who slipped you information, then hang the lot of you from the curtain wall as a warning to other spies.”

The amount of vindictive glee in the man’s voice made Casey’s temper boil, and he was about to respond when his hand found what it had been looking for and he grinned wickedly himself.

A tug and a flick of his wrist pulled the walnut-sized object out of his pouch and shook its wrap off. The baldrsteinn he carried was small, but in the near pitch-darkness of the road it shone like a spotlight. Casey thrust it forward, using his own hand to block the light from his eyes, but his attackers had all been looking his way and yelped in surprise when the flash of light blinded them.

The sight of two men and a woman greeted Casey in that light. The woman was the silent shadow that had still remained on its feet. Of the two men, the one still standing looked older by a few years. All three wore the same russet tunics with the insignia of the Bronze Fist on their breast. The woman had a bearded war-axe held low to her right, while the prone man had a short-handled war-hammer in his hand. The standing man had a broad-bladed sword held ready, though all three were wincing away from the light now.

“I’ll state this again. I’m not a spy. The reason I left town was because your clansmen were unwelcoming to a stranger spending the night,” Casey repeated, edging to the left to try to get around the group. All three of them had the look of raw recruits, likely still on their first or second Step, and even the eldest looked younger than him.

The woman responded first, lunging forward and swiping at the light with her axe, but Casey yanked his hand back and lashed out with Maude, the sharp seax blade opening a cut in the woman’s weapon arm.

Yelping in surprised pain, she lost her grip on the war-axe and it skittered across the road. Casey didn’t stop moving, though, bringing his hand up and hammering Maude’s pommel into the woman’s jaw.

The woman collapsed in a boneless heap there on the road, eyes rolling back in her head.

“Bastard!” the sword-wielder roared and lunged at Casey, but the man had also made the same mistake that Mikhail’s guard had only days before. He’d forgotten about Magnus.

The big Gladewalker Elk lunged out of the shadows from behind the man, his antlers lowered and ready. A single sweep of those sharp points caught the man’s sword arm and trapped it before Magnus’ thick neck lifted him off the ground and tossed him to one side like Casey might a fruit peel he was done with.

There was a sick cracking noise as he landed, and the man yelped in pain before he began swearing. Magnus lunged towards the hammer-wielder, correctly identifying him as the sole remaining threat, but Casey stopped him with a barked order.

“Magnus, no!” The elk froze, his sharp antlers bare inches from the other man, who lay pinned against the sloped side of the road. The elk huffed in irritation, flicking one floppy ear at Casey as if to say ‘I’m listening.’

Casey is right, Magnus. If you kill any of them, then the Bronze Fist will be more likely to pursue this, Maude responded for him, having already read the thought in Casey’s mind. If you leave them alive, it’s their word that someone came this way. And do you think they’ll admit that an elk, even one as handsome as you are, kicked their asses?

Magnus huffed again, this time in amusement, before stepping back slowly with his antlers still pointed at the prone man.

“This is what is going to happen,” Casey said in a low tone, glaring at the hammer wielder.

“Gods damn you, stranger! Your beast broke my arm. I’ll see him turning on a spit before sunrise!” snarled the former sword-wielder, pushing himself to his feet with one hand before yanking a knife from his belt.

Casey didn’t wait. He turned and slapped the short eating knife out of the man’s hand with the flat of Maude’s blade before punching him in the diaphragm hard enough to knock the man back onto his ass again.

Once Casey was sure that the loudmouth wasn’t going to do anything more than lay there and gasp for breath for a bit, he turned back to the still-prone hammer man, who had dropped his weapon and was holding his hands up in supplication.

“As I was saying. This is how it’s going to go. You three are going to stay right fucking here, and not move for at least an hour. If I so much as smell one of you three coming after me, there will be no second chances. You attacked me like bandits in the night, and it is only out of a desire to not have to deal with your clan’s bullshit that I’m going to leave you alive.” As Casey leveled his statement, he bent over the prone man and waved the bloody tip of Maude’s blade in front of the youth’s face. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes, drengr! I understand!” the young man shrilled, his eyes wide in a face far too young to even consider growing a beard. “I won’t say a word about this, but Olaf…” his eyes darted past Casey to the still-gasping man on the ground.

“Olaf can make his own mistakes. If it was his idea for three young drengr to come out here and ambush travelers like highwaymen, then you would do well to separate yourself from him.” Casey punctuated his statement by tapping the tip of Maude’s blade to the prone youth’s nose, leaving behind a dot of blood. “Be glad I’m more merciful than you three seem to be. I shudder to think what you would have done if you’d caught a regular freeman just trying to travel the roads.”

With that, Casey bent and wiped Maude’s blade on the young man’s tunic before sheathing her and turning towards where Magnus waited.

The sight that greeted him was just so strange that Casey nearly froze in place. Only his desire to continue with the impression of strength he’d given these three in hopes of scaring them enough that they wouldn’t pursue him, got him moving again.

Magnus fell into step with him as they hurried down the road into the darkness, with Casey keeping the baldrsteinn in hand to illuminate their path. Maude, however, had no such concerns.

What a smart boy you are, Magnus! You remembered to collect that idiot’s weapon for me. Good boy!

Magnus huffed happily at the praise, the sound muffled by the hilt of the longsword he had in his mouth while he held his head high to display his prize.

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Casey relieved Magnus of the sword after they made it out of sight from their ambushers. Since he didn’t have the sheath for the sword, he just held it in his right hand while they jogged into the night.

“How lucky was that?” Casey panted, having to speak aloud since both his hands were occupied.

Magnus grunted in response, this one indistinct enough that Casey didn’t know if it was a positive or negative reply from the animal, so he just continued the thought.

“I didn’t sense any of those three laying in wait, and you didn’t either. I’m just glad that the one shot they took missed you, buddy.” This time, the grunt from Magnus was definitely in agreement. A moment later, the elk let out a rather prodigious fart that made Casey chuckle.

“Yeah, I agree that they were shit. Thanks for covering for me, Magnus. It meant that I didn’t have to kill anyone. I have a feeling that Olaf wouldn’t have let things go without one of us spilling a lot more blood otherwise.”

Well, the man will be missing that sword of his. I can tell already that it is qi infused. That will help push me along my own Road. Maude’s amusement was clear as they continued to trot through the night. If you think you can do it, draw me and lay me against the other blade. Hold both of our hilts, and I can absorb it as you travel.

It took a bit of shuffling, with Casey having to slow to a fast walk and tuck the baldrsteinn into his armpit for a moment, but he got them rearranged and then started jogging again.

“Wanted to ask you about that, Maude. What’s with the whole ‘absorbing weapons’ thing? I know you did it before, and I didn’t ask. Just assumed it was kind of like me eating qi infused foods.”

Something like that, Casey. As you remember, our shared Legacy is simply the Legacy of Steel. I can grow along my path by absorbing items used in the production of steel, and by performing the tasks of such objects. Which is why every time you draw me in a fight, I grow even faster. The impurities that I can cleanse from Fomori cores act as the flux and other additives needed to create steel. So feeding me anything made of iron helps a great deal, as that allows me to safely encapsulate the alloying materials.

“But where does it all go?” Casey glanced at his right hand and was startled to see that the formerly full length sword was now maybe half the length it had started as. He couldn’t stop running to inspect it, but the two handles felt like they had fused together in his hand.

I can store it within myself, just as you can store qi within yourself. Don’t worry about capacity, though. I don’t need you to worry about buying up iron ingots from a smithy, at least not yet. I’ve got more than enough on hand to deal with the impurities I filter from the Fomori cores for quite some time. But these qi infused metals are too useful to leave behind.

“Okay. That was going to be my next question, if you were taking any risks or in danger of being harmed by the impurities you’ve filtered out for me.”

Not even close. Trust me, Casey. I’m your partner. I’ll tell you if I need something. I won’t just take unnecessary risks.

Magnus decided to weigh in his opinion on the statement with another rather loud fart, which got both Maude and Casey laughing.

Agreed, Magnus. I’d be a rather shit partner if I couldn’t or wouldn’t communicate properly.

Now, you two should focus on getting as much ground put between you and Oakwatch as possible. Erik said that there was a bridge to the north of the city that would let us cross to the other side of the river. I think it’s time we left the lands of the Bronze Fist behind and made for the Oak Horde territory. From there, we can keep moving north. And done.

Casey glanced down to find that the last of the sword he’d been carrying was now gone, and his hand rested solely on Maude’s hilt once more, so he quickly sheathed her while he spoke.

“Sounds like a plan to me, Maude. Hold up a second there, Magnus.” Casey came to a stop and was followed by the elk a moment later, with the big animal trotting around to stare curiously at him while Casey unstrapped his pack.

Their conversation and run along the road had put a good mile or two between them and the ambush site, so Casey felt safe quickly shifting the contents around in his pack to transfer some to the saddlebags on Magnus. The elk was a bit put out that they were stopping just for that, but he calmed as soon as he saw the two leaf-wrapped squares of fae-honey candy that Casey produced when he was done.

“Gonna need a boost to get through the night. I agree with Maude that we need to get over the border as soon as we can, so let’s just get as far as possible before we rest, shall we?” Casey unwrapped the first square and tossed it into his mouth.

Magnus didn’t wait for him to unwrap the second, claiming his share with a happy snort and a quick lipping of Casey’s open palm.

If you make it to the other side of the river, it should be safe to camp and sleep for a time. I promise I can make it worth your while, my partner, Maude purred in his mind. Her evocative tone abruptly reminded Casey of how the Bronze Fist drengr had interrupted his plans earlier in the night.

As the sugary cube began to dissolve on Casey’s tongue, he pushed off into a headlong sprint down the road with Magnus close at his heels and Maude’s sweet laughter ringing inside his mind.