SWORD OF JUSTICE

©2025 RYAN RIMMEL

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ALSO IN SERIES

The Adventures of Squire Yorick

Sword of Justice

The Monster Army

* * *

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CONTENTS

1. The Beginning

2. The Sword

3. Exagin

4. The Woods Suck

5. The Town of Nordrin

6. Training

7. The Next Day

8. The Crypts

9. Preparations

10. Orcs, the Plural of Orc

11. Boss Garuk

12. Leaving Town

13. Finding Drek

14. The Unlucky Ones

15. Victory of a Sort

16. Another Glorious Town

17. The Liberator

18. The Ambush

19. Fort Nope

20. Suspicious

21. The Prisoners

22. Yorick Dies Wearing a Blue Dress

23. The Cage

24. Aftermath

25. So, Me and My Big Mouth

26. Returning

27. The Army of Liberation

28. Moving Out

29. Return to the Crossroads

30. Preparations

31. The First Battle

32. Northward Ho

33. The Scouting Mission

34. The Cave of Wonders

35. Impact Crater

36. In a Cave

37. The Damsel

38. The Secret Invasion

39. Back in Kenin

40. The Battleplan

41. The Assault

42. The Dungeon

43. Which Witch is Which?

44. Someone’s Very Wrong and Terrible Day

45. The End of a Quest

Thank you for reading Sword of Justice

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1

THE BEGINNING

Rarely does a man get such an interesting opportunity. You’d just have to be insane to take it. — Grandpa Henry

“That’s right, my real name is Yorick. I know it’s weird, but Grandpa insisted,” I said, heading down the stairs into my new basement, balancing the last box of his stuff, the old King Arthur books he read to me when I was a kid.

Lancelot was my favorite.

We’re both the middle child, and while he loved all of his grandkids, I was the clear favorite.

Grandpa just, up and vanished after our camping trip about three years ago, and the place had been abandoned ever since. Mom suspected he had a lady friend; Grandpa was like that. For about as long as I’d known him, every so often he’d pull one of his vanishing acts, but never for this long. I was just glad my last memories with him were us going camping like we used to.

I waited patiently as the call center finally got around to responding to me. “Everything is now in your name, enjoy your new home.” That was it. Now Grandpa Henry’s house was mine. A small house in the shadow of the Horsetooth Mountains was all mine. At least until he reappeared, if he did. You could never tell with Grandpa.

The next basement stair sagged under the weight of the books. I adjusted to put myself closer to the edge and hoped it would hold up. I could fix that later. There was a lot to fix throughout the house.

That was the agreement. I would fix up the place because of my generally handy nature, and Dad figured that if any of the kids got the place it should be me. Besides, it was closer to work.

I had two jobs, and I’d been giving all of that to my sister on the account of the fact she’d gotten sick. Not fun sick either. She was the ‘we don’t know what’s wrong with her’ variety of very sick that was looking less good every day.

I fumbled for the light switch, which by all accounts should be within easy reach, but of course was not. Nothing for it but to step into the darkness and search for a spot to put the box. We’d cleaned out the top floor, thrown out most of Grandpa’s old stuff and replaced it with mine. That cleaning did not extend to the basement, and it was mostly full of his old stuff and a few pieces of furniture. Like the antique wardrobe I certainly wasn’t going to sell when no one was looking.

Just after I’d sat the box down, I heard the sniff. Growing up on a farm, you get used to listening to animals smell you. There were explorative sniffs, questioning sniffs, and this wasn’t one of those.

This was an angry sniff, like the kind an angry dog might make before it up and bit you.

Scanning around, I spotted two yellow eyes and for an instant I relaxed. Eyes that shade were from a cat, and I could survive a mauling from one of those. Except, those eyes were really far apart for a cat. They were just the right size for…

“A puma?” I muttered. I lived pretty far from the city. We had mountain lions, pumas, and cougars that we all had to occasionally deal with. Could never tell any of them apart, but you definitely didn’t want to be locked in a basement with one.

I moved cautiously toward the stairs and the only source of light. I didn’t make it. The cat screamed and leapt across the room at me. The fact the cat was screaming was a lower priority in my mind considering it was currently charging me. Throwing my hands up defensively, my arm blossomed in pain as an angry, little green child landed on me.

He’d cut me with a knife.

He moved to get into position to stab me again and I punched him in the face. The little guy snarled, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. It wasn’t a child or anything human. Those were predator’s teeth, more akin to a shark than anything I’d ever seen on land.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a goblin, but a goblin? Seriously you see those in anime or in books, but you don’t see them in real life. They don’t exist in real life. I stared at it while trying to figure out how to explain to the hospital that I’d been cut, by a goblin, with a knife.

They’d send me to the nut house unless I had evidence.

It attempted to scurry away, so I grabbed his hand. He tried to bite me. Releasing the hand got me cut with the knife, which was wildly unfair. However, the goblin had enough for the moment and jumped off of me, sending me reeling backward into the stairs.

That’s when my box of junk saved me. The goblin landed in the newly deposited box with a thud and began to pull himself out. I was planning on using that moment to escape when I saw two things.

One was the light switch, which was under the railing for some unknown reason. The second was that when I’d fallen onto the stairs, I’d knocked open a hidden panel, revealing the hilt of an enormous knife. I grabbed it and kept right on pulling it free. Grandpa’s definition of knife was a bit broad. This was a sword.

I flicked on the lights just as the goblin got free and he shrieked, covering his eyes and yelling. He was three feet tall and made of wiry muscles. He was also strangely dressed…

Like the neighbor kid I used to play with sometimes. That was worrying. Not that it mattered.

Taking the sword, I thrust it into the goblin’s belly. It was a clumsy thrust, but the creature didn’t adapt to different lighting conditions well. He looked down in shock at the sword. I flopped back onto the stairs listening for anything else, but the room was blessedly quiet.

I put my hand on the wound to staunch the bleeding, but it had already stopped for the most part. There were some flecked green bits in the wound. That seemed bad.

The basement started to spin—nope, that was my head spinning, a wooziness blanketing me. Initially I thought I was coming off of my adrenaline rush, but clearly, I’d been poisoned. My arm was numb, and despite trying to drop the sword, my hand was locked around the hilt.

Looking around for my phone, I didn’t see it. Why was it so dark down here? Intellectually I knew it wasn’t, because the light was on. Man, I was so tired. There wasn’t even a house phone to make a call from. I was going to die, and then, so was my sister. I shook off the stupor, I still had to try. Mom couldn’t lose another kid.

I forced my muscles to move and took the first step up the stairs when the sword started to buzz in my hand. My entire body became enveloped in a blue aura and the world snapped back into crisp focus.

“What the hell,” I said, staring at the sword.

“I am Justice, and I have an opportunity for you,” proclaimed the weapon.

2

THE SWORD

Naturally, I dropped the sword. It landed with a whump right on the stair, and then clattered unceremoniously to the basement floor. The poison must be making me hear things.

I glanced at my wound, which was still very much there. It wasn’t bleeding at all anymore though. I’d been lucky, the cut was shallow.

And the goblin was still there, except… dead. I’d stabbed him in the chest, which proved lethal for goblins. Good thing to know. Also, there was a talking sword. It was a lot to take in.

I was in shock. Obviously there was no such thing as talking swords. Except when I picked it up again: “Behold, mighty Sword Bearer,” began the sword.

I dropped it.

There were goblins and talking swords.

“I’m going crazy…” Had to be. I was too worried about Hope. She told me not to worry and that just made me worry more, and now I’m seeing goblins and swords can talk.

I should probably quit. Both jobs. At least the meat packing plant. That was a bad job, always leaving me smelling like meat. Working back at the farm was always an option. Then I’d smell like manure, which sadly was an improvement. Junior could use the help and it would let me visit with Hope more. If I saw her, I would probably worry less.

Anyway, it was a contest between my unraveling mind and this sword. The sword was just going to have to be silent.

I grabbed the sword again, and blissful silence. I wasn’t crazy, was just worried. I could look at a sword like a normal person. Despite everything, I was still doing alright. This was manageable. I just needed a sign to get me going in the right direction. I looked at the perfectly normal, non-talking sword, admiring how well made it was and that it didn’t talk.

“See, I’m not crazy,” I said.

“You aren’t crazy. Stop dropping me,” said the sword.

Yea… I dropped the sword. This time it fell into an umbrella holder, which then toppled over and clattered to the ground, obviously not being built for swords.

Okay, before I was having fun, but this was getting legitimately worrisome. Hope graduated with a psychology degree, she’d tell me I had schizophrenia, assuming she was coherent today. Of course, she’d do that before the degree. Maybe she was a prodigy?

“Whelp, no fun for me,” I said, picking up the sword again in preparation of putting it back where I found it.

“Do not place me back in that case until I have told you of our quest, Sword Bearer!” began the sword.

“Sorry talking sword, insane Yorick doesn’t live here. You need to go back into the scabbard,” I said, out loud, to myself. I knew I was talking to myself because only a crazy person talked to an inanimate object.

“I am not just a talking sword, I am a magical talking sword. My name is Justice,” said the little crazy part of me who thought he was a talking sword.

“Okay, Magical Sword,” I said, holding the thing as I felt my shoulder’s slump. If I was going to be crazy, I might as well have a bit of fun. “What can a Magic Sword do?”

“My powers are limited here, but I can remove the taint of poison from your body with my awesome powers,” said the sword.

“For me to be poisoned, I would have had to get poisoned and that would require me to fight with something that could poison me and clearly that couldn’t happen because I’m a normal guy who just put a box in his basement. I wonder if I hit my head?”

“You were poisoned, but I suppressed the poison temporarily so we could talk. If you are interested in continuing to talk, I will cleanse your body.”

“And if you don’t?” I asked.

“Nothing good,” said Justice. “Please allow me to heal you so I can tell you of our awesome journey!”

“Not really much of a choice,” I grumbled. Then my arm twitched and a blast of cold flowed through my body. The darkness hovering at the edge of my vision vanished utterly, and even the exhaustion of moving boxes all day disappeared. I felt like I’d slept for twelve hours in a feather bed after a quality massage by Helga the Norwegian torch.

Then I sniffed. The overwhelming odor from my body was gone. My shirt was even clean, the sweat stains nowhere to be found. I looked washed. Didn’t smell like meat.

I must be crazy.

“Okay, you have my attention,” I said, holding up my hand. Even my fingernails were clean—my whole body—sparkly clean.

“Excellent! To continue: I AM JUSTICE, a Magical Sword granted only to the most powerful of Magical Knights. I require a knight to travel with me to ultimate peril, where we might save a world if we are brave enough and skilled enough. I will forge you into a new knight of legend. Will you come with me?”

I considered that for a second and said the only logical response, “What?”

“Good, now shall—” began the sword. “Wait, did you say yes?”

“I didn’t say no, but what you’re suggesting sounds insane.”

“Anything worth doing sounds insane the first time!” said Justice.

“I mean, brushing your teeth is worth doing, and that’s not insane unless you are really bad at it,” I said.

“I am not asking to brush your teeth. I’m asking you to become a Magical Sword Knight, who’s highest calling is to save the universe from the forces of darkness and evil!”

“The whole universe?”

“Yes,” said the sword.

“And I could only barely handle one goblin,” I said, gesturing to the dissolving mass on the floor.

“Obviously not at the beginning. We’d start off trying to save a kingdom,” said the sword. “A kingdom that needs Justice!”

“The concept or you? I also don’t see how one person could save the whole universe.”

“That is because you lack vision and a goal,” said Justice.

“Vision,” I said.

“You stand here wondering what you should do, hoping that the universe will answer you,” said Justice. “Yet when the universe answers, you hesitate!”

“It’s just such a big ask.”

“There is a sense of pride and accomplishment. The universe needs you and this is your one chance to help. Are you going to deny the universe?”

“It would take a miracle for someone like me to save the universe,” I replied.

“Why didn’t you say so, for Magic Sword Knights, miracles are around every corner,” said Justice. “Your name will go down in legend, people will remember you, you’ll be a hero!”

“So?” I asked.

“Girls love heroes,” said Justice.

“I’m in,” I said. What? I was nineteen, and in a bit of a dry spell.

“And if that doesn’t work, think about the children and—Wait, you’re in?”

“Yeah. I’ll do it, I’ll be a knight, I’ll be a hero!”

“Then do you swear to uphold the honor and duty of the Magic Sword Knights in our pursuit of Peace throughout the universe?”

This was incredibly hasty, but I mean, girls…

“Yes, I do.” A weight settled onto my shoulders.

“Then, Squire Yorick, we shall travel to the planet Exagin for your first quest to save the world from evil!”

“Squire?” I began.

“You don’t start off at Knight rank. You’re new. You have to build up from Squire to Knight to Knight Master!” said the sword. “Take the belt and my scabbard to the step.”

I grabbed the belt, which was leather and much nicer than my belt. There were golden inlays that ran down the scabbard making it look quite elaborate. My belt replaced, I clipped the scabbard to it and slid the sword into the scabbard without thinking.

“You will find we can communicate as long as you are wearing the scabbard or I am held in your hand,” said Justice.

Just then, a noise came from Grandpa’s old wardrobe.

“So, I can only hear you if I’m holding on?” I asked as I opened the wardrobe. The empty wardrobe was replaced by a glowing purple portal.

“For now. But as you advance, it will be easier for you to hear me call out,” said Justice. I poked him into the portal.

“Is this dangerous?” I asked as I pulled the sword back out, it appeared undamaged.

“This? No. You’ll be fine. No worries. Exagin is a low danger world where you can learn the ropes, a quest fit for a squire. We’ll be back in less than a month!”

“Wait, my sister,” I said, lowering the sword.

“She can’t come.”

“She’s very sick, I shouldn’t leave…” I said. Going on an adventure sounded awesome. Leaving my family all of a sudden sounded terrible. Really terrible.

“You swore an oath,” said Justice defensively.

“I’m nineteen.”

The sword was silent for several seconds, then, “What can I do to get you to come with me?”

“Can you heal her?” I asked.

“No, but if she is ill, we could go to Exagin and get a magical potion which will certainly heal her,” said Justice.

“What?” I asked.

“Yes, Henry did that for his grandson once, the poor kid had a terrible disease ravaging his body. No Earthly medicine could cure it,” said Justice, pausing for effect. “But we went to a world where he was owed a favor and returned with a magical potion. He was cured the next day!”

“That’s what cured me,” I said, remembering the fever and horrible sweats. Gramps showed up with his cure-all potion and snuck it into the hospital, he told me I couldn’t tell anyone he gave it to me, so I hadn’t.

“Not you, Henry’s favorite grandson, little Ricky,” said Justice. “Which, on further consideration, is probably just a nickname for Yorick.”

“Yorick is a weird name,” I said, realizing what happened. “They thought Hope had what I had. Since I just got better, they figured she would too, now she’s really sick.”

“It doesn’t matter, the potion cures all. The people will just give you one if you help them, like a glorious hero!”

“So, Hope being ill is all my fault?” I asked, horrified.

Justice considered that. “Yes, but you can fix it if you just come with me! You’ll be a hero!”

“A hero,” I said, the realization about Hope still grinding me down.

“Like your great American heroes: George Washington, Teddy Rosevelt, or Dolly Parton,” said Justice.

“Those names don’t all seem to be from the same list,” I began, then dropped it. They were notable people. I reached out to the portal, and it seemed to be drawing me in. Still, I pulled back.

“We will make it our personal quest, Get Potion for Sister!” said Justice. “The most noble of quests.”

Personal Quest: Get Potion for Sister

Yorick, the awesome squire, is going to travel to Exagin to get a cure-all potion for his sister, like a noble hero, because that is the only way to save her from something that is clearly not his fault!

“The only way?” I asked.

“Haven’t you tried everything else?”

“Good point, but shouldn’t I think about this?”

“I’m not looking for a Magical Sword Knight who hesitates or doesn’t want to be here, I’m looking for a manly man who is a decider that is committed to the cause,” said the sword. “The kind of man that the ladies look at and say, wow, Justice is amazing, and Yorick, that manly guy holding him, looks pretty good too.”

“Wouldn’t the knight’s name go first?” I said, considering my options.

“It’s sort of like the Lone Ranger and his faithful steed, Silver,” said Justice.

“Am I the Lone Ranger or Silver in that equation?” The portal beckoned.

“For now, you are carrying the hero,” said Justice. “Don’t worry, this world should be a good training ground, or at least the world was less dangerous when I learned of it.”

“I should talk to my mom,” I said, waffling.

“If only you had one of those little metal boxes that had all of your planet’s information and your mother’s contact info on it,” said Justice.

“I can’t be gone for a month. I have a job.”

“You don’t like your job.”

“Granted, but what about money?” I asked.

Justice laughed. “We aren’t knights for free, Yorick. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars as a signing bonus, if you call your mom and tell her you are going right now.”

I blinked, and ten thousand dollars appeared in my hand like magic. That wasn’t an absurd amount of money for me, I’ve been working my entire teenage life, but it was a substantial chunk of change.

And just like that, I located my phone and called my mom, telling her I was going on an assignment for work for a month. Next up was my job and I told them I quit. Then I texted my sister and told her to keep the faith.

“What about the goblin? I think he was stealing clothing from my neighbor,” I said, eyeing the glowing portal. They probably had those clothes in their garage outback and the little thing stole them.

“Magic is very weak on Earth, he will continue dissolving until nothing is left,” said Justice, the Magic Sword. I got ready to poke the goblin with him and Justice continued, “No need to get that on me, leave the goblin alone.”

“How did it get here in the first place?” I asked.

“Good question! We’d better check out this portal to ensure more don’t show up.”

“And this is an easy world?” I asked.

“Of course, I wouldn’t risk you otherwise.”

I pushed my foot into the portal experimentally. It felt odd, but not painful. I also couldn’t pull my foot back out.

“I’m stuck?” I asked, as more of my foot got dragged into the portal.

“You have to enter the portal now,” said Justice. “Out of left field, how long has Henry been missing?”

I was dragged into the portal.

3

EXAGIN

My quest to be a hero didn’t start out great.

The portal wasn’t on ground level. Or even close. It was about ten feet in the air, and I was flung out of it at a reasonable speed. I broke a leg and twisted an ankle so badly I was pretty sure the foot was going to fall off.

And of course, as a brave hero, I laid there for several seconds, collecting myself.

“Please stop screaming,” said Justice.

Yep, I continued laying there, silently, waiting for the pain to stop.

“Someone is going to hear you if you continue screaming like this,” said Justice, and suddenly the pain went away.

“Wait, did you just heal me?” I asked, rising to my feet and promptly falling over again.

“No, I stopped the pain. Please stop walking on your very broken leg and foot. You are a human, made up of frail human parts. I am a mighty Magical Sword. I am made of sterner stuff.”

“You were nice before,” I said, groaning.

“I was recruiting you before, now you’ve joined up.” Justice sounded like a sergeant. “Don’t worry, I will get you whipped into shape!”

Oh no.

“What do you mean?”

“I needed a squire, you fit the bill. Now that you are here, we have to complete our quests before you can go home,” said Justice to my growing horror. “Don’t worry about it. I haven’t lost a squire in centuries. Like I said, you’ll be home in a month.”

I looked around. We were in a forest or maybe a jungle. Could have been either, considering how dark it was and me being face first in the dirt. Heck, we could have been in a mall parking lot for all I knew, it wasn’t like I was going to be walking anywhere anytime soon.

“Excellent, this area is safe,” said Justice. “I’d stake your life on it.”

“What do you mean?” I ground out.

“Well, when I was picking the portal destination, I wasn’t entirely sure of the safety of this location. But all I can see are a few spiders in the distance. You are doing great.”

“Joy,” I hissed, rolling onto my back. My foot flopped around when I turned over. I interpreted that as a bad sign. “Can you heal that?”

“I’m kind of tapped out of Mana at the moment after curing your exhaustion. I had a tiny amount left in the hilt, but I used that to reduce the pain in your weak, mortal body. Normally, a Magic Sword draws its power from the sword bearer, but you are strangely bereft of magic,” said Justice.

“Magic isn’t real,” I retorted, glowering over how the questing spirit left me with a shattered ankle.

“Ha, that’s what Henry said the first time he was horrifically injured,” said Justice. “Wait, I remember. My awesome memory is like a pattern etched into my steel. Humans from your world have their magical powers dimmed for some reason. I shall enable them using the power of Justice!”

“That sounds dangerous,” I said, trying to figure out how to get back to the portal. The rapidly shrinking portal.

“I’ll be able to heal your legs,” replied Justice.

“Okay, magic is good, I like magic,” I said.

“Yup, I’ll take good care of you. Why don’t you eat that little pink flower over there,” said Justice, “while I support you in your endeavor!”

I picked the flower. It didn’t look like an Earth flower. It also smelled strange. “Is the flower going to give me magic?”

“The flower and my powers combined will activate your magic,” said Justice.

“Sooo, are you directing it to a Mana network or something?” I asked, eyeing the flower dubiously.

“No, that sounds insane. Mana network?” replied the sword, sounding out the word. “Is that like one of your computer networks? There are no computers here.”

The sword had the comprehension of modern technology that a man in his late sixties had. “Is this flower going to give me, like, a cassette’s worth of magic or something.”

“Yeah, that will fill your soul with magical music, or something,” said Justice impatiently. “Do you want your leg fixed or not?”

“Don’t take candy from strangers,” I grated out, and ate the stupid flower.

You have recovered .001 points of Mana.

I drew a true breath for the first time in my life. Everything smelled better, more crisp, more real. Everything was so much more detailed, there were so many more colors I never saw before. New sounds: a leaf falling, a drop of dew. I felt the grass, every blade, even the wind.

Then it dimmed, and my legs hurt. They hurt so bad I wanted to throw up.

Your Mana pool has fully filled, you have 1 point of Mana.

“Excellent, your first stage has completed,” said Justice. “This is an improvement. It only took you an hour to come back to your senses. Henry found out that he could gain Mana only after he drank his first healing potion. That was a bad time.”

“Hate you so much,” I ground out. In my defense, I was in a lot of pain.

“I don’t care, squire. Let’s fix your legs, I need you mobile.” The sword briefly glowed and then so did my legs. After several loud popping sounds, the pain dropped from a solid 11 down to 0.

“That’s amazing,” I said, standing up. I didn’t have any lingering pain, at all. Like most people, I had a few lingering injuries that I tended to ignore, and even those were gone. Something came loose in my mouth, and I spit it out. It was a filling. I touched my tongue to my teeth—they were whole.

“All of your previous injuries have been removed, thanks to me and the Magical Sword Knights,” said Justice.

I was checking out my now scar-free skin, I looked like a baby. “This is insane, every injury?”

“It takes a rare individual with a specific kind of courage to be a knight, this is one of the benefits!” said Justice. “Think of yourself as a peak human specimen.”

“I was literally the first person who walked into that strange room.” I peeked down my pants at my now perfectly intact best friend. I was no longer circumcised. My teeth were straight though, so braces still worked, just not elective surgery.

“And imagine my surprise,” replied Justice. “I assumed I was doomed to the worst fate of all, uselessness! Then you fought that goblin like a champion. Your soul is calling out to be a hero!”

“Yeah, I want to be a hero. Can I learn magic because magic is heroic?”

“As a Magical Sword Knight, you can learn magic, but your spells can only affect yourself, your equipment, and me,” replied Justice. “However, you will find that there are a great number of spells that work within those parameters designed to destroy, kill, or incapacitate the enemies of the Magical Sword Knights!”

“Where can I learn those spells?” I asked, searching for the portal. It was gone. One thing at a time.

“First things first. We need to get you some healing potions. They are greatly helpful and will make it so that it is very difficult to kill you,” said Justice.

“So we’re going to look for someone to make me potions? And for my sister? You actually meant that?”

“Of course, a Magical Sword’s word is his bond! It is our quest, we will heal your sister,” said Justice. I almost relaxed, then he continued, “It is just a cure-all potion is kind of hard to come by, so we will need to find a potion maker to make us one.”

“That sounds reasonable, neither of us have been on this planet before,” I said. The trees here weren’t quite right. I was definitely not in Colorado but saying not on Earth sounded strange.

“You will need to find a potion maker, obviously, or learn the skill yourself. A potion skill trainer can do both, so that is our first objective for your personal quest,” said Justice.

“Well, that sounds great,” I said.

“Excellent! We will go to the local village and ask around. I’m sure we will find one right away,” stated Justice, then more quietly, “Or someone who can point us in that direction.”

That sounded ominous.

“So where is a village so we can find that trainer?” I asked.

“Do not forget, we are here to save the world,” said Justice, glowing slightly. “That is our first priority!”

“Okay, save the world and find a potion skill trainer. We can do both!” I said, hopping up and down while feeling my glorious, functional legs again. My old football injury was gone. I had never felt this good before.

We were deep in the forest, with no visible evidence of buildings in any direction. There wasn’t even any sky, just more tree cover. The trees were tall, abnormally so. I’d been in a redwood grove once, this was like that, just more ominous.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I am getting my bearings. I lack a mapping feature, so I’ll have to use my keen intellect,” replied Justice. “But don’t you worry, we are just going to take a quick walk and I’ll use my Magical Sword powers to find us a town.”

“Okay, so we hike through the woods, I can manage that,” I said. I didn’t have any water with me, and I was in my work shoes, not my hiking boots, but how bad could it be?

“I love that attitude, but first we should activate your class.”

“Like a video game?” I asked.

“Yes, like a new fangled video game,” replied Justice. “But not like Pac-Man or Space Invaders. This would be like a role playing game, such as the greatest game of all time, Ultima!”

“That must have been on the Commodore 64,” I said, trying to remember very old gaming systems.

“State of the art computer systems are not to be used for games. Henry used to play it on his Nintendo Entertainment System,” said Justice. “It was called a console, you may have heard of them.”

“I have a Playstation 5,” I said.

“And that is?” asked Justice.

“A different console, made this century,” I said.

“Good. Then you know about these things,” stated Justice. “I was afraid I was going to have to explain the basics of video games to you.”

“I understand those. So how do I level up? Do I wave my hand around or think about leveling?” I asked.

“No, that would be silly. I, your talking Magical Sword, do it for you,” said Justice, and a menu exploded into my vision. It was poorly laid out with no concept of UI.

“Is this what Grandpa Henry saw?” I asked.

“Yes, he was quite proud of it,” replied Justice.

I shrugged. I’d dealt with bad user interfaces before and could manage one now. The level up arrow was blinking off to the side, and I selected it.

And regretted it instantly. My world shifted and my guts tightened up. “Why does everything taste purple?”

“That’s a color, son,” said Justice. “I activated a class orb for you, as you are from Earth, you normally can’t get a class.”

“Why can’t you get a class on Earth?” I asked.

“There isn’t enough Mana to really make them functional, but classes are generally assigned based on your job orbs,” said Justice.

“Job orbs?” I replied.

“Everyone has several orbs that define who they are, think of them like mighty balls that sit carefully protected in the bag of skin that is you,” said Justice.

“I am all about protecting those,” I said, which was true.

“An adult wears many hats, so to speak, and can learn many jobs. Though if you spread yourself too thin, your capabilities in all of them will be weak,” said Justice.

“You need to focus,” I said as I tried to focus on nonsense.

“Each of these orbs grants you special powers, though you only initially get a species orb. Anyone can earn a job orb, and those grant bonuses to underlying skills,” said Justice.

“So, skill orbs,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. Skills attach to slots, defining their purpose.”

“Of course,” I said, because what else was I going to say?

“Orbs are much more potent than mere skills. Your species orb contains all the baseline characteristics for being a human, from the mundane stuff like body odor and scratching yourself. Next, there are job orbs which have slots to empower certain skills. But most important is your class orb, which grants you active skill slots!” said Justice.

“And slots are where skills go,” I asked.

“Got it in one! You can learn any number of skills, but you only have so many slots to empower them,” said Justice. “Obviously empowered skills are better than normal skills.”

“Of course, I understand,” I replied. Yea, no, I did not understand.

“Excellent, so as a default human, you can earn up to one class orb,” said Justice. “You can eventually evolve your species orb into something more advanced with additional abilities.”

“Okay,” I replied. There were a million questions to ask, but the first one seemed the most pressing. “What did you do to me?”

“I gave you the greatest class of all,” said Justice.

You are a Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 1 | Stamina: 2

You gain the ability, Magical Strike. You can channel your Mana into your sword for additional damage.

“Do I have stats?”

“Why would you need those, you are a healthy young man,” replied Justice.

“Do I have hit points, at least?” I asked, not seeing them.

“Hit points, what are those?” asked Justice.

“Ultima had them? The ability to take more damage than normal,” I said.

“Never played the game, son. No fingers. Points for hits? Bah. You are a normal human body with a few enhancements. But worry not, as you develop you will become significantly more durable,” said Justice. “Right now, we are going to focus on the classic technique of not getting hit.”

“Okay, and what does Mana do for me?” I asked, spotting the Mana section in the UI.

“You can focus it to cast spells on me to allow me to do far greater damage,” said Justice.

“And you can also use spells, is that from my Mana pool?” I asked.

“Good question. No, all Magical Swords have the ability to cast spells on their own,” said Justice.

“What is Stamina?” I asked.

“That is the ability to burn your mortal body’s inner reserves to push beyond your limits for a short time,” said Justice. “You need to slot skills to use it!”

“How do I do that?” I asked, drawing the sword and waving it around a bit. The sword seemed functional enough.

“A normal person would find a skill trainer,” began Justice. “However, since you are a squire, I can train you in knightly skills directly!”

“They’re different from normal skills?” I asked, sheathing the sword and rapidly drawing it a few times. If Justice cared about this, he didn’t say anything.

“It is not so much the skill as it is the skill slot. Your squire class will develop a powerful skill slot that you can attach an incredible skill to, and that skill will develop more powerfully and quicker than normal.”

“You said ‘will develop’ a skill slot,” I asked. “So no slot right now?”

“That’s where being a human helps. When you get your single free skill slot you can allocate it to your class allowing you to slot a powerful knightly skill more quickly,” said Justice confidently.

“When?” I said.

“Yes, to earn that skill slot you will have to develop your orbs,” said Justice.

“By killing monsters,” I said.

“How else?” said Justice.

“Training,” I asked.

“Good one, squire,” said Justice. “Don’t worry, we’ll just kill some monsters and you’ll be using skills in no time!”

I had to count to five.

“Do you know the potion skill?” I asked.

“I am a Magical Sword, and we do not learn such skills. We will travel and find a town where they will tell us where a skill trainer is and learn more of our primary quest,” said Justice.

“Excellent, let’s get moving,” I offered, and Justice pointed me toward the woods.

4

THE WOODS SUCK

Shorts and a T-shirt were great things when you were moving a bunch of heavy boxes, assuming you were smart and invested in good footwear. The problem was that shorts and a T-shirt was pretty much the worst possible thing to wear in an unspoiled forest, with sticker bushes, and poison ivy just about everywhere.

The poison ivy was what finally told me I wasn’t on Earth, because I knew about all the kinds of Earth poison ivy. Those included poison oak, poison sumac, and of course poison ivy. Now a smart person would differentiate all those different kinds of itchy plants.

They were morons, if it itches, it is poison ivy.

“How soon until you recover your healing power?” I grumbled as I found the largest patch of Exagin poison ivy yet, while I was in the dead center of it.

“Several more minutes, do not fear, son, the light at the end of the tunnel is coming!” said Justice as I fought the urge to scratch, and I fought it hard. We continued on for several hundred yards until finally I came out the other side of the latest patch.

“So I’ve learned the skill, spot poison ivy, and we won’t be crossing any more patches of it,” I said bluntly, stomping out.

“Good eyes, keep them forward,” said Justice.

That was a good idea. It turned out swords were terrible pathfinders. I was content though, I’d lived through poison ivy before, and in a few minutes, I didn’t have to worry about it again. All I needed to do now was find this stupid town, which was located in the dark, spider web filled forest.

“Aw heck,” I hissed, drawing the sword. Justice did not like that.

“Do not fling me away in frustration! You are a squire, and you should always have a weapon at hand, and I am your weapon! Only I can open the portal that will take you back to Earth after you complete your quest to save your sister. You will need me to—” Justice broke his rant as he looked around. “Oh, we are surrounded. There are spiders in front of us. There are spiders on our left. There are spiders on our right. Get yourself into a defensive position.”

“I thought you were looking for monsters,” I growled, trying to figure out how to get around the spiders. I’d stepped right into them after leaving the poison ivy patch. They were everywhere, about the size of a corgi and they all looked hungry.

“I am out of magic. You will have to use me in my primary role of defeating our enemies!” said Justice.

“Strike them with you,” I said.

“Viciously,” replied the sword.

“Hopefully you’re better at that than finding poison ivy or giant spiders,” I grumbled.

One got close, so I slashed it. Turns out, using a sword was harder than Hollywood would have you believe, though not by that much. Either that or the sword was really sharp. Alternatively, the spiders might have been really weak against sword slashes. In either case, my slash went right through the spider’s head, killing it instantly.

While I would have been happier, he was just a distraction, and the other spiders were jumping at me from behind. One landed on my back and started biting me through my shirt.

I screamed as the fangs dug into my flesh before rotating and slamming my bloody back into a nearby tree. The one smashed, and another spider leapt at me. I swatted it in midair with the sword. That cut the spider in two, which had the unfortunate effect of spraying my face with spider guts. Now I couldn’t see, and I was still getting attacked by spiders.

I started slashing in an erratic pattern that confused the spiders. That wasn’t what I was trying to do, my arm was going numb from spider poison, but it had the effect of not letting them murder me.

“Try fighting better!” yelled Justice.

“Freaking sword…” Slashing around, trying to find another one, the sword slammed into something and stopped.

“I am stuck in a tree. I cannot be glorious when stuck in a tree,” said Justice. Which was true. I’d gotten him lodged in an old growth tree that I couldn’t have put my arms around if I wanted to.

So, I found out that the worst thing in life was not being surrounded by man-eating spiders, it was being unarmed while surrounded by man-eating spiders. I yanked on Justice, but he was stuck dead. Dead being the appropriate term because that was what was about to happen to me.

“Channel your Mana,” said Justice.

“What the hell does that mean!” I yelled.

“Focus on your Magical Sword, feel my blade, feel how long and hard I am, focus on the hardness,” said Justice.

This is how I die.

I focused on the hardness and willed it to power. The sword glowed blue and started sliding through the tree. It felt like I was pushing a knife through clay, and Justice went all the way through. The tree cut in half with a loud crack. The top slid off the trunk with a boom as the tree struggled to find somewhere to fall.

This taught me several interesting lessons. For example, adult spiders are larger than baby spiders, which is what I was fighting. The adult spiders learned that when a tree is cut in half, it slides off the base in a hurry which causes a very high level shock to travel up top. The spiders also learn about gravity the hard way.

Five massive spiders fell from the canopy of the forest and splattered onto the ground. One landed on a baby spider that was entertaining the idea of eating my face. The giant spider twitched where it landed, so I thrust Justice into its torso and yanked the blade away, leaving a bloody hole in the creature.

“Twist as I am removed for maximum damage,” said Justice.

Then the bluish light faded, and Justice looked normal again, just when another giant spider crawled down a different tree, with around thirty of the baby spiders.

“I’m going to die,” I said.

“As a knight, you need to have a positive attitude,” said Justice.

“I’m positive, I’m going to die,” I replied.

“I walked into that one,” said Justice as I tried to find a defensive spot where the spiders couldn’t reach me.

“A Magical Knight needs to be aware of his surroundings, use them to your advantage.”

That was easier said than done, because a massive spider was walking right towards me and it looked pissed.

Of course, I didn’t know if it had another expression. Maybe it was hungry.

At that moment, I noticed something. One of the baby spiders approaching me walked into the poison ivy and then instantly hopped out, shaking several legs vigorously.

“They don’t like poison ivy…” I ran back into the patch with my bare legs. The baby spiders stopped, unwilling to enter into the itchy hell. Unfortunately, the adult spider was looking hungry, or maybe pissed. Could be either.

I backed all the way to the middle of the patch, giving me as much cover using the poison ivy as I could muster. There were no trees nearby, which is why the patch was so large, and I looked up and noticed the other giant spiders safely above me.

“They can’t reach us from the trees, only if they go on the ground,” I said as another giant spider walked over and tapped the poison ivy with its leg. The spider pulled back. Apparently the only one brave enough to enter the patch was already here, looking pissed.

Maybe hungry.

“Ha, who’s the predator and who’s the prey now!” I said as I began circling the spider. It didn’t want to move unnecessarily but was willing to charge over to me if it thought it could reach. I did my best to keep it at range while I thought of a better idea. The front end of the spider was full of fangs, teeth, and other things I’d rather avoid.

“Quit hesitating and stand tall for Justice!” said Justice. “Defeat that evil spider!”

“How do you know it’s evil?” I asked.

“It is trying to kill us, and you are a goddamn hero! What could be more evil than that?” yelled Justice. I checked my Mana. It recovered after about an hour, which was useless in this context.

“This is a terrible idea,” I said as the spider made up its mind and charged me. The spider raced through the poison ivy, desperate to get this fight over with. I rolled out of the way, ensuring that every bit of me that could be affected by ivy was. The ivy was so thick, the spider lost me for a moment and was leery of randomly digging into the underbrush.

“Be careful, I am covered in poison ivy,” said Justice.

“Wait,” I said, as I started gathering up more of the annoying plant until you couldn’t even see the sword. “I wonder if the big guy over there is as resistant all over.”

I stood, holding Justice, and waited for the spider to see me. It charged, and this time I didn’t dodge, instead I thrust the ivy covered blade straight into the creature’s mouth. The sword only got about halfway in before I struck something that stopped it, saving my hand, and it turned out the spider wasn’t all the way resistant to poison ivy.

It bucked madly as the chemicals in the ivy went to work in its maw. The creature twitched violently, collapsed, and then kept right on twitching. I was ignored while the creature went through whatever hell that was.

Walking over to the side, I started hacking off legs, which were surprisingly easy to cut off. They practically exploded off of the creature as the spider’s guts were seemingly held under very high pressure.

“Is it having an allergic reaction?” said Justice. “While I cannot condone using an enemy’s allergies to defeat them, I can say I am impressed by your cleverness.”

“It’s a spider, I’m not sure it cares about honor,” I said after I cut off the last leg on one side and got a clear angle on the head. One swipe later, the creature was dead, and I was covered in spider guts.

“Honor is not what they do, it is how we behave,” said Justice. “Squire, you are a trainee Magical Sword Knight. That is a proud tradition.” I could sense contempt radiating from the sword.

“Any of you other jerks want some?” I yelled.

Turns out, no. I didn’t know if the spiders were intelligent or not, but they certainly didn’t want anything to do with the ivy patches.

They were at least somewhat intelligent.

5

THE TOWN OF NORDRIN

I stepped out of the forest and looked at my tattered green shirt and tattered green shorts. My boots were also green. So was I. Turns out spider guts stain, rather badly.

“Shall I cast healing on you now?” offered Justice.

“My clothes are practically dripping in poison ivy juice, so use the cleaning spell,” I said.

“There are limits to that,” said Justice. “Your clothing was basically dunked into toxic chemicals.”

“Toxic?” I grunted. “And you can’t clean them?”

“No, but we can buy more in town. I can’t have my squire looking like mutant trash.”

“With what money?”

“I looted the big spider, we can sell its parts for gold,” said Justice.

“That’s good to know. I’m happy all of that worked out,” I said, stomping toward the gate. It was easy to find, there was a road.

“You should be happy, we meted out Justice to an evil creature,” said Justice.

“I’m still not sure the spider was evil, I think they were just hungry,” I said.

“They tried to harm a hero, so of course they were evil.”

“You seriously don’t have a poison resistance spell?”

“Only Cleanse, which will cure the poison you have, but it’s not strong enough to clean your clothes sufficiently. You can learn resistance spells if you can find a spell trainer,” offered Justice.

“I hate you, so much,” I grumbled as I walked up the road to the town gate. We were the only people on the road, and Justice was a ‘people,’ otherwise I was talking to myself like a crazy person.

Maybe the guards would spot me and tell me that they had some nice tomato juice ready to take care of all this terrible poison ivy, and of course how tragic it was that my stupid sword summoned me into such a dangerous spot.

Or maybe not.

“Orc!” one yelled, pointing his spear at me.

“Die, foul creature,” stated the other.

“Do I look like an orc? I’m green because I’ve been killing spiders and if either of you take one more step towards me I swear to god I will suck the eyeballs right out of your face!”

Both men stopped and looked at each other. “He’s not an orc, an orc would have called us livestock.”

I stomped toward the door.

“You’re right. He’s a human with the worst case of poison ivy I’ve ever seen,” said the second guard, backing off slightly. “You probably need to see a healer.”

“Or a cleric,” said another.

The third glanced over at the graveyard.

“I need clothes,” I said.

“You can’t have mine,” said the guard, stepping back. The other guards all decided in unison that their short spears were not sufficient for this degree of poison ivy and backed off.

“Inside, there is a general store,” said the other guard. “Philbert, go get the general store owner, and borrow a shovel.” A young boy sitting next to the guards dashed off ahead of me and I was told to follow him. Several people gave me something that felt like the sign of the cross before I spotted the building Philbert ran into.

A young woman, whom I suspected was quite pretty, but currently looked horrified, stepped out.

“Clothes, how much?” I stuttered.

“Not one step further you diseased man. Do you have any money?” she asked.

“We should bargain for a good price, she’ll know you need the clothing and charge you an increased rate,” said Justice.

“I will sell you,” I hissed.

Four silver coins appeared in my hand. I showed her and dropped them on the street. “Anything, now.”

She looked at the money and nodded, stepping inside. She came back out with a new shirt, some pants, and a shovel which Philbert took. She threw the clothes onto the street away from the money, and I began stripping down in public.

“You are a squire, you should be keeping your dignity intact! You cannot be stripping down in public!” yelled Justice. I undid the belt and sat him on the ground with my foot on the scabbard.

Every part of me was swollen. Everything. I looked so bad I didn’t even look human. I got every scrap of clothing off of my person and likewise removed my shoes. Poison ivy juices dripped out of both. “Do I need to wash?”

“No,” said Justice, who cast Cleanse on me, causing all the toxins to leave my body in a flash. My flesh rapidly returned to normal, even the green coloring faded. Cleanse didn’t just cure you of regular poisons, it removed all filth from your body.

The horrified shopkeeper’s expression changed to curiosity instantly. As did just about everyone else. I turned from a mutant to a normal human right before their eyes. A red and puffy normal human, but still.

“A shapechanger,” one yelled.

I grabbed the pants and pulled them up, hiding my shame. “I am a Magic Sword Knight, I’m here to talk to someone about saving the world.”

The young woman’s eyes bulged. “Do you speak true? For it has been many years since the call for a knight has been issued.”

“Can they hear you?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Justice. “This is all you, Squire! Make me proud!”

“Why did this take so long?” I asked Justice, causing everyone to look at me.

“Henry vanished and I’m not very mobile if you’ve noticed,” said Justice. “Still, it is my sacred duty to save this world. That is our quest.”

I looked around at the rapidly expanding crowd. Seemed like everyone in the town square had come out to see the naked orc change into a person. I shrugged.

“I apologize, but I am here now with my sword to save your world from evil,” I said.

The crowd just stared at me.

“You are terrible at this,” said Justice.

“What do you mean?” I whispered to the sword.

“You need to act like a knight, you are acting like some sort of farm hand.”

“I am a farm hand,” I grumbled.

“No, now you are a squire,” said Justice proudly. “Don’t forget the potion trainer for your sister.”

I gave my best steely eyed look to the young woman. “I guess I should meet with your quest giver. Also, I need to talk to your potion skill trainer.”

“I am Nadia, my father was the original quest giver, but he was slain in the conquest by the orcs. It has been many years since you were summoned,” she said. The hint of bitterness in her voice was palpable.

“I was only just informed of the quest,” I said uncomfortably.

“I was tugging at my mother’s skirt when you were called, and we requested a full knight, not a squire,” she said.

“How do you know I’m a squire?” I asked.

“You aren’t wearing your armor,” she said, now quite openly glaring at me. I hastily started to put on my shirt.

“Squire, you sound like some uncouth fool, you need to stand tall and tell her that you are a knight who can solve her problems!” said Justice.

I stood there for a long moment, holding the shirt over my face.

So I needed to pretend everything was great when I had no idea what was happening. This was visiting Hope all over again. Inhaling sharply, I pulled the shirt down and stood as tall and proud as I could muster. “Well, I’m here now, are you refusing the aid I am here to provide?”

“No, of course not,” she said firmly. “It is said that even a knight squire is a champion of the downtrodden, and we are downtrodden.” Nadia still looked troubled.

I still needed to up that performance a notch? I was really pushing it at this point. I just needed to do an impression of someone really pompous, like a certain sword.

“Excellent, your quest is first and foremost on my mind. I shall defeat the orcs, all of them, with the powers of Justice!”

That worked. Nadia’s previously troubled expression vanished as I delved into that bad rendition of nonsense. Even the villagers appeared happier. Feed everyone a line of BS that they want to believe, and they’ll believe it.

I should go into politics.

“I knew a knight could solve our problems,” said Nadia, her voice sounding less distressed.

“Excellent, now seal the deal,” said Justice. “Remember, you are their knight. Be knightly!”

With all their hopeful eyes on me, I smiled.

“Of course, you can count on me to do anything. But before I slay all the orcs, if you could point me to that potion trainer? Then… strengthened, I will deal with the vile ones,” I said. That was a line of BS of course, but I didn’t need to tell them that. I needed that potion trainer, I had no idea how to help them. Besides, they didn’t look that bad.

Nadia looked flustered more than anything. Maybe her people were slightly underfed. Some of them did look tired. Most of them. They may have looked kind of oppressed. Especially the children, who were obviously going without. I could probably do something for them. I didn’t know what a hero needed to do here, but I could at least try.

“The resistance has been destroyed, we are the only free people left and our numbers are few,” Nadia said.

“This is the best you have,” I said, my eyes not quite bulging.

“And an elite orc is coming soon to collect our taxes. When he takes them, we will not have enough food to survive the winter. Thankfully now that you are here you can stop him,” said Nadia.

“I will need some time to prepare, and perhaps brew a few potions,” I said.

“Alas, the orc took all of our skill trainers to parts unknown,” said Nadia. “But he should be here in two days, with your knightly powers, you will certainly be able to get the information from him.”

“Of course, I’d do anything to get that information, about the evil place where evil is gathering… evilly,” I said.

“You are really bad at this,” said Justice.

“You have taught me nothing!” I said.

“I can teach you skills,” said Justice.

“Public speaking?” I asked.

“No, but I can teach you how to be a hero,” said Justice.

Everyone was looking at me like I was a crazy person by now because I was talking to myself, like a crazy person. I needed to stop doing that.

“I shall do whatever is necessary to get that information from the orc,” I said confidently. The town cheered again. They wanted their people back. I wanted one of their people, and was willing to save all of them if that helped.

Of course, the next problem was, how would I do that?

6

TRAINING

“Good news, I have received the updated quest,” said Justice.

“We have?” I asked.

“Of course, Squire. Like I told you, baby steps. You need to walk before you run.”

Quest: Save the town of Nordrin

You have been charged to save the town of Nordrin from orcs. You will complete this quest when you have ensured she is safe.

“That’s not impossible,” I said, examining the quest.

“Of course not, I’m not going to start by assigning you a quest to save the world,” said Justice. “Squires start small. Swing small, miss small.”

“I have no idea how to save this town, but I’m certain that we can come up with something,” I said, full of false confidence.

“I certainly will,” said Justice. “You are lacking in everything useful at the moment.”

“Then I need to level up?” I asked.

“Damn straight,” replied Justice.

“So did I get enough experience points to level up?” I asked.

“How did you know about experience points?”

“There are levels, there are experience points,” I said. “Everyone knows that.”

“Henry didn’t know that when I first met him, I had to explain the concept. He called it some Dungeons and Dragons nonsense. Good to hear Earth is advancing. You currently have a squire class orb. You can upgrade that class to knight at a later date. In the meantime, you fought one spider and a bunch of babies. Let’s see what I can do with that,” said Justice.

“Anything is better than nothing,” I replied.

“Fortunately, unlocking your first skill slot is cheap and the few kills you’ve gotten so far are enough to unlock it.”

“So that’s my class orb, what about my species orb?”

“I’m checking, it looks like you had enough XP on your species orb to activate a skill slot,” said Justice.

“I thought I only earned XP since I got here,” I replied.

“So did I,” said Justice. “But there is just enough there, with the spider XP, to activate the skill slot.”

“The XP is shared?” I asked.

“Yes. Each of your orbs gets a share of experience in anything they qualify for, generally all orbs gain experience from killing things,” said Justice. “Job orbs also gain experience from using skills, which is where most of yours came from I expect.”

“A high XP job grants your other orbs more XP?”

“Yes, and you have some strange skills,” said Justice. “You already have a weak general form of the blade use skill, and butchering?”

“I worked in a meat packing plant,” I said.

“Thank the Great Forge, I saw the Industrial Butcher job and was concerned,” replied Justice. He cleared his throat and continued, “That’s a high XP job.”

“Yup,” I replied into the suddenly uncomfortable silence.

Working in a meat packing plant was not nearly as glamorous as Rocky made it look, and he hadn’t made it look glamorous at all. Even with all the poison ivy, questing here was still better than my average day working.

“Nadia, are there any other monsters around here other than giant spiders?” I asked. She blinked a few times, before smiling and nodding because I was finally talking to her. I had been talking to the sword like it was a person again and only I could hear Justice. I look crazy.

“The zombies,” she said, most of the earlier confidence she had gone. “They are in the nearby graveyard and are plaguing the village.”

“What’s easier?” I whispered to Justice.

“Zombies are a safer target for young squires,” said Justice.

I smiled at Nadia. “Zombies.”

She looked disappointed. Justice sighed. “You have to do it with a bit more pizazz if they are going to believe you are a knight, can you do that for me?”

Pizazz?

“I shall deal with those pesky zombies while I wait for this puny orc,” I said confidently, emulating a knight from a children’s show. “Do you have any armor, you know, laying around I could borrow?”

“No, our armor smith and our armor skill trainer were both taken,” said Nadia. “We could fix the armor you find.”

“That sounds great,” I said, with the biggest stage smile I could manage. “Justice, where are we going to get armor?”

“We will loot the armor off of the corpses of our vanquished foes,” said Justice. “Like a proper goddamn hero!”

“What if we find good armor in the graveyard buried with non-zombies?” I asked.

“Magical Sword Knights are honorable warriors, we do not rob graves,” said Justice.

“If I fight the orc wearing a linen shirt, he will kill me. I’ll be dead and you’ll be captured. Then some fat orc will use you as a butt scratcher,” I said. Justice processed that for a moment.

“But sometimes sacrifices must be made for the corps,” said Justice. “We will focus on the zombies, however.”

“Good sword, we will try both,” I said, leaving Nadia to look at me oddly. I walked down the street in the direction she pointed, hopefully the graveyard was this way. “Okay, what skills can you train me in?”

“Sword stuff, like Swords,” said Justice.

“Great, how many skills can I use?” I asked.

“You currently have two active skill slots. None of your existing skills are suitable for those. I highly suggest the Power and Dexterity skills initially,” said Justice.

“Okay, what do they do?” I asked.

“Power will make your strikes do more damage, and Dexterity will allow you to avoid damage while positioning yourself for more devastating strikes,” said Justice.

“And why aren’t we starting with Swords?” I said.

“Swords is an advanced tier skill, it requires the skill of Power, Dexterity, and Conditioning for you to access it,” said Justice. “We could work on your job orbs to access it more easily, but that will take time. In my experience, this path is the best approach for a squire.”

“I earn more skill slots as I advance,” I said.

“Yes, we can use experience points to add more skill slots,” said Justice.

“And not everyone can?”

“No, most classes only have one skill slot. Second skill slots are rare and very expensive. Most people stick with one. That is one of the reasons everyone is so fortunate you turned up,” said Justice. “With me in the field, this quest is as good as solved.”

“You can’t even move without my help,” I said.

“A knight cannot move without his steed, and a sword cannot move without their squire,” said Justice. Yeah, he thought I was a horse.

Still, I was actually doing something. Those people really needed someone, and I was there to help them. So far, this whole adventure had been one bungling bit of nonsense after another, but I could feel that things were going my way. I was going to be a knight. A hero.

When I found the gate with four guards, I knew we were going in the right direction. “Zombies?”

“Over that way, sir,” said the guard. “I’ve never seen a Magic Knight fight before, can I watch?”

Justice snorted. After my last fight I wasn’t going to be doing epic battles, I was going to be flailing around stupidly.

“I will be practicing knightly techniques, I would be concerned that the zombies might get you while I focus,” I said. “No one wants that.”

“Thank you, sir. I didn’t realize,” said the young man.

I nodded sagely and continued on my way.

“Wise, my first ‘technique’ is to run away if the zombies overwhelm you,” said Justice.

“This is going to be embarrassing, just make sure I don’t die,” I replied as we headed to the graveyard. The zombies were obvious even at this range.

“Attack from the side away from the town, so if the zombies come, they don’t just walk over there…” said Justice, who paused to carefully consider his words. “If there are problems.”

“If they eat me.”

“Well, they eat brains,” said Justice. “So at least I’m safe.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence,” I said.

“Well, your mental attributes are nothing to write home about so maybe they will ignore you as well,” replied Justice.

“Be quiet now.”

I grumbled and stopped, gazing at a main road that went away from the village. I considered just walking away, but that wouldn’t help matters any. Justice would complain and I didn’t know enough about the area to find a different trainer without his help.

“Be careful about fighting here, if they get loose they will continue down the road,” said Justice.

“Towards where the orcs are coming from? Isn’t that a win-win?” I asked.

“Unleashing zombies to the countryside is never a win-win,” said Justice.

Point.

We picked that side for our first training montage. That mainly consisted of me standing in slightly odd positions while Justice yelled at me, a lot. I wasn’t holding him right or swinging him correctly. Or pretty much anything else. I spent the better part of an hour standing in various positions while Justice, who never shut up, told me how terrible I was at this.

I was doing this for the people. Time to grow a thicker skin. The mean old drill sergeant sword wasn’t going to make me cry.

“You are quite capable of taking instruction,” said Justice.

“Yes, is this the base stance you want me to fight in?” I had my feet spread out shoulder width apart with my right foot leading the left. I was holding Justice in front of me at a forty-five-degree angle with the pommel approximately at my groin. I recognized it as a kendo stance almost instantly, despite the fact that Justice was built more like a two handed European longsword.

“Correct. Remember, I am a Magical Sword. As such, this stance is optimum for delivering maximum power in a single strike. Keep me pointed at your target’s throat until you are ready to attack!”

I stepped forward and chopped, hard, into the air. The strike Justice was training me in was a whip-like strike designed to be delivered to a target’s skull.

“What is this going to do to someone wearing a helmet?” I asked.

“I am a Magical Sword, when striking like this you can deliver a crushing amount of power to our target. A single strike will split most helms better than an ax. Now, suitably prepared, you should go find some zombies!”

I gripped Justice with a two handed grip and checked to ensure that Dexterity and Power were both working. I brought them up just to see what they did.

Power, Initiate rank 1: Your strikes will be 10% more powerful, additionally you can burn stamina to briefly increase your weapon strikes impact by 50%.

Dexterity, Initiate rank 1: You are 10% more mobile, you can expend one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 50%.

Thankfully Justice stopped yelling at me for the first time since we started training. Now, after about four hours of learning how to hold a sword, I was finally ready to actually attack something. I had two days, and I needed to be stronger before this orc showed up. Justice was confident that with his training I would be superior to a trained orc warrior by tomorrow.

Justice was nuts.

“Do not fear that single orc, for what is a single orc to a Magical Sword?” said Justice.

“I’m more concerned about a single orc vs a single me,” I said, gripping the sword in preparation.

Ambushing and killing the orc was probable. What was going to be tricky was capturing him alive so I could interrogate him later. I needed to know where their base of operations was so we could eliminate the threat to the town and win the quest. That wasn’t going to be easy, but I could manage it. Probably.

“Let’s begin! Feet apart, me at the ready,” said Justice and I adopted the stance. “Visualize and attack!”

“Any idea how many of these zombies I have to kill before I level up?”

“Many,” said Justice seriously.

I stopped just outside the northern entrance to the walled graveyard. There were some scraggly bushes nearby as well as several dead spiders. The zombies seemed to like remaining in the graveyard unless they saw something interesting, and apparently, I qualified.

The first zombie stepped out through a gate, and I decapitated him with a slice to the neck. He was what I would call a fast zombie. They weren’t smart, or all that vicious, but what they lacked in evil zombie powers, they made up for with a whole bunch of running face first into my sword.

There was a slight problem with the next four zombies, who were also fast, but Justice was there to help me. I stepped backward, and they demonstrated their tenacity by running at me even faster.

“Move to the side, quickly,” he announced, and I did, by sort of half-jogging that direction with the sword pointed at the zombies. This brilliant plan caused two of the zombies to run into each other and fall over. The other two came at me and were decapitated before the second two got up, and then I killed both of them.

“That’s five,” I said.

“Excellent,” replied Justice. “Focus on striking the top of the skull. These neck slashes are inefficient, and I can’t have my squire being anything less than perfect!”

Two more zombies stepped out of the graveyard and began marching toward me. These ones were slower, moving at a steady jogging pace rather than the running pace of the fast zombies, and they were significantly more bloated. There were dubbed the tough zombies, because I had to burn my first point of Stamina to kill one.

My first strike was another chop to the neck, which nearly got Justice stuck. What it didn’t do was kill the zombie who swung at me and forced me to backpedal. I ended up using Power to deliver a blow to the top of the head, which impacted hard enough that the zombie’s head actually exploded when I struck.

The second one didn’t need me to burn Stamina. Instead, I smashed his skull in a string of kendo style strikes. It took a bunch of strikes before I got the hang of it. The trick was hitting them as hard as you possibly could on the top of the head. It was good training, which was fine if there was only one of them.

Then three more tough zombies came. Even with Dexterity, it was tough running backward fast enough to avoid them getting to me at the same time. I ended up using both of my Stamina points to finish them off and retreated farther back.

“How many more?” I asked, trying to get my breathing under control.

“Until what?” replied Justice.

“I level up, or my skills advance, or something!”

“Leveling up is a process of dedication, even at your lower experience threshold,” said Justice.

“Like how many?”

“A hundred or so,” said Justice.

“That’s manageable,” I replied.

“For a skill increase, probably around a thousand for a level up,” continued Justice.

“Are there a thousand zombies in that graveyard?” I groaned.

“No, but you can fight the spiders, there are lots of those,” said Justice. “A very large amount. An endless spider horde. A boundless, ravenous horde of spiders stretching on as far as the eye can see.”

“Or we could find more zombies,” I suggested.

Justice paused. “Maybe there are more powerful undead in the graveyard, they should grant more experience points.”

“I hate you. Let’s just shoot for a skill increase,” I said, holding my sword at the ready.

Thankfully at least the Stamina points recovered in a reasonable timeframe. About thirty seconds per point, which meant I could kill two zombies per minute safely. Unfortunately, the zombies were very non-cooperative, and the actual number was closer to one kill a minute, but they kept it interesting by always coming out in groups. That meant I was probably looking at about a thousand minutes of killing zombies, assuming they kept up at this rate. An eight hour shift only had four hundred and eighty minutes in it.

Fortunately, with magic, I could hold out considerably longer.

I was going to be here for a while, but this was still easier than the job at the meat packing plant.

7

THE NEXT DAY

I woke up the next morning sore and partially exhausted, until Justice did his restore energy thing to me. Instantly I was back at full strength ready to tear down the evil empire by the throat. Despite this, I leaned back into the soft bed and relaxed, no reason to get up quite yet.

“Could I just avoid sleep by doing restorations?” I said, stretching out my muscles.

“Henry tried that once, after a few days you start to go crazy,” said Justice. “It is unpleasant.”

“Poor Grandpa,” I said.

“No, poor Justice! Henry started to babble, he would not shut up,” said Justice, who went onto a long rant about Henry’s inability to keep quiet.

I tuned Justice out and brought up my stat sheet instead. It turned out I could do that as long as I was holding the sword.

You are a level one Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 1 | Stamina: 2

Power, Initiate rank 2: Your strikes will be 20% more powerful, additionally you can burn stamina to briefly increase your weapon strikes impact by 60%.

Dexterity, Initiate rank 3: You are 30% more mobile, you can burn one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 70%.

“My bonus increased for both skills,” I said.

“That is normal, each rank increases the bonus, every five ranks you gain an additional effect.”

“How many zombies did we get yesterday?” I asked.

“Around five hundred and eighty-seven before the numbers coming out of the graveyard thinned,” said Justice. “You are quite diligent in your training. It would have brought a tear to this old sword’s eyes presuming I had eyes.”

“Easier than my day job,” I muttered.

“Your day job must be vicious,” said Justice dryly. “Henry threw up on his first day.”

“I worked in a meat packing plant, if anything this was less gross,” I replied.

“Damn, son, well, you are a Magical Sword Knight now, it is all glory and heroism from now on. Still, as my squire, you are not going to rest on your laurels. Today we are going to try harder and fight more vicious undead!”

“Are there tougher zombies in the graveyard?” I asked.

“Yes, I saw them yesterday while you were lollygagging. Today you are going to face them head on, like a hero armed with a Magical Sword,” said Justice.

“Like a hero,” I replied. “How’d we do for loot?”

“I have over one thousand armor scraps, but not actual pieces of armor. We have also recovered well over one thousand silver coins,” said Justice. “This will allow us to buy some improved equipment.”

“Nadia, is there no armor or shields I could buy in town?” I asked. She extricated herself from my arms and stretched. It was a very good stretch considering that she’d tossed off the blankets. Then she yawned and put her head on my chest.

“None that I am aware of,” she said after a long, cautious moment. “The orcs have spent a lot of time taking all of our weapons and armor so we cannot defend ourselves properly. If you slay them, they will have equipment you can use.”

“Does everyone always expect me to talk like an idiot?” I whispered.

“Like a knight, yes,” said Justice.

Fine.

“I’m going to conquer breakfast, my first victory of the day,” I said, switching back over to Knight Mode and attempting to push her head off of me. That was a task easier said than done. As soon as I switched over to my knightly speech pattern, her hesitation vanished. I eventually did end up going to make breakfast half an hour later. Normal me did nothing for Nadia, the Knight Sir Yorick set her engine running full blast.

“That is interfering with your training,” said Justice.

“I don’t know, it seemed like really good cardio to me,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” grumbled the sword.

“I’m going to eat, and then train for the rest of the day,” I said. “I need to get some armor for the fight tomorrow.”

“Good point. If something terrible were to happen to you, it would be inconvenient for me,” said Justice.

I made some bad eggs. Nadia rushed in when she smelled burning, but nothing was so badly burned that it was objectively ruined. Just bad. Still, they were better fare than I was expecting when I began my hero’s journey and the replacement chef’s backside was a great sight to see.

I still didn’t quite understand the chain of events when I got back.

Apparently, despite my request to the contrary, the guards eventually decided to watch what I was doing and after I got the first rank up in Power, I could drop even the tough zombies in a single blow without needing to use Stamina, if I was careful. It helped that I learned to actually use the sword more effectively by then.

A lot of it was just learning when to use Stamina and when to bash something to death. When I ‘git gud’ at burning Stamina, the zombies stopped being a problem and started being a slow trickle of XP.

What I didn’t know was that the four guards were fighting zombies nearly daily, and there used to be six guards. So me going in and killing off nearly the entire population of the graveyard had caused Nadia’s opinion of me to shift from possible crazy guy to possible savior.

Seeing as how everything in this little town was kind of miserable, I think she needed the hope more than anything else. Nadia walked back into the room and smiled at me. Watching her stretch out languidly on her sitting couch, I realized I might have a different problem.

“There’s a spell for that,” said Justice as we left the town.

“Did you cast it?” I asked.

“Yes, Henry taught me a valuable lesson in that regard,” said Justice. “A knight who doesn’t ‘sheath his blade’ gets himself and his sword in trouble.”

“Do you mean sword as in weapon?” I asked.

“No. You humans have a difficult time controlling yourself, and I understand your biological bodies have urges you find difficult to control, but remember that a knight should be all about control. You don’t see me acting a fool when another weapon is drawn.”

I didn’t say anything. I was going to be a hero and that meant I was going to put up with a lot.

The graveyard looked far emptier than it was last time. Of course the giant pile of dead zombies outside of the graveyard was testament to my work. It was an eyesore, but it kept the flies away, so I didn’t mind it. Justice was going to have me try something different today.

“There are four crypts, pick one,” said Justice as we reached the graveyard. “Let’s see if you’ve learned anything from my amazing wisdom.”

“That one,” I said, gesturing to the one closest to the south gate. “Good exit path and it doesn’t look too large or fancy. Probably fewer undead in it and they should be less powerful.”

“Excellent, you do pay attention. I would have told you the same location,” said Justice. “Now, let’s prepare so there are no nasty surprises.”

There were a few such nasty surprises yesterday. Aside from the fast and tough zombies were swarmer zombies. They came in as a group, and consisted of a mixture of fast and tough zombies, plus a third, weaker kind. A slow, weak zombie that showed up in overwhelming numbers. They came in late, otherwise I would have had problems.

The final zombie of the day was the only well dressed zombie. She charged me like a fast zombie after I determined she was a tough zombie. Nope! A new kind of zombie, which was far more of a challenge to deal with. She avoided my first strike, causing me to waste a point of Stamina. I quickly realized she was faster than a fast zombie, and tougher than a tough zombie. I ended up having to use a point of Mana on a strike to kill her and withdrew afterward.

She had a cloth headband that was of great utility to casters, and zero utility to myself.

“Seriously, it doesn’t do anything for me?” I asked, fingering the quality strip of cloth.

“It increases your spell range by 30%, and all of your spells have to have a target of self or me, while I’m being held by you,” said Justice.

“That sucks. I want to learn fireball,” I grumbled.

“It is a silly spell. You’ll find that the powers of a Magical Sword Knight will be more than sufficient!”

The walk into the graveyard was simple enough. There was a lone swarmer zombie right at the entrance, but by the time he started summoning his minions I’d already killed him. That confused the rest, so dispatching them was easy.

After that group was done, I was able to enter the graveyard without being hindered at all. I walked around the small walled compound, looking for anything dangerous for a good five minutes, and while I found a number of a new type of zombie I called defects, I didn’t find anything else that was a serious challenge.

“Okay, time to go into the darkness,” I said.

Justice felt warm in my hand. “We are prepared.”

“Let’s kill some zombies.” I stepped down into the first crypt. The plan was simple: kill a zombie and then retreat. No sense in complicating things. If more followed me out, all the better. Fighting them in the graveyard would be preferable to down here.

“The exit path is clear, always ensure you have a clear path of retreat,” said Justice.

The crypt was pretty much what I expected. There was a central room, which seemed to not have any zombies in it, and then several side rooms. I was guessing that’s where zombies were.

“Torch,” I said, and a torch appeared in my hand. I tapped it on Justice and the sword automatically lit it for me.

“That’s a neat Mana trick,” I said.

“No, I have a small lit lantern in my storage I can use to light objects,” said Justice. “When you touch the sword to me, I’m able to use that to start the fire.”

“Can you use it for an attack?” I asked.

“The mechanism requires too much concentration to be useful in combat. If I had a magical gemstone I could manage something, but not with just a small lantern,” said Justice.

“Good to know,” I said, examining the torch. It was already blazing, putting out more light than you’d expect, but less light than you wanted in this sort of situation. Further holding it at head level really reduced your visual range significantly. Fortunately, I had a plan for this.

I tossed the torch into the first chamber like a fishing lure. This would not have worked on a person, or even a smart animal. Zombies, even fast and tough zombies, were stupid. I hoped. At least every zombie I ran into so far was stupid, and Justice seemed to think that was damn near universal. There was movement, first toward the torch then to Justice, my shiny zombie attractor.

The first more powerful undead stuck his head out of the hallway and I slashed down at the same moment, activating a Stamina assisted swing. The head came off the zombie’s shoulders and it died instantly. The exit was behind me, and the room was empty, so I waited a full five seconds of silence and then slapped the wall with my hand. Still, the room was silent.

“We were victorious over the first zombie. We should press the advantage and go deeper into the chamber,” said Justice.

“I think that may be a bit premature.”

“Remember our quest. If we keep pulling all the way out between zombies this is going to take forever!” Justice said.

“Alright, but I’ll be cautious. Let’s get one more and then we can adjust our strategy.” I was expecting more of those clothed zombies. I controlled my breathing and waited for another, checking all four passages while Justice kept monitoring the room.

A second zombie that was dressed like a baker came toward the door, then stopped when it spotted the decapitated zombie. I started backing up a bit. There was a shuffling and then a zombie launched itself out of the room. I slashed down hard, carving the zombie in two, the headless zombie fell apart at the shoulders and another zombie rushed in right after it.

“That’s not a zombie, it’s a ghoul,” said Justice, informing me of the useless bit of information. I started back out the door, but the ghoul realized I was trying to escape and moved inhumanly fast to cut me off. “Get us out of here!”

We both watched each other for a moment. More zombies could be heard in the other room, gathering themselves for another strike. I couldn’t hesitate, if I stayed here, I would be swarmed.

Launching a series of rapid kendo strikes at the ghoul’s head, I forced it back into the door frame and then into the stairs out to the graveyard. The rapid strikes gave it no opportunity to counterattack. Unfortunately, it realized there was a whole wild world out there without a well armed man swinging at it.

The ghoul must have smelled the town, because that’s where he started running.

“Shit!” I yelled, chasing after the ghoul. Even with my Dexterity skill allowing me to run much faster than a normal human, I was still unable to keep pace with the ghoul. If it got to the guards, there was going to be a problem.

“Options?” I said.

“Try sucking less,” said Justice as I used a Stamina point and vaulted over the graveyard wall after the ghoul. They somehow missed the ghoul leaping over the wall like a sack of cement, but I was painfully obvious in my landing. I rolled to my feet and continued after the monster.

“Seriously!” I yelled. “That’s your strategy?”

“Of course. I explained what you needed to do. Execution is your deal.”

I was a full thirty percent faster than when I came to this world, but it wasn’t like I was some track and field star back home. I was thirty percent faster than old me, who considered cross country running to be a decidedly unnecessary pursuit.

As the ghoul began to cross the last few feet, the guards were surely doomed. That ghoul was going to tear them to ribbons and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to stop that.

“Though it pains me to say this, you need a ranged attack,” Justice finally yelled.

“Great idea, emergency sword strike!” I yelled, flinging the sword at the ghoul. I learned a few things. One, swords didn’t throw well. I supposed that might not apply to all swords, I’m certain a sword could be made to be thrown at an enemy. Justice was not that sword through, and he splatted flat first on the creature before bouncing off of the ghoul’s back.

The next thing I learned was that the ghoul was perfectly fine attacking me if I was unarmed, which was true, because the second he turned around to see what hit him and realized it was my sword, he charged.

The third thing I realized was that Power didn’t just apply to my sword, so when I threw a point of Stamina into a punch, I was able to strike the errant ghoul so hard his head nearly snapped off. He collapsed into a pile where one of the guards obligingly shoved a whole spear into his chest, pinning him to the ground.

Fourth, and finally, I realized that if I punched as hard as I could, I would shatter my hand.

“Mother flipping testical tornado!” I growled, looking at my destroyed hand. Several of the guards began the process of re-killing the ghoul. With the zombie pierced by one spear, the other guards were trying to likewise pin it in place with theirs, but wherever they hit they just didn’t like the feel of it, so they tried again, over and over. They continued doing so until they got tired and the ghoul looked like diseased hamburger. I endorsed this move, Zombies sucked. I picked up Justice with my good hand.

“Do not fling me in anger!” yelled the sword.

“We got the ghoul.”

“Oh, well, unconventional tactics are sometimes necessary,” said Justice as he cast the healing spell and my hand stopped looking like so much pulp.

“Sir,” asked one of the guards.

“That one was quick, I’ll have to be more careful next time,” I said.

“What about those ones?” he asked, gesturing to the entrance of the graveyard where at least four more fast tough zombies were out. I exhaled loudly.

“Hey, that one had a piece of armor,” said Justice.

“Does it need to be fixed?” I asked.

“No, this bracer looks like it is still usable.” The bracers magically appeared on my arms. He was a liar, the bracer looked like garbage. I banged it with Justice’s pommel and didn’t feel it.

He was less of a liar.

“Any stat buffs on these bracers?” I asked as the four zombies charged for the entrance.

“They are metal,” said Justice. “I’ve been told that metal is more bite resistant than skin.”

“That works,” I said, rushing out to meet the zombies head on.

I was out of Stamina, but I still had my super move on tap. It was my get out of jail free power. I activated Magic Strike just as I swung at the first fast, tough zombie. It attempted to dodge, but I knew about how far it could go and managed to carve off its arm and head before it got out of range. The skill only lasted about three seconds, so I aimed at the second zombie and likewise bisected it.

Now I was only looking at two to one, and I could probably handle that. The zombies were smarter than I was hoping. They must have known I still had some time on my Magical Strike and tried to keep their distance, which was fine by me. I was recovering a Stamina point, as soon as I did that, I was going to kill one more and the last one I could handle easily without any special powers.

The moment the bluish aura on my sword faded they both rushed me. I did a kendo strike against the first one, but she managed to pull her head out of the way, and I only took off an arm. She slammed into me, and I went down just as the other zombie tried to close.

I shoved my bracer into the zombie’s mouth and then rolled on top of her, using the missing arm to my advantage. She didn’t have any leverage to stop me from rolling her over on that side. I placed the sword against her throat and drove all of my weight into it. A conventional sword would not have worked as well, but Justice was magical, and it drove far enough into her neck that her limbs stopped moving.

Then the other zombie bit my ear off. Like, tore it entirely free in one bite and was going after a second taste when I brought the pommel of Justice into the inside of his knee with my newly restored point of Stamina.

Zombies might be undead killing machines, but they obeyed physics like you’d hope. The knee shattered, and without the joint to support him, the zombie went down. I stood up, thankful for Justice’s pain deadening ability and drove the point of my sword into the creature’s skull.

“Can your spell regenerate my ear?” I asked carefully as I tried not to think about my maiming.

“My Heal spell cannot regenerate lost bones, but an ear should be fine. I can also reattach things If you can find it,” said Justice.

“All things said and done, I’d like to have my original ear back,” I mumbled.

“Well, say that to them,” replied Justice.

Getting part of my head bit off was a hit my confidence couldn’t quite manage to shrug off entirely. Still, I was alive and the undead wasn’t, if it had ever been. I tried to put that behind me.

“Did anyone see my ear?” I said, and the guard walked over holding a mangled bit of pinkish flesh.

“You need a helmet, sir,” said the young man.

“I gathered, and you are?” I asked.

“Frank,” he replied.

I took my ear and placed it against my head. My body glowed blue for a moment and a quick tug showed that it was reattached seamlessly.

“Quite correct, Frank. I’ll look for a helmet,” I said as I started back toward the graveyard.

8

THE CRYPTS

“So, no bucket,” I said, looking down into the crypt.

“You will find that improperly tailored armor is more of a hindrance than a help,” said Justice as I checked the surrounding area then went back down into the crypt. “Plus, a bucket helmet would look ridiculous, and I have to put my hilt down on such nonsense.”

“I question how you would manage that.”

“Like this,” said Justice and both of my bracers vanished, leaving my very biteable flesh exposed. Then they reappeared. “I trust we understand each other. No bucket helmets.”

“Point taken, you jerk,” I muttered and scanned the room for danger. The spent torch was at the base of the stairs, illuminated by my current torch.

“That was in the other room, something moved it,” I said. Silence was useful if you were sneaking. I was not presently sneaking. I was loudly trying to get the undead to attack me where I stood. With my back to the exit, I hoped ‘something’ would try to rush me. That was a defendable spot and would make killing the zombies easier while I retain the ability to exit the crypt.

Except they didn’t bite, yet at least.

“I do not expect more ghouls,” said Justice.

“And you’ve been spot on so far,” I grunted, pulling out another torch from storage. It popped into existence, and I lit it on the other torch and held both awkwardly in one hand.

I smacked the sword against the stone, smudging it. “Be careful,” said Justice.

“I thought you were indestructible,” I said.

“Yes, but now I will require polishing,” said Justice. “Proper maintenance of a Magical Sword is paramount! A squire that does not maintain his gear is no proper knight!”

“Fine, when we get back,” I said, cautiously stepping into the main chamber.

Aside from the spent torch, it was just as empty as before. I threw one lit torch into the same room as earlier, but harder this time, and was relieved when it smacked into the back wall and fell to the ground. I could see how big the room was and count the empty slots on the walls where zombies had broken out of their burial containers.

Which I’m sure had a fancier name, but I didn’t care.

“Ready?”

“Aim for the face,” said Justice, a wise saying if ever there was one.

I walked into the room in my kendo stance, blade at the ready, and fully prepared to rock out against any undead. There were two, and they were all the way in the back. The room itself was about forty feet deep and maybe ten wide, with slots for bodies three high running across both walls. There were about eight sets of those on both sides, meaning this room held something like fifty bodies, though at present it looked like about half the slots were empty.

So only twenty zombies plus the two in the back.

I slammed my foot down, loud enough that they both must have heard it. Sneaking up on anything wasn’t the plan. I wanted them to fight me closer to the door so I had an exit route. And again, they weren’t biting.

Yet.

“No activity in the other rooms,” said Justice and I stepped all the way into the chamber, watching everything. Still nothing moved. Alas, I was here to kill zombies and the zombies were in the back. I didn’t shirk a job.

I had to walk forward in kendo style because I didn’t want to be out of stance if anything went wrong. That meant I had to ditch the other torch, but I didn’t want to leave it in the doorway. I tossed it into the corner closest to the entrance and started stomping forward. That was an odd gate where I advanced with the same foot and then brought the other foot up to match it. It looked awkward but kept my sword ready the whole time. I was far more concerned with not being ready than looking awkward.

“This is sus,” I said as I got closer. The undead were the wrong size for zombies. Then they turned and snarled at the same moment as the pit of my stomach dropped.

“Careful now, they are ghouls,” said Justice.

One rushed me, but since I was already in position, I simply swung the blade in a proper beat to the head. I’m sure that wasn’t all the right sword terms, but Justice was terrible with terminology. I’m pretty sure no teacher had ever yelled ‘hold me tightly and then go for the head.’ I didn’t even want to know what a polishing was going to be like.

With my enhanced speed and strength, I managed to smash the ghoul’s skull open before he could do anything, and that just left his partner.

She knew they’d screwed up the instant her partner was re-killed. She started scrambling for the door, but I wasn’t having that. I moved to block her from a quick exit. Everything looked so simple, which is of course why the universe laughed at me.

“There is a fresh one in the doorway,” said Justice and of course there was. This was one of the fast tough zombies, and he started running towards me while the ghoul paused, waiting to see how effective he was.

By now I understood the mechanics of those zombies, and I struck with a full force blow to his forehead, a strike that was a bit too hard, actually. I was getting better with my sword alignment, which meant I was cutting deeper with every strike. In this case, Justice pierced the creature’s skull so deeply he got stuck and the zombie was a big guy.

The ghoul took the opportunity and leapt at me. Fortunately, I was able to get my bracer in the way and her teeth snapped onto it. She began chewing, but biting through metal was well over her paygrade. Which left a double handful of claws and they were slashing at me despite my efforts.

One thing they don’t mention about undead is how light they are. Undead tend to run water light, so even a tough zombie wasn’t as heavy as you’d expect. A ghoul was nearly ‘dry’ by comparison, and I twisted my arm as I attempted to throw the small woman free. She held on, but my friend physics stopped her from clawing at me for a few moments.

Although the cruel mistress physics had a short memory, and the ghoul was back on balance entirely too fast. She slashed my shoulder and chest, causing large, deep gouges in my flesh while I stood there ineffectively trying to pull my blade free.

Then I saw the sharp edge of the doorframe and realized she needed to be introduced. I was really hopeful he could teach her something about manners. I was partially correct. I slammed the ghoul, neck first, into the stonework with all the force I could muster.

If the ghoul was alive, that would have done something. Probably stunned her at least momentarily. Unfortunately, undead’s neural processes didn’t work like that, and all slamming her into the wall managed to do was let her scratch at me from a different angle.

At least she was in the air, so I kneed her in the gut twice. The second time, I heard ribs break, not that she cared. Since I didn’t need my leg on the ground, I pulled the zombie under me and stepped on his skull. I tore Justice free with a crack and a spray of moldy flesh.

The ghoul was reaching for my eye when I slashed the sword into her belly, spilling something terrible out of her. The ghoul switched to scratching at my face, but only managed to get in a few bad nicks when I shoved the sword between us and pressed it down hard onto her shoulder, separating the muscle from the bone. Her arm went limp, and I stepped back slightly and chopped at her hip.

The ghoul screamed, and I took that moment to roll on my back with her still holding onto my forearm. She flipped over me and slammed to the ground hard enough for teeth to go flying as her grip on my armor finally broke. The ghoul attempted to stand, but I’d cut through too much muscle in her leg, and she ended up falling over.

Getting back to my feet, I thrust Justice into her skull.

“We have not covered Thrusting yet, though your form was competent,” said Justice, worried about the important things.

“Heal,” I muttered, trying to get the blood out of my eye as shock started setting in. An instant later, I was healthy again.

Several of the burial slots were cracking open and more zombies were coming out.

“Ready, hero?” asked Justice.

“Seriously…” I said, considering retreat, but maybe the sword was right? I began walking down the side of the chamber and slashing zombie after zombie in twain. Several managed to get all the way out to the floor and were trying to collect themselves as I walked by and ended them.

Two even stood up and were prepared for combat, for all the good it did them. I had killed over six hundred zombies. By now, unless you had some new zombie trick, I could end you in an instant and very few of the undead were all that creative.

Clearing the chamber took less than two minutes, and I returned to the main room looking for which chamber the other zombie came from. There were six more zombies in here, but they didn’t react to me instantly.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I have not cleansed you and you are covered in zombie guts,” said Justice. “These poor creatures do not realize you are alive. Do you want some magical cleansing!”

“Hold up,” I said, walking over to the first zombie and smashing in its head. The other zombies reacted, realizing I was a threat, but I was already close enough to three of them that when I activated my Magical Strike, I was able to bisect them. Then it was just a point of Stamina for the next, and the final one I beat down normally.

“That was very efficient,” said Justice as he cleansed me.

“Yup, let’s clear out the other chambers,” I said and started to somewhat cautiously go through the rest of the crypt.

After the first crypt was done, I cleared out the next two, leaving only the largest one remaining. There were notifications waiting for me about more skill increases, and I was back in the clean graveyard fresh air. It smelled like wet clay and rot.

“Anything good?” I asked as Justice reviewed our inventory.

“We found several pieces of armor, and some weapons,” said Justice. “The weapons are obvious garbage, but the armor could be useful.”

“Any ranged weapons, oh sword of mine?” I asked.

“A Magic Sword Knight does not use a ranged weapon, they have Magical Swords.”

“Let’s pretend that I run into the unlikely situation of a ghoul running away from me towards the townsfolk and all I can do is throw my sword at it,” I said. “Are there any ranged weapons or should I fling you again?

Justice was quiet for a moment. “There is a broken light crossbow.”

“Let me see it,” I said, and the crossbow materialized in my hand. It was missing a string but that seemed to be about it. A crossbow string was just a heavily reinforced bow string, they still had those in the general store. “We’re keeping that and giving the rest of the weapons to the townsfolk.”

“But we could sell them for some coin,” said Justice. “It is our right as Magic Sword Knights.”

“We could, but the town is chronically unarmed. I think having more people with weapons will help us more than having more coins in this situation,” I said.

“Townsfolk are no match for Magical Sword Knights in combat,” said Justice.

“What about orcs?” I replied. “If there is more than one of them, I’d prefer to have some backup.”

“They might die,” said Justice.

“They might get killed by spiders, or undead, or anything else too, at least if they’re armed they have the choice,” I said.

“That’s not how we do things,” said Justice. “A hero should fight for all people without letting them risk themselves!”

“People should have a right to defend themselves,” I replied. “If they all die because they’re unarmed, no one will see how cool we are.”

Justice mulled that over. “Fine, but we will sell weapons if the situation is not as dire as here.”

“That, I agree with,” I replied, looking down into the final crypt.

It was the largest of the crypts by far, and now that I knew what to look for, had the most traffic. Lots of undead were coming out of this crypt.

“Wonder if the boss is down here.”

“Possibly, but fear not, remember your training. The power of the Magical Knight Corps will see you triumph!”

Well, he was at least good for a pep talk. I started down the slick stairs into this crypt, which were longer than the previous stairs. Before I was underground, now I was all the way buried. This must be what a dungeon felt like and I can’t say I cared for it over much. This room was right out of a horror movie. There was only one door and a large, terrible-looking statue standing in front of it unmoving.

“This is why I wanted a crossbow,” I said, summoning a torch.

“He looks big, but not as big as Justice!”

“Justice is more of a concept,” I said, tossing the torch at the statue. It bounced off, and for a bare instant, I thought that it might not actually be a monster. It could be a statue, a glorious statue to evil tucked away in this dank dark crypt that felt oppressively evil.

Of course, then the statue’s eyes started glowing, and it took one step toward me, crushing the torch underfoot.

“Hey, I paid a good silver piece for that torch! Well, five torches,” I said, doing the math. “You owe me two coppers, or a torch!”

The statue continued coming towards me, so I moved into the room slightly. The stairway was just big enough that I was pretty sure he could follow me out, and fighting up those wet, uneven stairs while moving backward was risky to put it mildly. I needed this guy to die down here, where I at least had good footing.

Fortunately, I had a trick for that.

I activated Magical Strike and swung for the statue’s chest even as he swung for mine. Our blades met in the middle with a mighty clang, and I was knocked back onto my ass.

“He can block Magic Strike?” I asked.

“Yes, any enchanted weapon or armor can do so,” said Justice.

I got back to my feet. The statue hadn’t gotten off without a scratch. But the slight wound I’d given him when our swords clashed was not a life threatening one. I stumbled slightly before getting back into position, noticing that my own leg was bleeding.

“You want me to heal that?” asked Justice.

“Not yet,” I hissed. Burning two points of Stamina, one for Dexterity which allowed me to move far faster than the statue could react, and another for Power which allowed me to strike at his knee with maximum force. The joint shattered under the force of the strike, but the limb remained intact.

I didn’t get off unscathed. During our clash, he managed to tag my arm with his blade. I rolled away before the shock took over and I numbly looked at my ruined bracer as the statue moved to block the door.

There was a lot of blood pouring out of my forearm.

The blue magic flowed over me, and the wound was gone. I got back to my feet and watched the statue. I was out of tricks. Next time, I’d have to use the Mana point with Dexterity to get in for a good strike.

I stood motionless as the statue limped toward me. The glowing red eyes watched me as I held Justice in the perfect kendo stance and waited. Waiting was my preferred trick at this point, allowing me to recover a point of Stamina soon enough to potentially get past him. The statue figured that out though or was just enough of a bastard to go after me anyway.

He stepped forward, holding his own sword low.

“Prepare to defend yourself. Keep me high and beat back his attacks,” said Justice as the statue swung the blade. I smashed Justice into the attack, causing a terrible bell-like sound to fill the room. The statue was strong, but not strong enough, and I sidestepped his attack.

The statue growled and swung again. I beat that strike as well, and as my sword bounced back, I realized I was in position to follow up. I struck, slamming the blade of Justice into the statue’s forehead with a mighty gong.

“On a helmet, aim for the temple,” said Justice.

The statue attempted to swing and grab, but when I beat back the strike, I counter attacked the creature’s outstretched palm. The hand broke free, revealing the creature was hollow underneath.

“This statue is not pure stone. You can do this!” said Justice.

“It’s not a statue,” I replied, sniffing the air. Yesterday I might have panicked, but that was hundreds of zombies ago. When I saw how big this guy was and the fact that he was armed, I miscalculated. For all of this creature’s advantages, in the end, it was just another undead.

The creature attacked, this time more slowly because it was missing a hand. I beat back that strike and activated a Stamina point right as I swung Justice at his temple. The rotted leather straps shattered, spinning the helmet ninety degrees even as the metal deformed under my attack.

For a moment, the statue wobbled, then it fell with a boom. Because I was a firm believer in double tapping, I flipped off his helmet with Justice revealing another zombie. I slashed off the creature’s head.

As I took the creature’s head, the body glowed briefly, and the heavy suit of armor vanished.

“This can be cleaned,” said Justice.

“Yup, let’s do that. I would like some armor,” I said, checking my shirt. The wound was healed, but the damage to my clothing was becoming a bit extreme. It took more than a decent shirt to hold up against a horde of zombies.

I listened for a long moment, waiting for a sound that never came. The back door to the chamber beckoned, and I wanted to kill whatever was back there. It would be a glorious battle, but I was out of Mana, so I patiently waited while I replenished.

“What’s with the crown?” I asked as I checked out the door.

“I do not know the local customs,” said Justice.

The stonework was at least newer than the other materials here. It looked like a late addition rather than something that was here for hundreds of years like the normal rocks.

An hour later, we started down.

“I’m sure it’s fine, there can’t be anything worse down there,” I said.

“There certainly can be: liches, undead wizards, skeletal mages,” began Justice as he recited a list. I listened to all of them. The sword was annoying, but if properly motivated it occasionally said useful things.

“Stinks down here,” I said.

“I cannot tell, I have no nose,” said Justice.

“I know, that’s why I mentioned the stink, it smells like a chemical dump.”

“That might mean Alchemy, it is the vile cousin of Potion Making,” said Justice.

“Can it be used to make undead?” I asked.

“That is the least of the evil that it can be made to perform,” said Justice.

We continued down until the oppressive stench of Alchemy was making breathing hard. I decided that the air wasn’t causing me to die, but that was about all I knew.

“The air is safe to breathe, I shall alert you if there are problems,” said Justice.

“You don’t have a nose,” I said.

“I have a magical sensor for toxins,” said Justice. “Helps to keep my squires breathing.”

“Lucky for you,” I said and continued to the end of the stairway. There was a door here and all the nearby stonework was caked in something I suspected was dried Alchemy residue. I worked in a factory once. Downwind of the processing area was a section that would do that if it wasn’t cleaned often. This place didn’t look like it was ever cleaned.

The door was well used though, and I pushed on it. It opened silently, and I was treated to a sight out of yet another horror movie. A cheap one this time. There was a cauldron in the middle, bubbling and green with an odd light shining out of it that didn’t feel right. A large, throne-like chair sat in the back looking menacing. Several tables were around the room, each covered in a variety of ingredients that appeared to be mostly mushrooms. A very gaunt creature, that must be undead, was moving around it and throwing in a handful of mushrooms every few seconds.

“Worst pasta sauce ever,” I muttered. The creature heard that. He, and I was being generous there, glared at me and shrieked something unintelligible. I stepped toward him, and he flung a burning orb at me.

I dodged, as one wants to do when someone throws a hissing, smoking ball at you. It splatted into the door and promptly exploded, peppering my backside with splinters.

I really need some armor.

He was flinging another bomb when I started rushing at him, forgetting my stance. Stance was good, not getting hit by a bomb was better. I burned a Stamina point to really get the point across and covered the distance so fast, that no human could have responded.

Unfortunately, the undead mixologist wasn’t alive and not really constrained by human reflexes. When I got close, he backhanded me hard enough to shatter my jaw and sent me flying over a table.

I was pretty sure I was unconscious, but one blue flash later I wasn’t. I rolled to the side just as another bomb landed where I was and then a second bomb landed where I was going. I was correct that getting hit by those bombs was incredibly painful, and I got to feel my chest collapse. That was new.

Dropping to my knees, I was pretty sure my guts were falling out and then I flashed blue again.

“How many times can you do that?” I asked.

“Three,” said Justice.

“I should be able to kill the undead with three more lives,” I said.

“Three total. I’ve used two, so you have one left,” said Justice, like a bastard who hated everything I loved. Mostly I loved not dying.

The undead flung another bomb. I was smart and rolled under a table. The explosion destroyed the table and peppered me with splinters, but I could manage those for a short time at least. I finally got close and slashed at the alchemist.

His hand came free, but that didn’t seem to bother him overmuch. He grabbed me by the collar with his remaining hand and threw me against his scalding hot cauldron. I dented it and the resulting shower of boiling liquid didn’t do anything for my complexion, and I dropped the sword. As I slid off the scaling metal, the undead’s mind snapped into focus and he looked horrified.

“Stupid fool, do you realize what you have done!” shrieked the undead.

I didn’t care, I was badly burned. All over. I burned a point of Stamina as I grabbed the still scaldingly hot cauldron, and slammed it down over the undead’s head. When my Stamina ran out, the caudron became incredibly heavy and it collapsed onto the floor as I yanked my now skinless palms free.

I staggered over to Justice and picked him up. Instantly I was well again, and aware that I was out of lives.

The undead shrieked several more times as he tried to lift the cauldron, but the bottom was the hottest part and the undead had his limits. I activated Magical Strike and swung down, carving the cauldron and the undead in two in one swing.

“Job well done,” said Justice. “We have defeated the undead menace that plagued this village.”

“I guess it was a decent quest,” I said, going over to the still standing tables. They were all covered in mushrooms of various types. No idea what they did, but presumably they did something for Alchemy. I spotted a book and tried to make out the cover. Surprisingly it read A Necromancer’s Guide to Alchemy.

“Are they writing in English here?” I asked before Justice could get worked up.

“No, as long as I am on your person, any language I can read you can read, and vice versa. That is a book of the art of necromancy. It will teach the Alchemy skill,” said Justice. “That skill is not for the weak or inexperienced. You should burn it.”

I flipped open the front cover and spotted a table of contents. The recipes for all of the zombies were there, and there was also a section on the proper maintenance and care of mushroom gardens. There were a few poisons at the end of the book, but nothing approaching a potion that would cure even the sniffles. Literally every part of the book was directly related to necromancy on one level or another. I closed the book and tossed it into the fire.

“Now let’s search for treasure. I can detect objects of value so just wave me at anything that looks valuable,” said Justice as I prodded the fire with my invulnerable sword to make sure the book was burning—the flames had already engulfed it. “Be thorough, we need more treasure.”

He had a point. The ground was filthy, so I glanced at the chair. It was in surprisingly good condition. When the chair fell, all of the nonsense on the outside was knocked off revealing an extremely well made piece of furniture. I snorted, it almost looked like a throne. There was even a mostly intact cushion for your seat. I brushed off the corpse dust and felt something inside.

“Hidden treasure,” I chuckled, tearing open the cushion, revealing a crown and a ring. “These should sell for a lot.”

“Yes, though the crown of a king is a hard thing to sell,” said Justice.

“I hear they are heavy when you wear them,” I said, spotting several other books. I sat on the chair and flipped through them. One was a hand scrawled journal, complete with a map to the local region. Apparently this undead lived in a city called Therown in his livelier days and wanted to get back there with friends.

“He was building an army,” I said. “Seems like overkill. Any ten of those advanced undead would have taken the village without issue.”

“There are undoubtedly other cities in this world, perhaps they were going to be used there,” said Justice.

The second book was a journal about the undead’s life prior to leaving. It was a depressing series of failures, but lots of pages were torn out, leaving me with an incomplete picture of what happened. His handwriting was much more precise, with an elegant flowing script. The man was a high ranking noble.

I snapped the book shut. “Shit.”

“What is wrong?” asked Justice.

“Who was the original quest giver?” I asked.

“King Narosa of Therown,” said Justice. “He requested the aid of the Magic Sword Knights in retaking the city and saving his kingdom. He was trying to assemble an army to do so. Why, do you think that was him?”

I held up the ring. “Was his symbol the stag?”

“Ah, well good detective work, Sword Bearer,” said Justice, causing the ring to vanish into my storage. “You killed a king. I think that might be illegal.”

“He was already dead,” I said dismissively while looking at the body. “Upshot, I think I slept with a princess.” The journal mentioned his daughter, Nadia.

“I told you, these sort of things happen to people associated with a Magical Sword,” said Justice.

9

PREPARATIONS

I left a lot out in my conversation with Nadia. So much. So very much. I wondered if I should tell her more, but Justice assured me that she was better off not knowing. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with that, but…

“So, my father didn’t become an undead alchemist who was trying to build a zombie army to fight the orcs?” asked Nadia.

“Nope, he just died,” I said carefully as I continued adjusting my armor.

“Phew,” replied Nadia. “I mean, I heard rumors, but I didn’t want to believe them. Quite a few people went to investigate the graveyard but didn’t come back.”

I gave her the journal from when her father was still sane and kept the crazy rambling journal all to myself. In that special place you lock up all of the horrible things you never want to think about again: Justice’s storage, which was also full of poisonous mushrooms and so many scraps of armor with undead bits in them.

That insane king’s journal was a descent into madness where the only option the king felt he had was to take his own life and become an undead so he could build up a mighty army and retake his kingdom for the good of everyone.

Except that a number of the dead were villagers who got dragged off to become undead even if they were quite alive before. I initially wondered at the intelligence of burning the skill book, but now I realize that Alchemy was bad news. I wanted to avoid anything that resembled bad news. Bad news got my ear torn off my head.

I laid back down and looked at the ceiling before I started whispering to Justice.

“So did I level?” I asked.

“Yes, that last fight was just enough,” said Justice.

You are a level two Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 2 | Stamina: 3

Skills: Dexterity (rank 3), Power (rank 3)

“I don’t feel different,” I said, trying to see what changed. There seemed to be about the same amount of strength as I had before, and the same amount of smartness. The extra points in Mana and Stamina were both good though.

“That’s because I put all the experience points into increasing your Mana and Stamina,” said Justice.

“So I don’t just generally level up?”

“That’s not how it works,” said Justice patiently. “When you level up, I put the experience points into the areas of your development that need the most work. In your case, your Mana and Stamina were low, so I spent the points there to increase them.”

“I thought I’d get like a level two power or something,” I said.

“I can purchase powers when it makes sense. Right now, you can’t even use your existing powers very often due to your lack of Mana and Stamina. Every time you gain enough experience to level up your class orb, I can purchase new abilities.”

“What about my species orb?” I asked.

“Those don’t typically level, but they do earn XP like everything else. Your species allows you to buy many abilities beyond just the extra skill slot, but they are very expensive. I’ll alert you when we can purchase one,” said Justice.

Neither of my skills had advanced in rank. Apparently, each rank required progressively more experience points to advance, and I was only midway through both. I killed hundreds of weaker monsters to advance a single level, now it was going to take thousands to get up to level three.

While I couldn’t do anything new with my Stamina, I did have more of it which was helpful. With my increased Mana, I could learn a second spell. Justice populated a list, and I glanced through them. All of the options but one vanished as he began.

“The new magics you can choose are all knightly spells. They are more powerful than your Stamina based improvement,” said Justice. “I have selected Magical Armor for you.”

Magic Armor

Hardens your armor and repairs durability while restoring it to the same condition that it was summoned in.

“Same condition it is summoned in?” I asked as I glanced back down at my armor. The condition it was summoned in wasn’t great.

“Yes, when the armor is summoned from my storage to your person, the spell ‘remembers’ the state it was in and will attempt to restore it to that condition,” said Justice. “If you ever perform a significant repair, you will need to banish and resummon the armor or the Magical Armor spell will do odd things.”

“And I didn’t even get to look at the spells because?” I asked, peeved. I’d have almost preferred to just have the spell assigned rather than know there were more options I wasn’t good enough to even look at.

“In my experience, that is the most useful ability. The armor repair feature allows you to keep going, and as you said, armor is useful,” said Justice. “As an experienced Magical Sword training a fledgling squire, you should listen to my sage advice. I need to keep you alive.”

“I guess that makes sense. This looks like it keeps my guts in my torso,” I said. The problem was that he had a point, after the last fight and getting lacerated repeatedly, having armor was probably the best choice I could make.

I just didn’t want to admit that, so I continued prying on a sharp piece of my new armor and shoving the edge outside the place where my soft, easily damaged, skin was. Finally, I managed to force it back so that the damage was at least less obvious.

I banished and resummoned the armor before I cast Magic Armor and the sharp points just folded back into the metal so smoothly, it looked undamaged, because it was.

“The spell is smart enough to know what constitutes actual damage and will attempt to restore that even if the armor is placed into storage broken,” said Justice.

“Fine, you were right, this is really useful.” I flexed my elbow and checked the repaired armor. It was from a different suit of armor. The arm was the wrong color and the wrong style, but it was intact.

“Henry and I always had a rousing discussion about various choices before we selected an ability,” said Justice.

“So you do discuss abilities,” I replied. “Just not with me.”

“At your level of experience, you do not provide much to the discussion. As you increase in knowledge, we will discuss your abilities and you will choose the correct ones,” said Justice.

“Correct ones, like the ones you want me to pick?” I asked, more than a bit pissed off.

“Ones that are chosen with full knowledge of what your capabilities are, so they assist you in your goals,” said Justice. That was better, slightly. Justice was kind of a dick, for a sword, but he was right that I didn’t know what anything did. I might very well select an ability that was worthless or actively worked against my fighting style.

Ultimately, it wasn’t like Justice was a rear area general. He was right up here with me, he had a strong motivation to keep me alive, and if that manifested in him choosing skills, I was going to have to tolerate it, for now.

I was here to be a hero, and I wanted to make my own choices not have them decided for me. If I wanted that, I’d have stayed back on Earth.

Most of the new armor was still getting adjusted, well, at least as adjusted as the local village could muster. I had parts, but not enough of a single suit to fight in. The helmet was still dented, and the gauntlet had more missing than was here, but most of the rest of the armor was mostly okay, if you squinted, and didn’t have to wear it.

By late evening, all the parts were attached and my armor looked truly terrible. There were at least six different kinds of armor hastily strapped together into something approaching a whole. It was dirty, dented, and most of it was taken off of corpses. But, it was mine.

I cast Magic Armor and the whole suit made several loud popping sounds. The helmet popped out a massive dent that was pressing metal against my skull. The breastplate made an odd panging sound as the metal forged together. The legs snapped and hissed as they bent into the correct shapes.

In the end, the armor looked brand new like the day it was made… by a half dozen different smiths using different plans.

“This is still pinching,” I said, causing Justice to make the armor vanish again. I glanced down at the bleeding spot on my leg and grabbed some leather, a thick needle, and started sewing the patch onto my pants.

The problem ultimately was that the armor was missing too many parts or had been shoddily tied together. The gauntlet was still mostly missing, and it remained in that state. Worse, the armor was too short in the torso, so when I cast Magic Armor everything compressed down as the leather strengthened. There wasn’t anyone in town who really understood armor on the practical level, so they didn’t know quite how to get everything put back together.

It was a manageable problem though.

“You are quite skilled,” said Nadia as she watched me. I started sewing more leather patches onto the outside of my clothing, making it look like I was trying to turn rags into a raincoat. Mom was always keen on me knowing how to darn my socks, and these leather patches were honestly less complicated to apply.

Spot blood, put on a patch.

The princess was smiling at me as I worked. Nadia was wearing the crown, and only the crown. It was a sign of her lineage, but her father took it with him when she was a child. Her lineage had a nice butt.

She was openly admiring me, which was not something that ever happened on Earth. On Earth, I was kind of a nobody, on Exagin I was a hero. Well, a hero in training. Sure it was dangerous, but man, the benefits were amazing. I just wanted to tell someone about how cool this was. Not that I wanted to tell Nadia that. She was after all laying on her bed only wearing that crown.

“So how are you going to stop the orcs from pillaging the village tomorrow?” she asked.

“I’m a Magic Sword Knight and this is what we do,” I said confidently. I was getting into the habit of speaking as Sir Yorick, my fake knightly voice. Justice claimed saving villages from orcs was something Magical Sword Knights did, and I did need that potion. “I will have to interrogate their leader so he can tell me where your captured people are.”

“You are so concerned about them,” she smiled, then looked away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, finishing the patch on my leg. Hopefully it would prevent the pinching, but the armor was basically hopeless without an actual armorsmith.

“It is just, we had given up hope,” said Nadia sadly. “There was just no chance for us, no chance at winning, and no real chance of long-term survival. There are so few free humans left, and when you show up like a knight from legend, it is hard not to be… hopeful, for once. I’m not used to it.”

She smiled, she was quite pretty, distractingly so.

“Focus up, you need to keep your eye on the prize, and that prize is an orc’s head,” said Justice.

“After we find out where the prisoners are?” I asked.

“Absolutely. It is our sworn duty to release those prisoners!” began Justice. “Wait, if the orc is our prisoner, then we cannot decapitate him. It would be dishonorable.”

“We could release him into the forest,” I said.

“That is not how being a prisoner works. He is under our charge, meaning we have to attempt to keep him alive and in one piece,” said Justice. “We’re going to need to keep the damn fool orc alive.”

I sat patiently, considering Justice’s latest rant. I wasn’t sure he was entirely stable. Sometimes he switched from his boisterous mode to drill sergeant mode, but I could handle that. I was less sure I could deal with one orc and save the town. After that, my quest would be over. Of course, what does a hero do when he’s out of quests?

Probably another quest.

“Tomorrow will be hard,” she said. “We have never tried to stand up against them, since the incident.”

“The incident?” I asked.

“The majority of my father’s army was captured fifteen years ago, but a small number of them escaped and wandered. The orcs didn’t really care that they still existed, they don’t really care about humans as long as you do what you are told,” said Nadia bitterly.

“What happened?”

“I had a friend that grew up with me. We were both from the capital and the nobility, so when the remaining members of the resistance showed up, she convinced them she was the princess and that they were going to launch a revolution,” said Nadia. “She was killed, and they were all killed or captured with her.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“Yeah, and that’s why we aren’t allowed to have real weapons or armor down here,” said Nadia. “They also took the trainers and anyone who looked like they might be able to fight. I don’t know where any of them went.”

“Why didn’t you help?” I asked.

Nadia wiped away a tear. “I was waiting for the Magical Sword Knight to appear and save us. I was told to do whatever was necessary to get you to help us.”

She had a great technique.

“I will avenge you friend. You said there was only going to be one of them, so I can handle that in my sleep, especially with the townsfolk so much better armed,” I replied. I mean, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, or the town, but I was only one guy.

One guy who wasn’t ready to save the world, that was clearly going to be too difficult at the moment. Fighting the undead had been both painful and eye opening for my heroic aspirations. This saving the world business was dangerous. I could manage, though. Plus, Nadia was nice, and it was just a single orc.

“What if there are more?” she asked.

“Well, that’s what knights do,” I said with a smile. “More.”

She smiled again. “Well, that being the case, is there any reward you might request?”

“I think I have been pretty well rewarded,” I said. “But if you are offering more rewards, I will happily take them.”

“I am sorry, Sir Knight, but yesterday was a bit risky. Tonight I fear you may have to deal with a problem if you are not careful,” she said a bit sadly. But I had a spell for that.

“A Magic Sword Knight never leaves a squire in the field,” I offered, trying to come up with inoffensive terms.

“Truely,” she replied, understanding.

“Have you ever heard of a story where that happened?” I asked.

She rolled onto her back and pondered that for a moment, while I started summoning and dismissing the few parts of armor that I had. None of them were pinching anymore, and while I looked ridiculous, I at least looked more defended than I was.

“Tomorrow will be a dire battle,” said Justice. “Your first opportunity to show the world your power.”

“Yup,” replied. “Gonna fight an orc.”

“You will not simply be able to fight an orc. They are capable combatants with many skills to use in battle,” said Justice.

“And I’ll win so I can figure out where their base is,” I said.

“I love that optimism, but let’s be prepared,” said Justice.

Seriously, how many could there be? I dismissed my armor because it was time to sleep and found Nadia had rolled onto her front and had her cute little feet bobbing up and down over her very nice bottom. She was watching me finish my preparations and waggled her eyebrows at me.

“I’ve read all the knightly stories growing up and it never happened once. You knights must have a contraceptive spell. Show me,” she said.

And I did. It was good to be the knight.

10

ORCS, THE PLURAL OF ORC

“There are forty of them,” said Frank as he looked down at Nadia. She was holding a bow and appeared less confident than she was last night. Last night she knew what she was doing and was skillful in handling everything that came up. Now, she was trying to project confidence and failing.

“Let us in, or we will kill everyone,” said the orc boss.

“You’re sure we can do this?” I asked Justice.

“Of course, I am a Magical Sword, and you can use me to win this battle. This will be child’s play even for a squire,” said Justice. I was dubious about that, but I was here to be a hero, not run away.

“Do you want me to talk to them?” I asked. Nadia nodded shakily. I checked my armor—still looked ridiculous. Hopefully the orcs wouldn’t notice. I looked like a MMORPG character who cared more about stats than cosmetics, which was sad because if I had stats, I wouldn’t care what the armor looked like. As it was, I had a great combination of no stats, plus ridiculous armor.

“The shiny metal bits counteract the dark black bits,” said Justice flatly. “Just yell down at them, let them know if they come here, you will be taking it out of their hides.”

“That isn’t going to discourage them,” I said uncomfortably.

“I do not expect it to, but they will know what will be happening when they get here,” said Justice.

“Okay,” I said, then stood up, looking at all forty orcs. They ranged from two dozen scrawny orcs, which were huge, to all the other ones who were huge compared to the scrawny orcs. Some were even extra huge. The leader looked like one of his parents was an ogre, and he looked upset.

“Do you speak for the village now?” laughed the ogre.

“Yes, please leave. You are scaring the goats and they want to remain virgins until marriage,” I yelled.

A long moment passed as the orcs looked at each other then an arrow whizzed by me. Well, more correctly an arrow zipped towards me, and I sidestepped, causing it to miss and stick into the wall of a nearby house. Arrows were great weapons, except they didn’t move fast enough. I could see them coming from that distance and just avoided them. Hopefully the orcs would leave. The orc leader looked vexed.

“Well, we tried negotiation,” said Justice. I ducked down.

“Why are there so many?” I asked my fellow humans. No one said anything, so I stood back up and asked the same question to the orcs.

“We are here to deal with the undead problem in the graveyard,” he replied.

“Oh, I already killed all of those, you can leave,” I replied dodging two more arrows.

“What do you think you are, a Magic Sword Knight?” laughed the ogre.

“Yes,” I said as I drew Justice and smashed the next arrow into flinders. I learned there was an eighth of an inch between heroic and sucking chest wounds at that point. “I have this Magic Sword and everything.”

“So do I,” laughed the ogre, showing his belt where a hilt stuck out. Justice hissed.

“Backbiter, no,” mourned the sword.

“I thought Magic Swords were indestructible?” I asked, sidestepping another arrow.

“From traditional means, but if you drain us of magic, our blades are just as fragile as anything else made of magically reinforced steel,” said Justice. I ducked behind cover.

“Well, they aren’t leaving,” I said.

“We heard,” said Frank.

“Our village cannot stop that many orcs,” said Nadia, fear creeping into her. It was not a pretty look. For a brief moment she found hope, and now that was gone. If I wanted to save the world, I needed to start by saving her.

“Your fellow humans are now armed, and their confidence is wavering,” said Justice.

“Is that why you didn’t want me to give them weapons?” I asked.

The sword remained silent.

I summoned my light crossbow and activated a Stamina point as I popped up. I fired the crossbow and the bolt sailed through the air and slammed into the slit of one of the armored orc’s visors. “Look there are thirty-nine of them, we can do this,” I said.

“What?” asked Frank.

I spent another point of Stamina as I reloaded and spun up to shoot another orc. That one also went down, and I ducked behind cover.

“Like I said, thirty-eight of them.”

“That one is getting back up,” said Frank.

I repeated the trick. “Thirty-eight.”

“Yup, bolts to both eyes will do that,” said Frank.

“We can do this. All of the townsfolk will hold the main gate and you can kill the rest of them,” said Nadia.

“You got this, I believe in you,” said Justice. “But you might want to start with a riveting speech to get them motivated.”

That’s the kind of inspirational words you want from your sword. I looked at my fellow humans and thought WWJD.

What would Justice do?

“Thirty-eight, a trifle before lunch. You lot kill as many as you can, I’ll get the rest of them. Remember, I have to deal with the ogre myself,” I said boldly, then considered. “He will know where the camp is!”

“Yes, and it is so glorious that you are concerned about our people,” said Nadia, gaining confidence. After all, if I was worried about her people, obviously I knew I was going to win.

“You know me, I’m all about saving people,” I said.

“Good, she bought it,” said Justice. “Now, all we need to do is slay all those orcs and we are all set.”

“I hate you,” I muttered. It wasn’t that Justice was making me lie to everyone, it was that he knew that lying to everyone bolstered their confidence. Since I knew we were in trouble, the lies didn’t do anything for me. I just had to hope my training on the zombies would do the job.

While I was lost in thought, the orcs charged. Right at the gate, screaming obscenities. Something about an asshole with a crossbow, so I gave the crossbow to Frank.

I was out of bolts anyway.

Nordrin had a city wall with gates and everything. That wall was designed to stop spiders and the occasional zombie. It was not designed to stop a full on raiding party of orcs, at least without considerable support. Support Nordrin didn’t really have to give.

When the first ladder came up, I burned a Stamina point and chopped Justice into it. This caused the entire side of the ladder to split and the three orcs climbing it all fell to the ground below. One was even minorly injured.

The other two ladders made it up just fine though and the orcs started climbing the wall. Yesterday that tactic would have worked, because the entire complement of weapons in the village consisted of about ten poorly made spears. In my battles with the zombies, I’d found everything from knives and cheap staffs all the way up to one Magical Sword, which Frank had.

Because depressingly enough, he was the second best fighter here.

He chopped down on an orc and the orc’s helmet deflected the Magic Sword into his shoulder. The magical blade gouged deeply into the pauldron and the orc roared, right as two people jammed spears into his chest. They tried to push the orc and the ladder away, but the ladder had a metal hook that sat over the wall, so just the orc went. He tumbled down the ladder, striking all of his friends before slamming to the ground.

Where he promptly got right back up.

The other ladder was closer to me. The first orc was already on the wall and slashed at another guard. That man collapsed, probably dead. The orc was getting ready for the second guard when I kendo chopped his skull.

With my strength and Justice’s inability to break, the strike to the head was enough to brain the orc even through his helmet. He collapsed, and the next orc coming over the wall right after him laughed at me.

“I’ve always wanted to see one of you Magic Sword Knights fight.”

I struck at him, but he stepped to the side, causing me to miss his skull and instead I only managed a glancing blow off his armor. He thrust back at me with a short metal sword that glanced off my armor. If I hadn’t been wearing it, that attack would have killed me.

“You must feint, pretend to attack to cause him to move,” said Justice, which sounded reasonable. The orc’s buddy was just about over the wall, so I attacked the laughing orc’s head. When he jerked to the side, I adjusted my blow and slammed him on the temple.

The helmet dimpled and there was a splatting sound. The orc collapsed even as I advanced and struck the third orc in rapid succession. He fell backward down the ladder, so I brought my sword up and activated a Stamina point as the next orc got to the top. His eyes went wide, but he wasn’t my target.

I slashed into the side of the ladder, splitting the wood down a dozen feet, causing the rungs to fly loose. The orc fell to the point where there were still rungs and shattered those as well.

Switching back to the remaining ladder, I spotted Frank as he was pushed back by a massive orc. There were five more orcs climbing the ladder as the remaining orcs all got ready below. In the short fight on top of the wall, two of the guards were already down and the remainder were rapidly losing the battle.

“Are those magic weapons?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Justice. “All of their weapons are made of a cheap magical alloy so they can block your Magic Strike.”

“Is their armor?” I asked as we got close. The nearest orc moved to block me, but I feinted then smashed him in the head. He stood dumbly, so I smashed him again. This time he dropped.

Another orc managed to get to the top of the ladder, but more importantly, two of the other orcs were moving to get to the remaining guards, meaning their backs were to me. I activated Magic Strike and slashed across both orc’s backs. They came apart, and suddenly there were only three orcs.

Two of them looked normal, a third wore much nicer armor.

“He is probably an orc juggernaut, they are a type of elite orc, they will know skills,” said Justice.

“Shit,” I muttered as I slammed one orc twice on the shoulder with my sword. I was aiming for the head, but he wasn’t having it. Two hits later and he was standing, but his arm was clearly broken. I spartan-kicked him right into the juggernaut, and the massive orc just backhanded him off the wall.

The surviving orcs were wedged against the wall where the ladder was. No more orcs could get up here without the defenders giving ground. We stared at each other as the juggernaut’s battle hardened companion prepared his human killing mace and the valiant human guards pointed what amounted to sharp sticks at the pair.

“Frank, please pick up your sword,” I said.

“Just give me a second and I’ll have your back,” said Frank.

The juggernaut surged forward, and I found out having guys behind you is bad, because you can’t pull back. I burned Power and attempted to block the strike, only to find that the juggernaut was actually stronger than the undead ‘statue’ from yesterday.

I slashed down with Justice even as the orc swung a massive mace into my chest. There was an enormous clash and we both stumbled away from each other.

The orc had a minor wound, his well made armor saving him from most of the damage. My chest plate was compressed into my chest, making breathing hard, not that breathing was much of an issue considering I was pretty sure both of my lungs were pulp.

“Squire, your armor is blocking me from healing you,” said Justice so I activated Magical Armor. The breastplate popped out, all of my armor fully repaired. Justice cast healing and I stood back to my full height.

“How many times can you do that?” growled the orc.

“Enough,” I said, activating Dexterity and Power simultaneously before slamming Justice into the orc’s already damaged arm. The armor blocked most of the damage, but not enough. The limb shattered causing the orc to drop his mace. Without his mace, he was having trouble defending himself, and I slammed Justice into him over and over trying to find a weak spot in the armor.

The juggernaut’s partner was trying to get into the action, but now found himself being crushed by the backpedaling juggernaut. The big guy attempted to grab me, and I dodged under the strike, finally spotting a hole in the armor. The armpit was simply covered in chainmail for protection.

I drove Justice into the orc’s armpit until half of the blade was tucked in there. Then I twisted the blade before yanking it out. The orc bellowed, then slammed into a stone parapet before he collapsed. The orc behind him was pinned under the massive orc’s bulk.

Another orc attempted to climb the ladder and I struck him down. Then the one after him. Then the next one. Two arrows flashed toward me, but the archers were still too far off and I had plenty of time to react before the next orc attempted to climb onto the wall. I smashed him as well. He slammed to the ground in the middle of the mass of approaching orcs, his crushed skull testament to the power of my strikes.

“Halt!” yelled the ogre. Fourteen of the orcs were dead, including one of the well armored ones. Well, thirteen, I thought, remembering the trapped orc next to me.

There was a scream. Back to fourteen.

“You fight much better than expected,” said the ogre. “I will let this village live if you turn over the knight. He cannot protect you forever. No one else has to die.” There was a sudden quiet from the people behind me.

“At least Frank has my back,” I said.

“About that, Squire, I think Frank just died,” said Justice.

Justice was correct. Also, three of the other guards, and a random woman who thought a pitchfork and gumption was enough to fight orcs. At least she died doing what she loved, screaming while she flew through the air.

“This is terrible,” I hissed.

“Focus, you are the only thing keeping these people alive. If you crack, they will run and the orcs will kill all of them,” said Justice.

“But I’m a hero,” I said, looking back over Frank’s body. He was right behind me, holding his sword but slumped against the battlement. He died covering my back, because he believed in something, but what?

“He believed in you,” said Justice. Right then, I realized what I had to do.

“I have sworn an oath to protect this place,” I said to Nadia. “These orcs will betray you at the first possible instant, probably the instant I am dead.”

Nadia looked pained. “The orcs are filthy liars.”

“Yes, and I am an honest knight,” I said while trying not to obviously glance at everyone to see who might be betraying me. Everyone looked sort of honest. I really needed a skill that could spot people who were going to betray me, because that would be super cool right about now.

I stood back up and dodged another arrow.

“Seriously,” said the ogre-sized orc walking to the base of the wall directly below me. “You cannot think you can stop me.”

“I have the power of Justice on my side,” I announced as I dodged another arrow. The ogre laughed. I dodged another arrow, jerking to the side now that the archers were getting closer, and he laughed louder. I dodged another one and he began to bellow. The fourth arrow I dodged allowed me to slam my knee into the already damaged parapet, and while the ogre-sized orc bellowed, it snapped free.

And landed directly on top of his head.

He stood there stunned for a second as the hundreds of pounds of stone rattled whatever he had that passed for a brain. Still, he was standing, until I threw the juggernaut on him.

One two hundred pound weight to the skull he could manage, two was clearly too many. The massive orc fell onto his back with a mighty thud, and finally the archers stopped shooting.

“If you run now, I might not be able to catch all of you,” I yelled. They took me up on that. I glanced back at the humans. “Tie him up, use all the ropes. I’ll be back in a few.”

11

BOSS GARUK

“How many got away?” asked Nadia when I returned.

“Maybe five or so,” I replied, spending the point of Mana to restore my armor back to factory spec. It still looked stupid, but I was growing used to it.

And if I keep telling myself that, I’ll eventually believe it.

“How did you get so many?” asked Bryon, the new chief guard. He was about seventeen, and scrawny.

“I just chased them into the spiders,” I said. “Lots of spiders around here, and those orcs are delicious.”

“That’s horrible!” said Nadia.

“In my defense, they were trying to kill everyone,” I said, trying to change the subject. “How is the big orc?”

“We did what you said. He’s tied up, with all the ropes,” said Nadia. “And some chains.”

And the big guy was. After we got his helmet off it was clear that he wasn’t an ogre. He was an orc whose father was brave, or mother was stupid, no idea which. We hadn’t removed the rest of his armor though, and the two guys with spears pointing at his face just looked sad.

“He’s going to eat those spears,” I said, kneeling in front of the orc. He tried to snap at me, but I expected something like that and yanked back faster than he could move while tied up.

“Appear confident and get the information you need,” said Justice.

“What if he doesn’t want to tell me?” I asked.

“He doesn’t. Be very confident,” said Justice.

“So, what’s your name?” I asked the orc, watching him closely.

“Garuk, I am the war boss. If you let me go, I will not report this travesty.”

“Cool, cool. So, where are the resistance prisoners?”

“You want to know about them?” laughed the orc.

“That’s the only reason I didn’t kill you, so yes, I am quite interested in where the prisoners are.”

The orc’s laugh faded slightly. “You’re a knight.”

“So they tell me. Why don’t you tell me where the prisoners are?” I asked.

“Tell the knight, this will go much easier on you,” said one of the guards.

“You think I’m concerned about a human knight?” chuckled the orc.

I stepped back, considering my options. I didn’t really know how to make someone talk. TV made it look much easier. You caught the perp, and they instantly spilled the beans. Maybe I needed to rough him up?

“You’ll need to apply logic and cleverness,” said Justice.

“I don’t have any idea of how to do that,” I said.

“Squire, show me your most scary face,” said Justice. I glanced around to make sure no one could see me and attempted to look fierce. The sword snorted. “Okay, we’ll have to think of something else.”

“Like what?”

“Try asking him nicely, you are a knight, he will certainly comply,” said Justice.

Justice apparently couldn’t read faces very well.

“Mister orc, could you please tell me where the resistance prisoners are located?” I asked.

Garuk laughed and did so for quite a bit.

“There are the other old standbys,” said Justice. “Use me to break things around him, that will certainly convince him that we mean business.”

I looked at the orc, who looked back at me and started laughing again.

“I’m not going to do that, it won’t work,” I said. You could tell. “We need to do something more drastic.”

“Like what?” asked Justice.

“Well, do you know a truth spell?” I asked.

“No, those only exist in Alchemy,” said Justice. “And you burned that book.”

“I recall,” I said.

“What about those mushrooms?” asked Justice.

I remembered that we grabbed all the alchemical ingredients. “What do they do?”

“Well, for humans they are poisonous,” said Justice, considering our options. “But for orcs I believe they may cause a reaction of some sort instead.”

“What kind of reaction?” I asked.

“A bad one,” said Justice flatly. “Probably psychedelic, that would give us an edge in the interrogation.”

“Are Magical Sword Knights supposed to chemically interrogate their prisoners?”

“We need to know where they are. Besides, think of it more like using Alchemy against our enemies.”

I thought of Hope and summoned a fat, juicy mushroom and it instantly blackened the ends of my fingers. Burning Dexterity, I flung it into the mouth of the laughing orc. He coughed repeatedly but the mushroom didn’t come back up. Justice cast Cleanse on me, and my fingers returned to normal.

The orc stared at me. His mirthful expression started to fade, his pupils getting larger. I was pretty sure it was all a waste of time, then the orc’s expression kept on getting more and more troubled.

“I won’t tell you anything,” said the orc.

“I haven’t asked you any questions,” I replied.

“Not you, the monster standing next to you,” said the orc, not in English. Justice’s ability seemed to work to allow me to translate what I heard. I looked into empty space beside me. I turned back to face the orc. Time to see if Justice could let me speak Orcish.

“He says he wants to know about the sword, how did you break it?” I said calmly. The guards looked at me oddly, but I was speaking in Orcish now, so they didn’t understand the question.

“My master broke it, I was given it as a trophy, let me go and I’ll let you have it,” said the orc. Justice prodded me.

“I already have the sword, but I need you to help me help you,” I said. “The monster’s starving. I need to tell him something. Can you tell me where the resistance prisoners are, or you are going to find yourself in a very bad situation.”

Garuk struggled mightily, flexing against the ropes. They strained, but the chain held. He wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, he looked back at me and I kept glancing over my shoulder. Garuk was looking more and more troubled.

“Where is the girl, can she get rid of the monster?” said Garuk.

“No, she left. She’s scared of the monster, and knows what it likes to do. Please, it is just me and these guys, why don’t you help yourself? Please, tell me where the resistance prisoners are located,” I said. “I don’t want to be responsible for what happens if you don’t help yourself.”

Garuk was switching between panicked and terrified. This isn’t what heroes did, or maybe it was. So far, my journey was learning the difference between what I thought a hero was and what a hero actually was. I didn’t like it.

“Why are you doing this?” asked the orc.

“I’m just trying to help you, I don’t want the monster to eat you,” I said. “Please, where are the prisoners?”

The orc’s eyes got even wider, and I realized one of the guards had left the room because this was uncomfortable for everyone.

“I cannot tell you,” said Garuk.

“Will not or cannot? Is there a spell on you that prevents you from telling anyone or is it misplaced loyalty to someone who isn’t here and can’t help you, right now,” I said. “And he’s so hungry.”

“Will not,” said Garuk softly.

“Oh, that’s not a good answer.” I looked at the other guard. He likewise stepped out of the room.

“Now just reel him in,” said Justice.

I inspected the orc’s body in a way neither of us found comfortable. I was using the skills I’d picked up at the meat packing plant, sizing him up like a cut of beef. The orc was nearly panicking. Then I spent a long time staring behind him. The orc glanced at me, then started trying to move his head so he could see whatever was sneaking up behind him.

“I can keep him from you if you tell me where the resistance is located,” I said, keeping my eye over his shoulder before looking the orc dead in the eyes. “Or…”

12

LEAVING TOWN

“He talked?” said Nadia.

“Yup, quite cooperative when I explained the situation,” I replied.

“You were very persuasive, it appears,” she said, looking down on the orc boss who was currently chained up in a horse stable sobbing wildly. There was a hayloft behind him that the orc couldn’t see. It contained hay. Just hay.

“I can be quite forceful if the need arises,” I said, pulling out my map. I was disgusted by the whole affair. Thankfully the important parts of the conversation were in Orcish so no one else figured out what I was doing. The guards thought I was just really scary. “The resistance is located at a place called Tarrytown. It was apparently an old hunting lodge located in a valley, but they now use it as a labor camp. I will be going there to liberate the prisoners and send them back this way.”

“I would never have guessed it would be that close, but the route there is treacherous,” said Nadia. Close was a bit of a misnomer here, the distance was at least four or five days walking.

“A knight laughs at treachery,” I said. Then I thought about it and shrugged.

“Not your best saying,” replied Nadia.

“In any case, I will be departing shortly. It is light out and I should be able to make good distance before dark. This will be a trip of several days, are there any other towns between here and there?”

Nadia looked at the map and traced my route with her finger. “In a manner of speaking, yes. This is the last ‘free’ city after the conquest. That simply means we do not have an orc warlord running the town, particularly because we are too poor to merit the attention and the orcs aren’t huge fans of orc-eating spiders.”

“I thought they were man-eating.”

“We are mostly snacks to the spiders,” said Nadia uncomfortably. “We are so scrawny that you’d practically have to walk into a spider nest for them to bother with you.”

“Good to know,” I said, glaring at Justice.

“In any case, there are settlements as you move further into my former kingdom.” She sounded almost confident in declaring what was hers.

“Will they be friend, or foe?” I asked.

“It depends on how boldly you make your claims. If you are just a traveling swordsman, you should get around just fine. If you go out declaring yourself a Magical Sword Knight, then all the forces of the warlords will be raised against you,” said Nadia. “Without the resistance to back you, I fear you shall be captured, or slain.”

“Alas, a bold knight like myself will be hard pressed to remain stealthy, yet I will try,” I said.

Nadia snorted. “Just rescue them.”

“As you wish, princess,” I said and stepped out of the backroom of her shop. The fact I got the orc to talk had been impressive, though the stories of how had hurt my local reputation somewhat. The knight spoke to the orc and left him a shattered wreck and that made everyone around me worried. Combined with my unconventional victory, I was on thin ice here. They weren’t going to rise up against me, but they might decide I was dangerous to them as well. It was best to leave and come back with the resistance, and the potion trainer.

That would solve one of my problems, and only leave the annoying one.

I grabbed the belt and tightened it.

“Well, Squire, you pulled it off,” said Justice.

“I’m still not sure how I feel about what we did. We drugged a guy into a psychotic episode. He was still thrashing around half an hour later screaming about the monster. I thought we were going to have to kill him for everyone’s safety.”

“Which is why we don’t use chemical interrogation everyday,” said Justice. “And if you do, you make sure the target is chained up.”

“Granted, he was stuck well and good,” I said.

“We got the information we needed to save this world, and you also learned about your sister’s potion trainer,” said Justice. “I see that as a win-win!”

“I guess. What we did was just not very heroic. Is it always going to be like this?” I asked.

Justice was silent for a moment. “Being a knight is complicated. Being a hero is complicated. We all have codes we want to follow, but in the end, we can only do our best. Sometimes, things aren’t going to go as well as we would like. “

“That’s not what I was hoping to hear,” I said. “No more psychedelic drug interrogations in the future.”

“You say that, but when the chips are down, when people need you, what are you going to actually do?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Everything was easier when it was in black and white.

“Is the quest over?” I asked.

Completed Quest: Save the town of Nordrin

You have saved the town of Nordrin from the orcs. You have earned one quest point!

Quest: Save the Resistance

People need you. Travel to Tarrytown and rescue the resistance fighters and any skill trainers!

“Another quest already?” I spat.

“There is always another quest for a knight,” said Justice.

“I might be all quested out,” I said, looking around for other people then stepping into an alleyway. “I think I’ve done enough.”

“People still need a hero, Sir Yorick,” said Justice. “But if you wish, I will open up a portal and send you back to Earth where you can live out your unremarkable life knowing that the cure to your sister’s disease was right here, and you walked away from it.”

I stared at Justice.

“You are very good at this,” I said defeatedly.

“I’ve had lots of practice.”

“What loot did we get?” I asked.

“More armor, nothing you could wear without significant modification,” said Justice. “A bow from that one orc who kept trying to shoot you in the face. The big one was carrying a ring and the hilt of Backbiter.”

I actually had the hilt on me, Justice couldn’t put it into storage for whatever reason but had been very adamant that I keep the hilt safe.

“The sword? Did a different knight come here?” I asked.

“Not a knight, Backbiter was a scout’s weapon. The scout was probably trying to figure out what happened to this world,” said Justice.

“Any chance we could fix him?” I asked. I wasn’t sure about dual wielding, but it seemed possible.

“The personality of a weapon is tied up into both the blade and hilt, so if one is destroyed then Backbiter is truly dead,” said Justice. “It may be possible to install a new magical blade, but such a thing would require a swordsmith, and a high level one at that.”

“Then what do we do with the hilt?”

“I can attempt to investigate it and perhaps gain some bit of knowledge about the world,” said Justice. “After I am done, it is tradition to melt the hilt if a new blade cannot be affixed.”

“And you don’t hold out much confidence in that,” I said, clipping Backbiter to my belt.

“The greatest sacrifice a weapon can make is the sacrifice of their blade in combat. I hope that Backbiter finds solace in the great forge,” said Justice. I kept my head bowed for a minute. Maybe Backbiter wasn’t an asshole.

“What about the ring?” I asked.

“It grants you a bonus to horsemanship,” said Justice. “You will be better at riding, and your mount will be able to endure a faster pace.”

“And there aren’t any horses here,” I said.

“We’ll have to keep an eye out.”

“What’s a quest point?” I asked.

“A great boon for knights. You can use those to augment your class,” said Justice. “You could even learn that fireball spell you wanted.”

“Really?” I said. I kind of did want to learn how to cast a fireball or other ranged spells.

“Yes, you will need quite a few quest points for ranged spells,” said Justice. “About ten should be sufficient.”

“I complete ten quests and I get to cast fireball. Okay, let’s try that,” I said getting back into the adventure. Now that I made my mind up, the idea of continuing the quest seemed wonderful again.

“You will be a knight before you know it, Squire,” Justice said as I walked over to the road and looked back at the town one last time. It was probably the last time I’d ever go there. Looking at the map, I shrugged and started going north.

And kept on going.

I became aware of a few things at this point I wasn’t hitherto aware of. Justice did not shut up, at all, ever. I figured that after two or three hours of walking we’d be doing it in a companionable silence. Justice might have pointed out something interesting like the tree I walked past thirty minutes ago, or I might have seen a neat rock.

Instead, Justice kept on talking. It was like when I used to work at the warehouse and they constantly played podcasts. I was being forced to listen to the Justice Podcast of Knightly Codes. He explained everything about the Magical Sword Knight Corps, an elite group of individuals who traveled the galaxy through portals to save worlds.

Then he got into what my roles and responsibilities were, which was surprisingly comprehensive. I was a squire, who was supposed to handle the small fry quests or work under a knight who would direct me towards a larger goal. Saving this planet was a squire rank quest when it was assigned, and Justice seemed confident that it still was.

In general, it was like listening to a history class taught by a particularly animated teacher. Frankly, it was more interesting to listen to him than just walk so I paid attention. Some of it sounded boilerplate, but for the most part I gathered that Justice believed in the mission if not all the particulars of how to do the mission.

If I questioned him, he just talked more. So much more. Eventually I got to the point where I walked and he talked. Interesting as it was, I could only take so much, and after the third hour I tuned him out almost entirely, finally thankful for all those podcasts on libertarian socio-political theory.

It wasn’t that I had problems with libertarians, it was that the podcaster could compete with nails on a chalkboard.

After the fourth hour of just walking, Justice babbled something. I cleared my throat. “What was that?”

“I have acquired a new power,” said Justice, as something flickered into the center of my vision. It was a map, a very rough map, of the local area.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“I have been investigating Backbiter, and was able to download some of his skills.”

“You copied them?” I asked.

“Not exactly, skills cannot be copied between weapons like that. I took the skill from him,” said Justice. “He no longer possesses it, not that he could use it anyway.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, with the map totally blocking my vision, as it was right in the center of my field of view. “Can we push the map to the side or something?”

“Oh, yes, you haven’t commented on the interface, so I assumed you liked Henry’s,” said Justice.

“There could be some improvements,” I said, and felt something unlock mentally and instantly recognized that I had new access to my interface.

I started shuffling things around in my unlocked UI, but not as much as I thought I would. Grandpa Henry was not a UI designer, and he made some odd choices that I wouldn’t have. After fighting using the UI however, I came to realize that there was a method to his madness. He shoved most everything to the edges of the field of view, but you could mentally drag the elements closer to the center and some of the features were entirely pointless.

I always knew how many points of Stamina and Mana I had without ever having to check on anything, so the tiny pips of Mana in the corner of my UI were pointless, except there were three pips with one oddly colored and I only had two Mana. Curious.

Concentrating on the new map, I shrunk it down and shoved it into the corner of my vision. It was placed in the top right where minimaps went in good games. I noticed several glowing dots on the image.

“What are the dots?” I asked.

“Spiders, I believe. I gained the ‘Scan’ power. It is normally reserved for scouts, but we don’t have one. It is the first new power I have acquired in ages.”

“What are your current powers?” I asked.

“Well, I know Heal at the rank of Expert, of course. That allows me to repair your injuries. I also know Cleanse at Expert proficiency, this allows me to cleanse your body of toxins as well as your clothing. Now I have unlocked Scan, which allows me to detect local threats and show it to you, my knight. It is only at Trained proficiency.”

“So, it starts at Trained?” I asked.

“Yes, then Expert, Master, and lastly, Legendary,” said Justice. “While a knight may earn a spell up to the Legendary rank, few blades go past Master.”

“And you have three Mana points,” I guessed.

“Yes, effectively. My Mana reserves are deeper than yours, but not limitless,” said Justice.

“How long does it take for you to recover a Mana point?” I asked.

“As you know, Mana recovers slower than Stamina. It takes me, a Magical Sword, about ten minutes to recover a point of Mana. Though I also recover some Mana whenever you cast a spell through me, like Magical Strike.”

“I recover a point every half hour,” I said as I fiddled with the map. The spiders were now a solid light red, indicating possible threat. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“And each of my points function individually,” said Justice. “Meaning every point I spend recovers fully ten minutes later, even if I spend all three. You need to recover one point of Mana before you start recovering your next.”

“That seems strange,” I said.

“You just got Mana, but the difference is that I am a sword made of metal and you are a man made of flesh,” said Justice.

“Basically, if you spend all three points of your Mana in one second, you’d recover all three of them in ten minutes,” I said.

“Yes,” said Justice. “Meanwhile, you’ll take about an hour to fully recover your two.”

“Great,” I muttered, then considered something. “How many times can you heal me a day?”

“Henry’s record was nine, you do not want to be healed that often. The human body does not recover properly after the third time in a short period, and you will require many days of rest to properly recover for more healings than that.”

“So no healing paper cuts,” I said.

“Not if there is any expectation of combat,” said Justice.

“Can I share my Mana with you?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking. As I said, whenever you cast a spell on me, I recover part of the Mana. Henry could also share his Mana with me directly, but he used quest points to buy that ability. You seem to at least consider a situation before going in, which has strengths and weaknesses,” said Justice.

“You would hope that carefully assessing a situation would be beneficial,” I said.

“In Henry’s case, I did all the thinking for the both of us,” said Justice.

“That makes sense,” I said as we continued on, but not for the reason Justice thought. I loved Grandpa but he wasn’t an intellectual giant. He very much took orders from Grandma and his daughters if he didn’t have anything else to do. Grandpa would complete whatever was assigned to him to the best of his ability, though he wasn’t going to build you a treehouse no matter how much you hinted you wanted one.

Now if you asked him, he’d move heaven and earth to get it built.

Which meant Justice was probably spot on when he said he did all of Grandpa’s thinking, but Justice was asking me too many questions about what my plans were. I wasn’t sure what Justice was trying to do. He was training me of course, but he left me to my own devices a bit more than I would have expected. I was going to have to keep an eye open to see what his plan was.

“What can I buy with quest points?” I asked.

“There are a variety of abilities, however you only have one point,” said Justice. “None of them are that cheap, and the least expensive one is two points which allows you to access our shared storage without me being present.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Not as much as you’d think. You’ll find we don’t get separated often,” said Justice.

“Still, it could be useful,” I said.

The road extended far into the distance with the woods thinning out and exposing a broad plane with several hills scattered throughout. The Scan feature was nice because it showed threats, so I wasn’t constantly paranoid about having something attack me from behind.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be less accurate than we hoped, as I spotted a wild cat hiding in the grass close to the road that Justice totally missed. I drew Justice and summoned my armor. I pointed the sword at the cat threateningly, and the animal vanished.

“I am surprised you did not shoot it with the crossbow,” said Justice.

“Out of bolts, and that large bow will require some practice to get used to,” I said. I drew it once, and only once. I needed to spend a Stamina point to use the thing, plus the chest plate of my armor got in the way of the string, meaning I had to unsummon my armor to use it.

I banished the armor after the second hour of walking, it was getting hot, and I was getting annoyed with it. I wanted to get used to wearing the suit, but it wasn’t comfortable and ultimately, I decided that I was going to either have to get a skill that allowed me to wear armor without penalty or I was going to have to go for a lighter set.

“Surprised there aren’t more villages on this road,” I said. There was a road, a nearby river and plenty of open land. This looked like premier farming village territory, yet I didn’t see one.

“The old map did not seem to have many towns this far south,” said Justice and I pulled out the main map.

“Any chance we could Scan this in and make a bigger map?” I asked.

Justice vibrated slightly. “Not yet. I believe I can improve the skill later with practice but the map you are suggesting is too large.”

“Well, show me what you have,” I said, and Justice brought up another map. It was maybe two square miles worth of space, much larger than the small minimap in the corner of my eye but not big enough to matter.

“It started off as one mile, so this is an improvement,” said Justice.

“Just using a magical spell improves the function of it?” I asked, drawing the sword and casting Magical Strike.

“No, it does not,” said Justice. “Each spell has its own conditions for improvement. Some spells like Scan simply work by doing, but require a commitment of Mana.”

“Commitment, you mean one point of Mana is tied up in the spell?” I asked, remembering Justice’s odd Mana symbols in the corner of my vision.

“Yes, I can only restore your health twice while Scan is active,” said Justice.

“Well, that sucks, any way for you to get more Mana?” I asked.

“As a magical blade, I operated under different rules of magic than a human. The primary way a Magical Sword gains spells is by affixing gemstones to our hilts.”

I examined the hilt. “You have two empty slots.”

“Presently, yes.”

“Want to explain to me why you are missing gemstones?” I asked.

“No,” said the normally talkative Justice. “As my knight expands in power, I gain the ability to freely maintain a number of spells, so Scan would not require any of my active Mana pool to maintain if you were to grow in power.”

“And I take it Magical Strike only improves if I strike something that grants experience points?” I asked.

“Close, you could also strike something very hard that you are able to damage, though that grants so few XP you’d have to be nearly maxed out for the act to be worthwhile,” said Justice.

“And the Magical Armor spell?” I asked.

“Gains a small amount of advancement when used to repair, but that spell’s main use is damage reduction,” said Justice. “You could ignore a ballista bolt to the chest with that spell active, if you were skilled in the use of the spell and wearing a suitable suit of armor.”

“But it only works for three seconds,” I said.

“At your level, yes,” said Justice. “And magical weapons will still cause damage.”

“Well, some experience is better than none,” I said and brought Justice down hard on my armor’s thigh, bending the plate.

“What are you doing?” asked Justice as I cast Magical Armor, causing the plate to pop out.

“Gaining magical advancement,” I said.

13

FINDING DREK

“This is most unbecoming of a knight,” grumbled Justice as I clanged him against my armor again. It was almost nightfall and I’d gained about a tenth of the points needed to bring my Magical Armor spell up from Trained 1, to Trained 2.

Magical Armor: Trained 1 | 14%

Grants bonus 300% armor for 3 seconds. Armor is considered magical during that time frame. Repairs armor, 25% total repair. Will not replace missing parts.

I learned a lot during the process of hitting myself over and over with my own sword. Mostly that this was a slow but steady way to gain advancement in this spell. Magical Strike was a no go. Mainly because to advance it by striking a hard object, and I needed to find an object that could withstand a blow from Justice. Those kinds of rocks were rare in these parts, and each hit brought in a sliver of a single percentage point of skill.

Plus, he complained more about that than striking my own armor.

I considered leveling up Justice’s healing spell, but it hurt, and I was limited to a certain number of heals per day and an overwhelming number of heals were required. I’d much rather have those in the can if I needed them.

I also tried out my skills. Power would gain very slow progression if I was trying to lift something too heavy to move otherwise, like the big rock to level Magical Strike with. Unfortunately, the gains on that were so slow it didn’t merit attempting. Likewise, Dexterity developed slowly if I ran super fast, which was fun but tiring. Justice could cast Cleanse which did clear my body of the toxins caused by overexertion, but that was limited to once a half hour or so because even repeated cleansing started making your body feel weird.

“Magical healing is altering the biological systems of your body, significantly,” said Justice once as I tried not to vomit. “So even Cleanse is going to have an adverse effect if used repeatedly.”

“I thought it was just when I was getting tired,” I groaned. “That sleep thing.”

“Oh, that’s much worse,” said Justice.

I didn’t even want to think about ‘much worse’ so I started seeing how much I could push myself in other ways. I could run for about twelve Stamina worth of Dexterity assisted sprints before I stumbled around so much that I collapsed. I could move slightly faster if I also added in Power, but that was incredibly draining. All of that was useful information, also that falling at top Dexterity assisted running speed would break bones.

Realistically, I could move somewhat faster while burning Stamina, but it didn’t seem to be enough to really merit all the bumps and bruises. I generally just walked. Another thing I found out was burning Stamina made you hungry. Really hungry.

As it got darker out, I spotted a destroyed house. The house was in ruins, and probably had been abandoned for years.

“What’s that smell?” I asked. I had Justice out just to be careful.

“I can’t detect anything,” said Justice. “The air quality is fine, and there do not appear to be any monsters nearby.”

“That’s a fire pit,” I said, kneeling next to a hole in the earth. There was fresh ash in there buried under sufficient dirt to prevent anything bad from happening. “This was the orcs campsite.”

“Well, that means it is secure,” said Justice. “And that we have secured territory from our enemies. This is a glorious day for the corps!”

“They showed up in the morning though,” I said looking around for any evidence they were here earlier.

“I suspect there was another hidden campsite closer to the town they stopped at last night, they would have wanted to be refreshed before fighting the zombies,” said Justice.

“Then why not just come into the town?” I asked, looking at another dirt covered hole. I stepped away when I got a whiff. The orcs were diligent about their latrine practices at least.

“I do not know, perhaps these orcs do not care for human company,” said Justice as I left the burnt-out house and walked several hundred feet up the road before hiding behind a hill and summoning my blanket.

“This should work,” I said bedding down. There were insects here, just not a bunch of them. I would have to sleep under the blanket if I didn’t want to get eaten alive though. I also summoned a travel ration made specially by Nadia. It wasn’t great, but I didn’t want to risk a fire either.

There was a rather spicy note that made up for the lack of flavor.

“You don’t want to sleep at the camp, with a fire, that will keep away the bugs,” said Justice.

“If there are any orcs, this is where they are going to be coming,” I replied yawning. “Yell if you see them.”

“I will do so. My unerring attention will be focused on spotting the orcs,” said Justice. I could practically hear him inhale. “My total conviction. At any moment that an orc might come I will be diligently prepared…”

“Please be quiet, I’m tired.”

“I don’t like being quiet,” said Justice after a moment. “Could I sing?”

“Can you sing?” I asked.

“Not very well.”

“Just don’t talk to me. If you say my name, I’ll wake up, otherwise let me rest. A knight has to have his beauty sleep,” I said.

“Good point!” replied Justice. He tried to be quiet, and it lasted a long time for him. Nearly twenty seconds.

By morning, everything seemed alright. No orcs had shown up and I went back over to the orc fire pit and hastily made a fire. Justice could store firewood, and had picked some particularly dry samples. There were also the remains of a well, which still held water.

I boiled the water while I checked out my supplies. I had several bags of dried food. All of it was filling, and very bland. Still, I was here and needed to eat. I wouldn’t have paid money for the boiled bean soup I made, but it was hardy enough that I wasn’t going to suffer malnutrition anytime soon.

Strangely, sleeping on the road covered in a blanket and exposed to the elements, was more restful than the six or so hours of sleep I got on an average day.

This was the first time in forever that I felt like I was doing something impactful, and I wasn’t worried about Hope. I could save her just like Grandpa saved me. Justice even shut up for twenty seconds at a stretch, which I loved. I was so used to just being a cog, actually doing something important felt great. I was driven, I could do this. I would be a knight and save Hope. Our journey continued, and I listened to the wind calling to me.

It went on like that for hours until I heard an orc shouting something. Orcs had a distinct voice. Something so deep that you could instantly peg the talker as not human.

“Why is the orc not showing up on the Scan?” I said, dropping down and listening more. I only caught a word or two of the conversation, not enough to figure out what anyone said.

“He was over a ridge, my one weakness,” said Justice as he worked on updating the map. Three yellow dots appeared in my vision.

“Your weakness is a slight rise in the ground?” I said, quietly scurrying over. “We need a better system here. All humanoids are potentially hostile until we confirm they aren’t.” Three angry red dots appeared on the minimap, replacing the yellow dots. They were in front of me, down the road and over the next ridge. I was out of my armor allowing me to move quietly, so I decided to go check what was going on.

Getting to the top of the ridge was no challenge. The areas around here were grasslands and there were constant ups and downs as you traveled but nothing impressive. You’d hit a ridge and then head down until you got to a small flat section that didn’t extend very far and climb another short slope until you reached another ridge. Plus, there was waist deep grass everywhere but the road. I cut into the grass and searched for predators. They were pretty good at keeping off the road, and Justice had gotten slightly better at spotting them at short range. No natural predators were here that I had to worry about because it would be just my luck that I didn’t check and got attacked by something.

I glanced over the ridge and spotted one orc with two humans. The two humans were tied up and the orc was pushing them toward the road. After a moment, the humans appeared as yellow on my map. Good sword.

“Bleeding animals,” hissed the orc. He was one of the thinner kinds. They were lanky, and covered with wiry muscles that gave them a menacing quality. My experience with them so far was that they were fair shots with their bows, as I did have to dodge every arrow they aimed at me.

“Please, we’re starving,” said a young voice. A girl, I thought.

The orc laughed. “I don’t care, you’ll get back to the camp and eat what we give you.”

“We should go help them,” said Justice. I considered that for a moment. I wasn’t in a good position, and the orc looked like he might be dangerous. The smarter thing would be to go around where I could get in closer.

“Um,” I began.

“Ahoy, who are you?” yelled the orc turning to face me with his bow drawn. Shit, that orc had good ears.

I stood, drawing Justice. “I am a Magical Sword Knight, release your prisoners and I shall let you live.”

“Idiot,” muttered the orc as he released his shaft. Even without spending Stamina I could see an arrow, and they didn’t move fast enough at that range to actually threaten me. I dodged, but realized I had a problem. That arrow was moving much faster than even the orcs from yesterday. I wasn’t going to be able to get much closer and still dodge his attacks without spending Stamina.

“That is a broad head arrow, it will do tremendous damage to your flesh,” said Justice. “I would highly recommend against being struck by it.” I considered summoning my armor, he might not be equipped for armor and those arrowheads didn’t really hurt metal to my recollection.

Summoning my armor wasn’t instantaneous though. It took several seconds, and he could probably get me during that time frame. I could duck behind the hill.

Then the two prisoners ran. The orc spun around and took aim at the taller girl. I burned Stamina for a Dexterity-enhanced run. I charged faster than an Olympic sprinter. He spun around and loosed an arrow at me, but Dexterity didn’t just enhance my footspeed. As he released, I leapt to the side, avoiding the arrow.

Somehow the orc drew two arrows, and they pierced the air the instant I activated my second point of Stamina. The arrows seemed to slow down, but they were far more accurate. I dodged one but the second was going to connect with my leg. Even as I burned Dexterity, the arrow’s flight path shifted toward my favorite knee. Thankfully I had Justice out. I flattened the blade and the arrow impacted the invulnerable Justice instead of my knee.

The arrow exploded, the fragments flying away in every direction, including into my leg. Parrying an arrow with a sword was tricky to the point of stupidity. I landed in a heap in a shallow creek as the Stamina point ran out midway. By the time I was back on my feet, he had three arrows ready. Now I was close though, I could get to him with Justice if I was lucky.

Burning Dexterity, I flew towards him even as he released the trio of arrows. I could still dodge one, and I swung Justice around, smashing away a second. The third, I activated Magical Armor and my shirt and pants glowed blue, becoming the strongest possible fabric they could be.

This allowed the thin fabric to resist the powerful cutting edge of the incredibly well aimed arrow…

Meanwhile, in reality, the arrow went right through my shirt, because strong linen is still linen. It tore through my arm and Justice fell out of my now useless hand. The orc’s concerned expression turned to triumph as I stumbled toward him. For the moment I was still in control, and aimed my good fist right at his belly as the Stamina point ran out.

I hit the orc hard enough in the gut that I felt more than my hand pop. I dislocated my shoulder, and probably broke my forearm. This, coupled with a massive, bleeding wound where the arrow tore down pretty much the length of my right arm, was just making this a terrible day.

I got off lucky compared to others.

The orc had been struck in the belly by me at full force while traveling faster than a human could sprint. He went down on his hands and knees and was spitting out blood. Outside of anime, spitting out blood wasn’t there to show a moderate injury. I’d probably crushed part of both of his lungs.

Blood spilled out of his belly. I’d actually hit him so hard the skin hadn’t held together. I looked at my broken hand and realized I’d actually torn it up pretty badly on his ribs.

But I was bleeding too bad. I crawled over to Justice, dropped down, and placed my less damaged hand on the blade. Instantly I felt better. My broken hand was restored and the long bleeding wound on my arm vanished. I grabbed the sword and stood, ready to finish the orc off.

He didn’t resist as I decapitated him.

“Good job, Squire,” said Justice as I looked around. The two kids were both looking at me.

“I am a knight, I am here to protect you,” I said, looking impressive. A little girl stood between me and the smaller child, trying to shield him. They both looked gaunt at this range.

“He has food… Can we have it?” she asked, ignoring how impressive I looked.

“Yes, take all of it. I have questions, can you eat and talk?” I asked, sitting down. Objectively it might have looked like I did that to be less frightening. In reality, I was so winded from the triple sprint that I needed to sit before I passed out. I hadn’t practiced three on top of each other and clearly, I should have.

The girl stepped out defiantly, glaring at me, then walked over to the orc. She started going through his pouches and pulling out several pieces of jerky. She showed them to her brother.

“You didn’t loot him?” I asked as they started taking the orcs’ travel rations.

“I can only loot targets if I strike the final blow. It is a baseline ability for a Magic Sword,” said Justice, then he caught the edge of my plan. “You wanted him to have no food on him? Scandalous!”

“I would have given them some of our rations,” I said. “After they answered my questions.” I couldn’t see a kid starving, but I needed directions, and my map was less reliable than I’d like.

The girl had a tattoo on her face, as did the boy. She might have been sixteen, he was decidedly younger. She cautiously used the orc’s short sword to cut her bonds, then her brothers’, before pointing the weapon at me as she finished looting the orc. She triumphantly pulled out the rest of the orc’s rations, which consisted of even more hard jerky and hard tack.

They were gnawing on the jerky, and it was designed for teeth much stronger than theirs. I was afraid they were going to break something, so I pulled a few rations from storage and carefully removed Nadia’s notes.

“Try these, you can answer my questions quicker,” I said, holding up the rations. The boy looked to his sister hopefully, and she stepped toward me and snatched them. She retreated back to the safety of the orc corpse with her brother, still watching me with her sword at the ready.

My rations weren’t much better than the orcs. They consisted of hard tack, which was basically travel bread with all the goodness baked out of it. There was jerky stored in oil, so it was at least edible by a human jaw. There was also something that looked like dried peas in there and tasted like them too. I didn’t care for peas, but I also knew Nadia was trying to be nutritious.

They weren’t Lunchables, but they were preserved food that would last.

The kids didn’t care. They were both members of the clean plate club. After they finished, they both looked at the orc jerky again.

“I have more food if you can answer my questions,” I said, pulling out the bag of beans. Serving them raw wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t want to dig any deeper into my own rations than I had to. Apparently, while Justice could store things, he couldn’t refrigerate them or bring much water. I had a large sack of beans, dried peas, and some other things I could use to make food, but I only had a few travel meals because I didn’t figure I’d need too many and they were only good for so long.

I’d have to pack more next time.

The girl looked at my beans and stepped closer. “What do you want to know?”

“Names, I’m Yorick,” I said.

“I’m Daria, that’s Sully,” Daria said.

“Where did you guys come from?” I asked, collecting some water from the nearby creek. I summoned up a few thin logs from storage and worked on a fire.

“Drek, it’s a slave camp,” said Sully. He still looked hungry.

“Is it close?” I asked.

“Yes, we only made it an hour or so away before he found us,” Daria said, gesturing to the corpse. “He tied us up, we were going back. There have been raids so food is scarce. People are trying to run. Not everyone made it.”

“Are there any resistance fighters there?” I asked.

“No, not that I’m aware of,” she said, eyeing my food.

“How many people?” I asked.

“I don’t know, many,” she said.

Sully was looking at my sword. “Are you a knight, are you going to rescue them?”

“A knight does not leave anyone behind,” I said confidently. “I will save them post haste, after I have taken care of you of course.”

“It doesn’t matter who he saves,” said the girl. “There is no place to go.”

“Nordrin is south of here, they will take you in,” I said.

“Nordrin is a myth, every year or so the orcs march down there and make sure no one survives,” said Daria. “A big group came through yesterday.”

“I came from there, after I killed the big group of orcs. If you go down there you will be safe,” I said, then remembered the cat. “Are you skilled with weapons?”

“Slaves aren’t allowed to have weapons,” said Sully.

“I didn’t ask if they were allowed. I asked you if there are any slaves that are skilled with weapons.”

“We do alright,” said Daria, eyeing me. She held the sword carefully while watching me closely. “But the slaves cannot escape, there are too many guards. They captured our mother. I’m sure she is…”

“How many?” I asked.

“Two squads,” said Sully. “Can a knight take two squads?”

“Of course, a knight can do anything. Wait where you can see the road,” I said looking to the north. I could see something that might have been chimney smoke.

“A knight can take two squads,” said Sully, in awe.

“Of course, all I need is a little bravery,” I replied. “And some Justice.”

14

THE UNLUCKY ONES

“Your bravery knows no bounds,” said Justice as I crept away from the slave camp. My plan internally changed the instant I saw the camp. I now planned on skirting it altogether. There was no way I could handle that many, and I wasn’t even here to save these people.

We found the slave camp easily enough. It was massive, with a banner of a blue mountain cracked in two atop a tower. There were hundreds of slaves tending large fields filled with every conceivable kind of crop, yet despite all the food around it looked like the slaves were all starving. There were dozens of orcs walking around the outside perimeter and at least thirty more inside.

“A squad must be forty,” I said, nodding at the eighty or so orcs. It was almost comforting, but not really. Like learning there were less razor blades in the chocolate you were going to eat. “This looks impossible.”

“For a knight, the impossible is expected,” said Justice, the idiot.

“If we die, we can’t reform the resistance,” I stated.

“You said you’d rescue them,” said Justice.

“My plan’s changed to leaving until we have more resources. We can’t possibly take eighty orcs, it would be suicide.”

“If we leave people to perish in these conditions, we are no better than the orcs,” said Justice. “A hero wouldn’t leave these people.”

“Would a knight?” I asked. Justice was quiet.

I didn’t like it, of course. I was a hero, and heroes saved people. But I was outnumbered eighty to one. There was no obvious way to get these people out. And just then, I spotted an orc running down the northern road toward the base. He was blasting a horn, and he brought friends. Lots of them.

“Reinforcements,” said Justice. “The worst of luck, this will make our upcoming battle far more challenging. You’ll have to fight extra well to defeat nearly two hundred orcs.”

“And knights can do that?” I asked.

“A fully equipped knight could, yes.”

“We gotta work on getting me fully equipped,” I said.

Then something odd happened. The orcs in the camp all went to arms, and many moved to the north side of the camp to greet the new orcs.

“Why are they forming up like that? They’re all on the same side,” said Justice as another group of eighty or so orcs came down from the north with a large skull head banner with a lightning bolt to the side.

“They aren’t on the same side, they have different banners and are squaring off,” I said. Large groups of orcs gathered faster than I expected, but it was still several minutes of orcs streaming out of the camp to form up a battle line.

“But the orcs cooperate with each other,” said Justice.

“That may be the case, but I think these orcs are about to fight,” I said as the sides continued to swell with purpose. They were going to begin fighting at any moment.

“Squire, wouldn’t that mean they are going to be very distracted?” asked Justice.

“Maybe,” I said, considering that for a long moment. Too long.

“We should use this opportunity to free the slaves!” said Justice triumphantly.

I watched the two sides for another long moment before realizing something horrible. I agreed with him. Justice wanted to do something suicidally heroic, and I was ready to go with him.

The orcs guarding the southern side of the camp began to redeploy. There were still some there, but the coverage was no longer overwhelming. Especially with that new Scan power to show me where they were.

Manifestly, sneaking into a war camp during a battle was a terrible idea. I now had two separate groups of orcs that would both kill me on sight, though they were both occupied. This was likely the only opportunity I’d get to rescue these people.

I headed closer to the camp, still regretting that my heavy armor clanged like an engine that had never known the sweet taste of oil. By the time I got to the perimeter, everyone knew something was up. The orcs guarding the humans started to round up their prisoners. They knew there was going to be a fight and they weren’t picked. The humans likewise knew there was going to be a fight, except no matter who won, they were going to lose. Even the giant mutant dogs walking with some of the orcs knew there were going to be problems.

The only person who thought this was a capital idea was Justice.

“We are going to save them, as is the proper duty of a knight,” said Justice.

“Do you have a hidden invisibility spell I should be aware of?” I asked.

“No, that would be dishonorable,” said Justice. “The corps won’t let knight’s swords learn those spells.”

I tapped Backbiter and squeezed on Justice’s grip. I mean, who could guess what kind of weapon would get an invisibility power? That would be something only a scout could use.

“Then we are going to do this my way. So let me be quiet and let me sneak over there honorably, like a thief,” I grumbled, trying to be brave. There was a wide gap between the theoretical exercise of bravery and the practical application.

A hero wouldn’t be afraid though.

When I managed to hit the fields, things got easier. Most of the crops were shorter, so the guards could see through them. There were a few patches of tall grain that I snuck into, and those were enough to hide a man. Unfortunately, the orcs weren’t stupid and were actively searching these crops trying to find anyone who was hiding.

They found me instead.

“Ahoy, who goes there,” said an orc as I apparently failed my hide check. “If you come now, I’ll only beat you a little.”

Before I left the kids, I’d looted and buried the corpse. Well, that’s what told them at any rate. I threw it into the tall grass well away from them, and that was close enough. I also took his bow. Unlike the other orc bow I had, this one I could draw without spending Stamina.

I burned Dexterity instead—mainly to shoot the orc in the mouth.

He slumped, and I looked around to see if anyone noticed. Another orc walked over, trying to figure out what was going on, so I shot him too.

“Is ‘shot’ the right word?” I asked.

“Henry always used it. Just don’t use fire, certain people get upset if you do that,” said Justice. “Unless you have a fire enchantment on your arrows.”

“Obviously,” I said, shaking my head, taking down another orc before one of the archers that remained behind spotted me. I burned Stamina and loosed an arrow at him too, missing my intended target point slightly.

“Right through the throat, good call,” said Justice. I was aiming for the forehead. Burning Stamina to activate Dexterity made me a comically good archer, though pulling a bow was much harder than it looked, and I was happy there were no more targets.

At this point, I was gradually deciding this was a terrible idea as my bravery started to evaporate. I was deep into the camp and exposed. The orcs were going to see me and kill me. I’d best sneak out and try something less obviously suicidal.

I took another step and noticed a red tinged icon that appeared on my minimap. I glanced over and a human looked up at me from where he was hiding.

“Make the people light green,” I said, and three more green dots appeared in the field.

“Who are you?” hissed the man.

“I’m Sir Yorick, the knight,” I said looking around. The other humans appeared confused. “This is a jailbreak.”

“You’re going to kill the orcs,” said the man. I was going to explain that wasn’t in the picture when he pointed to lots of cages. “I don’t see how we can get those people out otherwise.”

The unwashed masses of humanity that had been beaten into those cages were looking around desperately. They were doomed, and they knew it. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid anymore. They needed someone brave to support them, and I happened to know how to do that.

I smiled. “Of course I’m going to kill the orcs, that was the plan all along.”

“I’m not sure how much help a knight will be,” said the man.

“Magical Sword Knight?” I asked, trying my knightly voice. “We do the impossible.”

His eyes went wide and the other two people hiding both stood up. “truly?’

That’s when it occurred to me, I’d been fighting with a bow. I glanced down at Justice. “Clearing out a camp of orcs is child’s play to a knight, obviously.”

“We can liberate our families,” said one, “everyone knows Magical Sword Knights cannot fail.”

“We do lots of stuff, failing is not one of them,” I said, getting into the role of a knight. “Are there any skill trainers here?”

“No, only our weak and vulnerable families,” said the tallest man whose eyes now burned with hope. “I’m Darren.”

I couldn’t let Darren down.

“Excellent, we should remain quiet, but you can lead me to where the people are so I can liberate them,” I said.

“Wow, right through all the orcs,” said Darren.

“Yup, we knights travel the hardest paths,” I said, nodding sharply.

“We just lost hope⁠—”

“I bring hope, but mostly Justice!” I declared. The other ex-slaves were all nodding emphatically now. This boded well. “Hey, did you know Daria?”

“The girl who was killed? Not really, but her mother was taken to the torture pit,” said Darren.

“I saved Daria and her brother. I promised them that I would rescue their mom, so let’s go there first,” I said.

“Of course, a knight’s word is his bond. I’ll lead you there myself,” said Darren.

He grabbed a weapon off one of the dead orcs and started toward the camp. Not the orc’s main weapon, Darren pulled a short sword masquerading as a dagger. In that moment, I noticed the problem the humans were having. The orcs were all big, and not just height. Every orc I encountered was slightly taller than me, all the way up to massively larger than me. That was from being an American with modern nutrition.

The humans around here were short, at least by my standards. I was five-foot-ten inches tall, which was a perfectly good height, and used to hard work and a healthy diet, whereas Darren was only around five and a half feet and lean. He was also the biggest guy I’d run into so far, except for the departed Frank, who’d only been slightly shorter than me.

Each orc had maybe thirty or forty pounds on me, and that was telling. In any straight up contest, the human was going to lose. The orcs also made their weapons to that scale, so every orc weapon was too big for the humans. If a human stole a weapon, it would be the orc equivalent of a dagger, putting the human at a massive disadvantage in a fight because the humans were too weak to wield proper orc weapons.

Which made me look way more impressive when the first orc spotted Darren, and I grabbed the green skinned giant in an armbar and slammed his head into the base of a watch tower several times. Then stabbed him with Justice because I didn’t want to loot that.

“He wasn’t killed with me,” said Justice.

“Seriously, he died? I only bashed his head three or four times,” I grumbled and continued on. Darren swallowed and followed me. I also remembered that Darren couldn’t hear Justice, so I was essentially just complaining that the orcs were too easy to kill.

“Careful, there are some guards in there,” said Darren, gesturing to a tent, fear catching his voice.

I held Justice and walked into the tent. The guards were getting into their armor, one of them had his back to the tent door. I went for three neck strikes and stepped out next to Darren.

“Anything worthwhile in there?” I asked Justice.

“Some of those crossbow bolts you enjoy.” I grabbed one and reloaded the light crossbow. I loved that thing.

“Anymore?” I asked.

“Just the archers on the battlement,” said Darren, eyeing me in wonder. I looked over—they were busy being distracted with killing other orcs.

“How’s the battle going?” I asked.

“About even,” said Justice.

“We’ll get ’em later,” I told Darren and we continued toward the torture pits. They turned out to be a series of holes dug into the ground with spikes pointing inward to discourage anyone from climbing out. There were several nests of a wasp-like creature feasting on pieces of meat I hoped were from farm animals I hadn’t seen.

“Blood wasps, they won’t kill the people unless you try to steal their dinner, but the pain of their sting is legendary,” said Darren.

“Good to know.” I peered at the single building that was constructed here. It was effectively a log cabin made by someone who’d never played with their Lincoln Logs. Such a poor childhood.

There were still two towers with guards that could see the pits. I summoned my bow and shot the other two tower guards. Eventually, someone was going to figure out that this side of the camp was getting depopulated, so I waited. A third orc rushed over to investigate what was going on and I took him out before handing my bow to Darren. He attempted to draw it and failed.

I glanced inside and there was a massive orc resting in the back corner. If I could sneak up on him, I’d be able to slay him easily, otherwise this was going to be a terrible fight. If only there were other options.

“Lazy security,” I grumbled and drew Justice.

“Now we shall show this orc what for, get in there, Squire!”

“Cool, cool—or we could do this,” I said and placed the flat of the blade against the wasp covered meat and flung it into the cabin. I closed the door. Then there was the screaming—so much screaming. I shoved Justice through the wood of the doorframe, pinning the door shut, and waited as whomever was inside started clawing at the wood. I took back my bow as I leaned up against the building.

Another orc ran over to figure out what was happening—he went down like a lead weight. Then another. With Justice out of hand, the Scan map stopped updating and I was using only my eyes when an arrow flashed toward me. I moved my head slightly and the arrow slammed into the door as I drew back an arrow and burned Dexterity.

The new archer had climbed up the watchtower and was taking aim again, so I put an arrow through his knee. The screaming stopped from the cabin while the archer was falling to his death from the watchtower, so I pulled Justice out of the cabin wall. The door didn’t open, because no one was alive to try to open it.

“Darren, find Daria’s mom. This side of the camp is pretty empty, I’m going to go release everyone else,” I said and started toward the battlement. The stunned man slowly stood and looked around at the carnage. Darren nodded and ran off.

“This is very different from what I expected,” said Justice. “You are handling yourself very well.”

“Yeah, charging in headfirst seemed painful,” I said as I got to the base of the battlement. “I think I’ve taken enough mortal wounds today. How is the battle going?”

“This side is winning handedly,” said Justice as I got to the base of the battlement and looked up. The structure was on the northern edge of the camp and had a commanding view of the road the other orcs were using for their attack.

There was a ladder up to the battlement, which they’d be watching, so I burned Stamina for Power and leapt off a barrel, grabbed the edge of the railing, and quietly pulled myself to the top. There were eight orc archers here, and unfortunately for them, they hadn’t noticed me.

I needed to be pretty fast, so I burned Dexterity for the enhanced speed and smashed both of the nearest orcs with Justice. I was getting pretty good at that forward downward chop to the middle of the skull, and they did not much care for it. A single swing would certainly kill them, often by totally splitting the helmet.

What I was doing wouldn’t have really worked with a conventional sword or if I was humanly strong. My muscles had developed significantly since I arrived, but the passive buff of the Power skill was really more useful in this. The bonus to weapon damage translated to more explosive force when I was doing anything physical, so while I could hit harder, I often found it more useful for mundane things like picking up bodies or jumping higher.

In this case, the added speed from Dexterity didn’t quite make me a blur, but it was close. Time would seem to slow and my control over my body amplified. That was how I was able to make ridiculous shots with my bow. It was also how I was able to make three rapid strikes against the next three orcs before they really knew what was going on.

In the span of six seconds, I’d killed five of the eight orcs on the battlement, and only one of the remainder actually knew I was here. He was yelling though, like a wuss, and I regretted not summoning my armor. Jumping up armored would have been loud, though the protection would have been nice.

I fainted a strike at his head and brought it down on his arm. His armor partially resisted Justice, meaning I didn’t actually remove the limb. It was still broken. The orc stumbled, trying to block me, and that gave his remaining friends a chance to aim.

Using him as a shield, neither orc was inclined to shoot. They were looking for a better target, and I was still here. So I burned my last point of Stamina and flung the orc at them. They were standing next to each other, and the spinning orc hit the first one dead on.

He was probably unconscious when he hit the ground. The other orc managed to avoid the strike, by jumping to the side. That spoiled his aim, and I stepped over to finish him off with my sword when an arrow slammed into my leg.

My leg turned to jelly, and I fell off the battlement, smashing to the ground. That stunned me for a second, and I didn’t know where the orc who shot me was. I also forgot about the orc on the battlement.

He was a simple guy and went for a center of mass shot. The arrow missed my heart, but not much else.

“Dick,” I grunted as the darkness began to overtake me.

Suddenly there was a blue flash, and everything was right with the world, except I still had two arrows in me.

“Those don’t come out,” I gasped, it hurt to breathe.

“No, you must remove them, I only cast Heal because you died,” said Justice.

I rolled to the side, avoiding another shot and tore the arrow out of my leg. You might think I should have done my chest first, but I was afraid of passing out with the one still in my leg. I was nearly right.

My vision was down to a pinprick as I grabbed the arrow in my chest and realized that since everything healed around it, the arrow had to go out the other way. I lined the arrow up to the ground and dropped my full weight onto it.

Someone might think that was a terrible idea. They would be right, but in my defense, I was in an absurd amount of pain. I was in so much pain that I didn’t pass out, which was handy because after I pushed the arrow through, I had to finish pulling it out of my back. One handed.

Then the healing magic came again and when I came too, I was wearing my armor.

Only one free life left, so I needed to make the most of it. Several orcs ran over to where I fell and I stood there with Justice at the ready. Then an arrow slammed into my pauldron. The asshole was still shooting at me!

Since I was out of Stamina, I decided the best approach was to charge them like an idiot. It was a real ‘we’ll last longer against that starfleet than we will against that death star’ moment. And I might just take a few of them with me. The archer decided shooting into his friends was not a great idea, and I got to the first orc right as he brought his weapon up.

I slammed him in the skull. My strike was simply too fast for him to respond properly. I drew up and swung a second time at his neighbor. He managed to get his weapon up to block, but only slowed my strike to non-lethal levels. His helmet rang when I struck it and he stumbled backward. The next orc rushed me with a shield, trying to keep Justice away from himself. I chuckled and tried to see if I could cut a shield in half.

I could not.

“Squire, don’t attack a shield like that, they are designed to stop swords!” yelled Justice.

My sword went about halfway into the shield and got stuck. I didn’t get his arm. The orc grinned through his now ruined shield and spun it around, trying to pull Justice from my hands.

Physics was not my friend. I attacked with the tip of the blade almost exclusively, so that was what was stuck, meaning he was at the optimum point of leverage while I was on the decided wrong end of the stick.

So, I kicked him. The fight had given me just enough time to recover one whole point of Stamina and I used that to drive my foot into the shield sending the poor orc toppling over while I retained my grip on Justice.

I was out of place for his friend who swung a mace at my head. Dodging back and avoiding the first strike, the follow up then banged against my armor. I tried to swing Justice in a low to high slice, but the orc beat the blade before swinging at my chest with his very heavy mace again.

“He has the Mace skill,” said Justice. “He will be very dangerous.”

I got some distance and brought Justice around for a swing, aiming for the orc’s shoulder. He smashed his mace into the sword again and nailed my shoulder hard enough to cause me to stumble. Then I took another hit as he aimed for my arm.

He was trying to stop Justice like I was trying to stop his mace. That was my trick!

The orc smirked and swung again. I tried to beat him back by striking his weapon, but I was not up to the task, and the strike nearly ended me. Sparks shot from his mace, showing the superiority of Justice, but the mace continued straight for me.

I activated Magic Armor the instant before it struck.

The mace rebounded powerfully from my chest, causing the orc to stumble. Justice was already in position, so I gonged him in the head. His helmet was made of sterner stuff and that didn’t brain him outright, but it must have been uncomfortable.

I followed up with several more swings, trying to find a weak spot in the orcs admittedly better armor. There were none.

“It’s magical, you will not be able to breach it with Magical Strike,” said Justice.

By now, the orc was back on balance, and he wasn’t smirking. He looked frothing-in-the-face mad.

The orc screamed and charged me, swinging his mace faster than before. I blocked several more shots, mainly through my armor significantly reducing the damage, but I was getting cut up from the attacks and I hadn’t really done any useful damage to the orc.

The main problem I was having was the orc could swing his mace about as fast as I could swing Justice, and the mace always seemed to be right where I didn’t want it too. And that archer had decided pot shots were in order.

I’d won all of my other fights through being clever, or the use of cauldrons, and in a contest of brawn I was coming up short.

“Wait, Justice, can you see when that orc is going to shoot us with an arrow,” I said.

“Yes,” replied the sword.

“That’s handy, mind telling me when to duck?” I said calmly, moving my back so that it was facing the orc. It was a great shot. I’d been doing my level best to avoid giving him one the entire fight. Now I had to trust Justice.

Not my first choice.

I was in the middle of a series of thrusts and feints that were driving me back, closer to the archer, when Justice said now. I burned a point of Dexterity and pulled back into the only thrusting stance I knew with Justice, which was still decidedly Japanese in origin.

Considering Justice was a hand and a half sword, that just felt wrong.

The frothing, mace wielding orc didn’t even slow and took my sidestep in stride. If my fancy maneuver bothered him, or the enhanced speed, he didn’t show it. What did bother him was the arrow smashing into his breastplate. It was an orc fired arrow, so the draw was tremendous, and I’d been bashing the crap out of his breastplate for quite a while.

Despite that, the arrow didn’t penetrate. It left a dent, something I’m sure the orc would have cared about if the purpose of the arrow wasn’t a distraction. As soon as the arrow struck, I thrust with my sword straight into the visor slit of the confused orc.

I probably didn’t need to burn Stamina for Power at that moment, but I had, and Justice found the orc’s mind. Brain really. The tip of the sword exploded out of the back of his helmet, killing the orc outright. I learned that if I used Power, I had to twist the blade while Power was active if I wanted to have a ghost of a chance to pull the weapon out later.

That wiggle is probably what finished him off.

I turned back to the orc archer and started running for the stairs. The orc, to his credit, tossed the bow aside and jumped off the front of the wall. By the time I got to the top of the battlement, he was running away, and I had a clear view of the battlefield.

Someone had won that battle, but I really wasn’t sure who. There were a lot of the best kind of orcs there, the dead kind. The slaves were also free and were busily fighting the few remaining orcs. Most of those orcs were wounded, and all of them were badly outnumbered. Darren and six others stopped at the base of the battlement as the final sounds of battle ended.

“We’ve come to help you against the orc boss,” said Darren.

“Guy with the mace?” I asked.

Darren nodded. “He is known as Murtag the Cruel, the six of us won’t be enough, but with your help we might be able to stop him.”

I gestured to the orc’s body. The barbed mace was lying next to him.

“By yourself?” said Darren. “That’s impossible!”

“I’m a knight, we make the impossible possible.”

15

VICTORY OF A SORT

“And the rest of the wagons will be finished loading soon,” said Darren the next morning.

“No worries, good idea bringing all that food and those supplies with you on your trip south,” I said. “You should probably find every weapon you can.”

The camp was rapidly emptying out. There weren’t a lot of beasts of burden, so the small wagons were going to have to be pulled. The wagons were laden with all the food in the farming camp, so they wouldn’t go hungry anytime soon.

Daria and Sully had ignored my orders and followed me to the camp. They were currently still hugging a hungry-looking middle-aged woman who was in tears screaming about her babies. I suspected she was a babysitter, or maybe a distant cousin. At any rate, I avoided that whole mess. I couldn’t get all sappy, heroes did not do that.

“You did say there were no skill trainers here, right?” I asked.

“Again, no,” said Darren. “I believe there is a camp somewhere to the northwest that is where all of the surviving members of the resistance have been sequestered. The orcs are planning something dark and terrible.”

“And we all need to be ready for that, those foul orcs’ treachery is treacherous,” I said.

“Truly, you are indeed a knight with a Magic Sword,” said Darren. That might have been sarcasm. I liked Darren.

We grasped our wrists after the third time when I figured out he wasn’t doing a handshake. It was possibly the most manly time I ever grabbed a part of another man and stared deeply into his eyes. Darren’s were blue, and haunted.

And strangely piercing.

Then they left, and I started northwest. Well, more westernly than northwest. There was a road, and it connected to another road, and I wasn’t going freaking cross country. That was suicide by spider.

“I’m pretty sure there aren’t spiders everywhere,” said Justice.

“I’m pretty sure I told you we don’t go into forests,” I said.

“There are no forests around here, this is grasslands,” said Justice.

He was probably right, there was a solid absence of trees around here. I snorted and continued walking. Then walked some more.

“There could be pumas,” I said.

“Fine, I’ll do a check for pumas,” said Justice. That seemed reasonable.

The land was covered in green grass, but the long annoying kind. Not a lawn of grass, but an unmowed field of grass. There were countless tiny insects and a near constant motion in the grass. The Scan ability would pick up a new random target every fifty feet or so, and I rapidly got to the point where I was searching for danger from all sides.

That was no way to live.

I walked for a while in silence. Justice never shut up. He was tuned out most of the time. I only really paid attention when he started yelling his name repeatedly, because he thought those were important.

“You did good back there, Squire,” said Justice. That took a second for me to process.

“Don’t count on a repeat, that fell into our laps,” I said, trying to release some tension threatening me into a stranglehold. Being a hero was dangerous. I almost died.

This was insane, what would Hope say if she caught me risking my life like this?

She’d say nothing, because she was dying, and no one could save her but me. That had to matter. I tried to calm down, but my heart rate was still high. I could do this for Hope because she would do this for me, and I had to be worth something.

“Problem?” asked Justice.

“We got lucky,” I replied.

“A knight makes his own luck,” said Justice.

Justice was aggravating, but it was his nature. It would be like if you got mad at your dog for barking at the mailman. Five thousand years ago, someone’s ancestor survived because a dog barked at someone who was walking into the dog’s territory.

“What was the haul?” I asked.

“There was the orc’s suit of magical armor, it is better than what you are wearing but sized for an orc,” said Justice. “Plus, all the supplies you made me take.”

“You didn’t bring any rope, rope is always useful,” I said.

“If you say so,” said Justice.

“Anyway, let’s try on that armor,” I said and suddenly found myself in a metal coffin. I couldn’t see anything, and I was pretty sure my head was in the neck. I fell onto my face and the armor vanished.

“I do not believe it will fit you,” said Justice. “Unless you learn the Armor Smithing skill.”

“I’m saving my next skill upgrade for Potion Making, so I have healing potions,” I said, getting back to my feet.

“I don’t see why that would be a problem, you can learn many skills,” said Justice.

“I thought there were only slots for a few skills,” I said. I didn’t like the term slots, but Justice did, and he was a sword. Swords used weird terms.

“You have the ability to learn many skills but there are limits and only a few of them can be taken at the knightly tier,” said Justice. “Knightly skills are much more powerful than regular skills.”

“So I can learn regular skills, they just don’t go into slots,” I said, examining a tree. It was the most interesting thing I’d seen in the past three hours.

“Correct, you only have two skill slots at the moment, and they are both occupied,” said Justice. “As you increase in level, you can handle more.”

“Could I learn Potion Making for a skill slot?” I asked.

“No. Most crafting skills are passive, which simply means you cannot burn Stamina performing them and a requirement for a knights’ skill slots is you must be able to burn Stamina when using the skill.”

“Are there any active crafting skills, like active potion crafting?”

“The corps is unaware of any active crafting skills for knights,” said Justice confidently. “You only have two skill slots, and those are used by Power and Dexterity.”

“Could I trade one of those in?” I asked.

“It would reset the skill and you’d have to pay experience points to do so,” said Justice. “It is a poor choice.”

“Gotcha.” I hated to admit that Justice was very right in his skill selections for my slotted skills. “Do you know any crafting skills?”

“Well, Smithing, of course, then Armor Smithing and Weapon Smithing if you advanced that skill,” said Justice. “Then Mining for the ore, but I also know Scrapping, so you can recover metals from existing suits of armor.”

“Why didn’t you mention that earlier?”

“You never asked, Squire. Plus, I was focused on getting you trained up to not die in battle.”

“Point. I assume I have to learn Smithing first, then get it to a certain rank before I learn the others?”

“Yes,” replied Justice. “I knew you were clever. Crafting skills function using different parameters. They start out Trained, then at rank 10 they upgrade to Expert. Smithing stops at rank 10, and you have to select a specialty like Sword Smithing to progress further.”

“I assume you don’t know Potion Making?”

“Of course not, I can cast Heal,” said Justice.

“We could have learned Alchemy,” I said, remembering the book.

“That is an evil practice that tempts weak minds,” said Justice. “That book in particular was mostly wicked.”

“But could there be Alchemy that isn’t evil?” I asked. “I mean, it’s a skill. Power could be used for protecting people or killing things.”

“Yes, but you’d have to be of strong character to separate the two,” said Justice.

“And you don’t trust me.”

“Yet,” said Justice, who apparently had a more nuanced stance on Alchemy than I gave him credit for. The book we found was evil, but maybe there was another Alchemy book that contained less evil potions.

“Well, teach me Smithing and Salvaging,” I said and felt something ping mentally, like I just downloaded how to do something new. Like it’d been part of my skills since birth.

Then I fell face first onto the ground and drooled for an indeterminate period of time. All I know, was that by the time I could move again, it was dark out, and I had a splitting headache.

“What happened?” I blubbered.

“My bad,” said Justice.

“What did you do?” I groaned.

“I may have slightly fried your brain. And I don’t want you to be upset.”

“Because you’re afraid I’m going to throw you into the grass and walk away?”

“Yes,” said Justice.

“Clever sword. What happened?” I asked as I rolled over and sat up. Standing was well beyond anything I was currently equipped to handle.

“Your puny meat brain cannot handle learning two skills at once, which I remembered because I cannot forget anything, but I was so happy you wanted to learn Smithing I neglected to remind myself of that fact before I inserted both skills into your mind,” said Justice. “You’re kind of overloaded.”

“Will magic fix this headache?” I asked.

“No. You are going to have to sleep it off. I suggest we move off the road. I will explain how to make a fire hole and you can lay next to that and rest,” said Justice.

I ended up groggily digging two holes that merged together before dumping in a bunch of dry grass and sticks. The resulting fire was actually warm, hidden, and with low smoke. All factors I appreciated as I lay there. Honestly, I wanted to suck on my thumb. The pain was so bad, but that required too much effort, so instead I just moaned.

I was now trained in both skills, which let me know how to make some very basic armor and dismantle said armor for the metal. Overall, neither thing was particularly useful, yet. After the next fight I got into, those skills were going to be more useful, and I regretted giving all of the weapons to the townsfolk. Not that much though. I’d have probably died if they were any less armed than they had been.

Checking the remainder of my skills, I found that I was closer to ranking up for Dexterity than Power, it was clearly using that more. Magic Armor was progressing toward rank 2, while Magical Strike remained a pretty low rank one. Finally, I checked my level and I was well over the 30% mark in this low XP grind.

By the next morning, I stopped wishing for death. My own death at least.

“I apologized twice,” said Justice. “Quit your bitching, Squire.”

“Shut up, shoe blade,” I grumbled, continuing to walk on the scabbard. Turns out, you could remove the belt and tie it around your shoe. It was uncomfortable and annoying, but also, Justice deserved it. Justice stayed there for about half an hour.

I continued on the road, until I found the crossroads. Overall, most of my time being a knight was spent walking, and while I’m sure that was therapeutic, it was also boring. The crossroads did contain the remains of a small hamlet though.

“The orcs are burning the outlying settlements,” I said as I walked through a burnt-out building. There were no people here that I could find, though I suspected if I went through the remains of the buildings, I was not going to be happy with the results.

“Yes, my quest indicates that Grimdar the Conqueror, has conquered the human kingdom on this world, so the Magical Sword Knights were summoned to respond,” said Justice.

“Is it usually just one guy?” I asked.

“Our numbers are few, but our skills are powerful,” said Justice.

“Of course,” I said, dropping a piece of wood and continuing up the road. “It just seems that more than one knight would respond to something like this.”

“Lest you forget, Blade Backbiter was here, undoubtedly scouting for another knight,” said Justice.

“Then, do we get a scout?” I asked.

“Not at this time, Squire,” said Justice. “We are only doing easy quests until such a time as you are properly advanced.”

“Okay. There was a scout here though,” I said.

“Scouts are only available for quests of greater peril,” said Justice.

We continued on for a bit, probably ten minutes, fifteen minutes… Okay, three hours before Justice cleared his throat. You’d think that I’d have prodded him earlier, but—and I cannot stress this enough—that sword talked a lot, and I was just happy for the silence.

“We may be in trouble,” said Justice.

“Whatever do you mean, oh wise, Magical Sword,” I said as we stopped at a creek. I splashed some water on my face. The road was overgrown here and there was obviously no traffic on what should have been a busy byway.

“What you may not have realized is that scouts only go on dangerous missions, and Backbiter was slain,” said Justice. “That means his companion, a scout or possibly even a ranger, was slain as well.”

“The person holding the weapon,” I offered.

“Yes, which means there is another knight here,” said Justice. “Which means this place is dangerous enough to have a scout.”

“I would have never guessed. Should we leave?” I asked, concerned. “Maybe bring in a more powerful knight?”

“Not yet. Additionally, while I can bring up a portal to return us to the Earth Stronghold, I can only do that after we complete a quest.”

“Good to know,” I said uncomfortably. He’d offered to send me home after the slave camp, and apparently that window was closed.

I considered my options. I didn’t necessarily want to leave, after all, I’d come this far, and I didn’t have Hope’s potion. However, if there was some super boss I couldn’t possibly fight I didn’t want to die either. Then again, a world boss like Grimdar implied he was somewhere in the world, and wherever that was, clearly wasn’t here. All things said and done, I’d prefer to be a hero.

“I think we should keep looking, possibly restart the resistance, at minimum that would help the next knight doing whatever it is he’s doing,” I said, hoping that was enough. I could feel like I accomplished something without actually getting myself killed.

Justice was quiet for a moment. “You may be right. We shall continue to the next camp and free the prisoners.”

“Excellent. We can decide the next steps later,” I said as we continued down the road.

16

ANOTHER GLORIOUS TOWN

“So that’s Grimdar,” I said, looking at a painting of a massive orc on the gate. The leader of all the orcs in the kingdom was a massive, red-eyed monster of an orc. He was violence given flesh. The words Serve and Punishment were written underneath him in the human language.

“He is the most powerful orc in the world,” said Justice. I believed him. If you wanted to draw what a powerful orc looked like, that’s what I would have shot for.

We were outside a small town by the name of Himdal. The town was called and it looked similar to Nordrin, just slightly smaller and somewhat more depressing. If that was possible. It was dark, and I was being quiet, so no one had noticed us, yet.

Two scrawny orcs were watching the gate. Even the scrawny orcs were large. They couldn’t see me from the road because I suspected they really weren’t paying that much attention. I could have easily slain both with my bow, but I didn’t want to deal with the outcome of that if I could avoid it.

The area around the town was fairly normal, with large fields surrounded by yet more fields. People liked to eat, and hopefully nothing interesting was going to happen here.

Then I heard a scream.

“We need to help that woman,” said Justice.

“Are you sure, it could be an ambush?” I asked, looking at the gate to Himdal. It was closed and made of stout wood. The wall was well over my maximum jumping height, even if there was something that could be used for extra height nearby—which there wasn’t.

“Squire, they do not know we are here, it cannot be an ambush,” said Justice, getting annoyed. “It is the sworn duty of all knights to protect the innocent.”

“Of course,” I said, mentally preparing myself for danger yet again. Being a hero was scary.

The walls were similar to Nordrin, so I supposed we could get out easily enough. I went to the side of the wall and lassoed one of the bastions with my rope. Again, competent guards would have noticed, but the orcs weren’t paying all that much attention. I climbed up the wall nearly effortlessly. On Earth, I could do about twenty pull ups. Now I could fully climb a rope just using my arms. And it was getting easier.

I reached the top and guessed I was somewhere close to the stairs. Glancing around and spotting no guards, I dashed over, and two hops later, I was in the town. Hopefully the whole population wasn’t orcs.

That would suck.

“Any idea where the woman is?” I asked.

“I do not see her on the map,” said Justice. “I am listening. If I hear another scream, I shall point her out.”

I hid in an alley until I spotted several humans rushing past. They were heading towards something, and it seemed a good idea to follow—from the alleys of course. It wasn’t hard. The buildings were constructed with regular firebreaks, so I had plenty of space to work with.

Reaching the center of town, there was a platform with several orcs on it. They were holding court and a single young man, with a very high-pitched voice, was begging for his life.

“This man was found guilty of the crime of usury,” said the orc.

“That is lending money without a license,” said Justice.

“I thought it was for a high interest rate,” I said. There were four orcs, two large ones that looked about the same size as the slave captain, and a thinner one with a lanky archer’s build. The lead orc was a medicine ball of an orc. He was a total unit of ice cream. He was pulling the other orcs into his orbit.

He was fat.

I hated minimizing someone’s life down to a singular point, but the big fat fatty was eating a drumstick while he talked. He didn’t need a drumstick. That little kid needed a drumstick. I was trying to be deliberate about this whole affair. To be clinically detached. But these orcs were just terrible.

“We should rush out there to aid that man,” said Justice.

The crowd wasn’t as upset at the man’s predicament as I’d expect if he was helping anyone.

Looking at it impartially, I realized he was screwing over the humans just as much as the orcs were. An asshole payday lender of sorts who was getting people tied up in debt traps when all they were doing was trying to take care of their family. I knew all about that sort after dealing with Hope. This was just more people screwing over people, except there were orcs too.

“He was ripping them off and not giving the big guy a cut. Are there any more orcs?” I asked, calming down.

“Yes,” said Justice, and we slunk back into the town until we ran into a patrol.

The patrol was grabbing everyone and forcing them to go to the center of town. It was four orcs, and they all looked positively bored at their mission. No one really protested, and their beatings were purely proforma.

This town was pacified. If I attacked anyone, the orcs would take it out on the people living here. Unless I wanted to kill all the orcs, which I doubted I could, doing anything would make the situation worse for everyone.

“We must help them!” said Justice.

“What is it with you and all this violence,” I grumbled.

As the people in the last house cleared out, the big one spoke. “We need them all in the center of town for the sacrifice. We will split up to hit the remaining homes.”

The lanky orc shook his head. “We should just be killing them in their homes, it would be faster.”

“Without the ritual, it doesn’t matter,” said the big one.

“Do you really think the ritual will go properly this time?”

“It had better. This time it’s going to kill all the humans, and Kobla is running out of towns to sacrifice,” replied the big one as he looked briefly to the north at something I couldn’t see. “We must hurry before the warlock gets ready.”

“Warlocks are bad news,” said Justice. “They do not care about human life. They will kill everyone in their mad pursuit of power!”

“What should we do?”

“Kill all the orcs. It is the only way you will become powerful enough to fight the leaders,” said Justice.

I shook my head. Fortunately, I didn’t like orcs, so it wasn’t too hard of a sale. I snuck up behind the first pair as they moved to a nearby house. When they started pounding on the door, I simply walked up behind them and burned a point of Stamina. The two strikes were at blurring speed.

The door opened and a young man stared at me, and then the two dead orcs.

“I am a knight, they are bringing in a warlock to sacrifice the whole town,” I said.

If the man had any questions, they ended there. “We must warn everyone.”

“Do so, but quietly. And if you were a warlock where would you be?” I asked.

“Probably the boss’ house,” said the man, pointing to the north at a room on the second floor of the biggest house in town. There was a purple light flickering through the windows.

“That tracks,” I said, walking down the street until I found the other two orcs. They sent away one couple and were going to the next house. I crept up behind them with my sword at the ready and burned Dexterity.

I aimed for the bigger one first, severing his neck from the rear. The follow up strike to the lanky one missed as he spun to the side at extreme speed, where he drove a dagger into my belly. Justice clattered to the ground.

“You can’t think none of us possess skills, you loud, stupid idiot,” laughed the orc as he pulled up on the blade. “Any last words?”

“Knee,” I groaned, and used Power to drive my foot into the orcs knee, bending it backward with an audible crack. The orc screamed, pulling the dagger free in a spray of my blood.

I landed on the ground next to Justice and grabbed the hilt of the sword. A wave of blue energy washed over me. I thrust the sword into the orc’s face, killing him and realizing that everything felt wrong. An instant later, Cleanse washed over me.

“You were poisoned,” said Justice.

“That asshole. I’d kill him again if he wasn’t already dead,” I muttered, getting back to my feet. The dagger was gone, absorbed by Justice. I’d look at it later. We were down two of Justice’s three points of Mana, and that was going to make this impractical at the best of times. I was going to have to sneak out, maybe get the bow, and try something less suicidal.

“Ahoy, who are you!” yelled a very large orc. He looked upset, as did all of his very large friends. I turned to go the other direction but there was the another really large orc and all of his very large friends in the way.

My armor formed around me as Justice helpfully provided it. I was planning on the ‘running screaming’ method of battle, so it certainly did limit my options. I sized up both groups. One of them smirked at me, and that nestled in my craw sideways.

“I am a Magical Sword Knight. You shall feel my wrath,” I said, not quite feeling very wrathful. More so wanting to leave. Back when I had a social life, so many years ago, I often got overwhelmed at parties. I felt like I would just die if I stayed any longer.

This was like that, except with angry people who actually wanted to kill me.

One of the large orcs chuckled and gestured to two of his best. “Go kill him, I want to see how he fights against an orc that is ready for him.”

“Right-o, boss,” said the orcs as they gripped their weapons. One had a mace, the other a large sword. I glanced to the other group—none were drawing ranged weapons. Essentially, I was a treat, something to break off the monotony of garrison duty. They didn’t want to spoil that.

I was screwed. They were going to overwhelm me no matter what I did. I was stuck on the street and the door behind me was incredibly stout, like it was built to withstand very angry, large, green men pounding on it for several seconds if not longer. It creaked slightly.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh?” replied Justice. “You have fundamentally miscalculated, exposing the both of us to tremendous danger, and all you can say is, Oh? How are you going to save me, Squire?”

“When God closes a door, he sometimes doesn’t lock it,” I said.

“Any last words?” asked the orc.

“I’m going to rip your fingers off and shove them in your ears so you can’t hear yourself scream while I tear out your guts with my bare hands!” I offered.

Both orcs glanced at each other, then shrugged. As the first orc got within my striking range, I surged forward in a powerful downward slash at his head. I was much faster than he expected, and the orcs badly misjudged my striking power. They were probably not used to fighting skilled opponents and assumed their armor was sufficient for whatever might happen.

I hit his helmet hard enough to dimple the metal into the middle of his forehead. The helmet bent out at both sides, not that it mattered. The direct impact of my sword on his skull instantly killed the orc.

The other orc realized he fundamentally screwed up, because he was now in range. I was good at taking another half-step and making a follow up strike. Very good actually. I hadn’t earned any new skills, but I knew how to use the skills I already possessed against orcs quite well. He went to defend his head and I brought Justice down on his elbow.

Again, his armor would have been sufficient for most things. A glancing blow with a sword would have done little more than left a bruise. Justice, combined with my strength, was enough to pierce through the armor, which would have been bad as is, but I struck hard enough that the armor ended up doing most of the damage.

I powdered his elbow. That caused the weapon in his hand to fall to the ground while he started screaming. He knelt, and I struck his temple, leaving him mercifully silent.

The street became very quiet after that. The two elite orcs looked a combination of angry for me killing their men, and really happy that they had something to kill. I took that moment to bug out, running through the open door behind me. There was an open back door leaving me a clear exit to the street.

“Get him!” bellowed one of the big guys, and the entire garrison ran into the house. They spotted the open rear door and sprinted past where I waited in the living room.

The orcs were not expecting that. Who waits for ten orcs to get into a room with them unless they were incredibly stupid?

Or a knight.

I burned Stamina and increased my speed. Dexterity was my favorite burn because it made time seem to slow down, making it seem like more time for my point. I bashed four of the orcs in the skull with Justice. Then I burned a second point, bashing three more on the way to the back door.

The orc trying to run inside simply watched the entire room explode in a spray of gore as I appeared at the doorway. I nodded at him as he stood there and shut the door. Then barred it. Then barred it again. There were still three orcs in the room.

“Now, where were we?” I asked.

There was one smart orc here, he ran. The other two charged me, and despite having a much better impression of my capabilities, they didn’t realize I had more tricks in the bag. I feinted with Justice, ruining the first one’s parry as I shattered his arm, and the second lost himself to double thinking and I managed a direct blow against his temple.

Kendo was really an effective stance in these short range, high power contests. It helped if you had a Magic Sword.

I brained the crippled orc, and then noticed that after I dropped them all of their gear vanished.

“Getting armor for salvage?” I asked.

“It is my duty, so you can commit to defeating the foes… of Justice.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant the concept of justice or himself. There was pounding on the front door, so I decided it was time to bail. I ran out the back where the screaming orc was running down an alley.

“Think you got away?” said one of the larger orcs.

“Never, I’m not that lucky,” I admitted. The orc smirked and leapt down right on top of me. In his list of tactical options, he was going with the stupid one.

I hadn’t combined Power and Magical Strike yet, and now I had an excuse. Falling occurred at a predictable rate, so when he got close, I activated both powers and started swinging.

“He has Magical Armor!” yelled Justice.

This was probably a bad idea, I thought, as the sword impacted the orcs crotch. Well, specifically the inner seam on the leg joint of the armor as I lifted with all the force I could manage while my Magical Strike played out in the background.

The leg came off. Heck, Justice kept on going and I actually cleaved off a large chunk of armor while I was lifting. I hit the orc so hard I knocked him aside and he missed me, which was good for my soul, and my spine.

Both parts of the orc slammed to the ground around me in a spray of blood.

“Are you okay?” asked Justice.

“I think I threw out my shoulder,” I said, wincing as I adjusted myself. It was okay, just probably slightly sprained. I’d worked through worse, and it wasn’t worthy of a healing, not that Justice was offering, yet. He was pretty good about waiting until I nearly died before casting that spell.

The orc started groaning, which was impressive. I figured getting his leg cut off would just kill him, though with that amount of blood loss he certainly wasn’t going to be alive for very long.

“Loot,” said Justice. He couldn’t loot a still living orc.

“Point,” I said and thrust the sword into the orc’s visor. Instantly, all of his armor vanished as did his weapon.

“He has a magical ring, it is not cursed. Do you want it?” asked Justice.

“Why yes, I would! Thank you,” I said as I ran down a random alley. It was always good to be polite.

Ring of Jumping

You can now jump 30% farther than normal.

“An actually useful ring,” I said.

Hopping a few times proved that was true. A flat thirty percent increase to my jump height was enough to give me some terrible ideas about what to do later, but mostly it would allow me to more easily get to places where I shouldn’t, and those places were the most fun.

When I heard heavy breathing, I slowed. Turning the corner, I found the gasping orc. Somehow it humanized the orcs to realize they could get scared, and soil themselves. He’d obviously thrown up and removed his helmet.

“Hey, how much longer until the ritual?” I asked the orc.

“Any time now,” said the terrified orc.

I decapitated him.

Glancing over at the manor house, the purple light was no longer visible. Of course, unless the orc could teleport, he had to be crossing through the city somewhere.

“The ritual will be most foul, you must do what you can to stop it,” said Justice.

I hopped up as high as I could in my armor and then had Justice banish it. The second time granted me enough height to catch a window ledge. I was strong enough that I could do a one handed pull up and catch some air, so I used both arms to get onto the window ledge where I jumped again.

The ledge made a god awful noise, causing the orcs that were chasing me to scream and point. They wouldn’t have seen me, but I was on a roof now. That seemed like such a good idea at the time. Without my armor I was stealthy and nimble. It would be an easy thing to run over to wherever the bad guy was and ambush him. Then an arrow missed me by about three inches.

“Armor,” I said.

Clanging, I ran across the rooftops like a locomotive through a China shop, searching for a warlock who was going to cast a ritual that would sacrifice the town to something. There was not a good list of who they would be sacrificed to, but I suspected demons or maybe the IRS. Both were after your soul after all.

On second thought, if the IRS wanted your soul, they would come for it directly.

“Must be demons,” I said.

“I suspect the same thing,” said Justice as we searched the area.

“Can your Scan power tell me where the warlock is?” I asked.

“No, it just reveals the enemy’s position,” said Justice.

“Are any enemies moving through the streets in formation towards the big group of enemies?” I asked.

Justice paused. “Yes, actually. You are brilliant!”

“I try,” I muttered. Racing between buildings over streets was only possible because this place didn’t know what a car was. The streets were frighteningly narrow to my American sensibilities, and I could jump thirty percent farther than normal.

This ring did not prevent vast amounts of damage to a series of slate rooftops, nor did it particularly help me from falling all over the place while I was up here. I slipped and slid down one side of a roof and literally broke every piece of slate with my metal armor until I got to the lower edge. I managed to catch my feet into a gutter.

Poor gutter.

I exhaled, looking down. I wasn’t doing this again. Suddenly, a horn peeled from one side of the town, then one from the other side.

“I think we have been made,” said Justice.

“Then we should leave,” I offered.

“No, we press forth and do our best to show these orcs what for!” said Justice. An arrow whizzed past me and shattered against the nearby tiles. It was interesting to see the difference in troop quality over the orc empire. The slave camp orcs were obviously better shots than these city garrison troops.

“How much further till the group?” I asked as I leapt over to the next building. I was figuring out the tricks, and this time I came in at the right angle, scurrying like a champion up the side heroically.

That’s what I looked like, and I’m sticking to that story.

“They should be nearby, use your ears,” said Justice and I shut up. My armor vanished, the other orcs having somehow lost me. Even Justice was quiet for once, and I wasn’t going to ruin that. I listened carefully and heard a group of orcs walking down the street below.

“There’s a problem,” said one, the alley carried the sound almost straight to my ears. Also, they were orcs. They were loud, boarding on overwhelmingly so if they chose to speak forcefully.

“It is the Orcish language, it is designed to be heard over a battlefield. Most of the humans do not speak it,” said Justice.

“And I can understand it because you can,” I whispered, realizing that if I dropped the sword, I was going to be losing a lot of utility. Plus, I couldn’t generate a portal home without him. He was such a good sword.

“No more mistakes, Kobla will not accept excuses. I need to perfect the ritual before it can be attempted on the warlord,” said the warlock. I mean, it could have been someone else, but I doubted it.

“Squire, we cannot let him complete that ritual. Think of the people,” said Justice.

“I know, we shall do everything in our power to stop this mad warlock before he perfects the ritual and tries it on more valuable targets, like that potion trainer.”

“All life is valuable,” said Justice.

Mine sure doesn’t seem to be.

I checked the scan map. Yea, no, I didn’t want to take on nine orcs with or without a warlock. That sounded like bad news. I leaned up against a chimney and thought about my options. Then had an epiphany. I pushed the chimney down the side of the roof. There was a crash below. One of the little enemy indicators faded.

I heard the warlock scream, “That almost got me!”

“Move!” yelled another orc and they raced forward, which sounded like a good tactical strategy, except that path was rife with chimney ammo.

“We’re under attack!” yelled an orc a moment later as he was presumably crushed by a chimney. Several orcs broke away, trying to lead said attackers away from the warlock, but he always had two bodyguards, so it was easy to track him.

Then he had one less bodyguard, Justice spent a moment looking at the map. “Almost. We should aim more carefully.”

“We’re running out of chimneys,” I said as we were nearly to the square. It was time for the direct approach. First, I summoned my armor onto my person, then I had Justice summon the unwearable suit of heavy orc armor in the air before me. It dropped on the warlock. Altogether, that suit of armor is probably seventy pounds, and dropped like an anvil.

Given that I was on the roof of a two story building, that should have been plenty, except the orc bodyguard took his job seriously. He shoved the warlock out of the way and got smashed flat by the armor. He lived. Orcs were incredibly tough, but he wasn’t in fighting shape anymore.

I got ready to jump closer to where the warlock was when he held up his hand and it was surrounded by purple energy. He gestured at me, and I started hovering, not in the fun Yoda lifting up the X-Wing way, more like the Darth Vader method.

The spell gripped my armor around the throat, and if I wasn’t wearing it, he probably would have decapitated me. I liked my head right where it was, so I tried to squirm free.

It worked about as well as it did for Admiral Motti. Maybe I needed more faith.

“How do you repel this?” I asked.

“The spell is low level. It would be overpowered by your Magic Armor spell,” said Justice.

Easy enough. I activated Magical Armor and the warlock’s spell instantly failed, releasing me from its grip. As I hovered there two stories in the air, three, really, I realized I mayhaps should have thought this through a bit better.

Burning Dexterity, I summoned up my light crossbow as I fell and was grateful that I always kept it loaded while in storage. Aiming carefully, I shot the asshole warlock in the eye when I was ten feet off the ground.

Then I burned Power right as I landed. My thought was that this, coupled with the ring, would allow me to minimize the damage and get right back to my feet. My legs disagreed, and both broke.

People who were trained could jump from a three story building with minimal injuries. Those people were not wearing poorly fitted heavy armor. I bruised everything: my shoulders from where all the weight of the armor smashed down on them, my head from where I smacked the inside of my helmet.

But mostly my poor, abused legs, that only wanted to help get me where I was going.

Worse, the warlock lived. Normally the eyeball shot was my go-to killing move. Even if you lived, the shot to the eye tended to knock orcs off their game.

“How dare you!” screamed the warlock as I lay there in an enormous amount of pain. My world had shrunk to two pinpricks of light as I prepared myself to die. Then everything turned blue and I was fine. I rolled to my feet slashing upward with Justice.

The warlock brought his staff to block, but I still had Stamina to burn. I activated Dexterity again and maneuvered the blade so I hit his fingers. They all came free and his grip on the staff was impossible. My second slash went through his throat in a spray of blood. I twisted around and struck him in the temple with a third, quick strike, shattering his brain.

I know, how do you shatter a brain? Well, you helicopter your sword around and strike the flat part against the guy’s head. It shattered the temple and caused a massive concussion and cerebral trauma. I didn’t even need to do anything to follow up, his brain was leaking out the side of his head.

And he was naked.

“Why did you do that?” asked Justice.

“I wanted to ensure he was all the way down, so I knocked him out,” I said as the top of the orcs head fell off.

“Really, Squire?” replied the sword as the naked warlock sprawled there face down, his rear end elevated for all the world to see.

“No, not really. He lifted me up by the neck and dropped me,” I said, shaking my head.

“A knight shouldn’t pursue vengeance,” said Justice.

“I always learn so much from you. Such as, orcs don’t wear anything under those robes,” I said, walking over to the stunned bodyguard. I thrust my sword into the neck of his armor and twisted it. He was reduced to his smallclothes. Orcs wore a linen shirt under their armor and long johns, armor was pinchy. Robes are not pinchy.

I was getting used to the naked orc meaning dead orc. Though I wasn’t quite sure how to articulate that to Justice without sounding creepy. I was totally Pavloving myself here.

Tapping the suit of orcish armor, it likewise vanished.

“So we’re out of Mana, time to go,” I said, checking the minimap, only to find it was gone.

“Yes, I had to free up some Mana to heal you,” said Justice.

Then we heard screaming. It was a child.

“Squire, we cannot leave a child! Even if our resources are limited, we must still persevere.”

Groaning, I sheathed the sword and stared at the simple exit past the wall. My Mana was gone, but I had already recovered two points of Stamina. I could easily get away. Thing is, was I the kind of person who’d leave a child in danger?

That’s not what a hero did, if he could help it.

Now that the adrenaline was burning low, I was having some serious misgivings about my current lot in life. Still, they needed a hero.

In the town square, what remained of the garrison stood defiantly as the people watched. A mother was being held by her husband and one of her children while the fat orc shrieked, his big paw of a hand wrapped around another child’s throat. The crowd was hostile, and there weren’t enough orcs here to stop this many people and everyone on both sides knew it.

“Do you think your knight can protect you, can he protect anything? You will always be under the thumb of Kobla, your liege, and Grimdar, your king. Even if this puny rebellion of yours is successful, nothing can save you like nothing can save her!” yelled the fat orc as he began squeezing her throat. That was, until an arrow exploded through his eyeball and out the back of his skull. The fat orc tottered for a second then fell enormously to the ground.

He was so fat that he caused multiple chimneys to crumble from the roofs.

Because heroes don’t cause massive amounts of property damage.

The crowd was quiet as I walked forward. “See, that’s what’s supposed to happen when you shoot them in the eye.”

17

THE LIBERATOR

“We attempted to round up a few of the orcs, I’m sorry to say they were all killed,” said one of the town elders as he sat down heavily. His name was Kent. He was pretty young for an elder, and the weight of last night was not sitting well with him.

“What have we done?” said another elder, Davos, he was a whiner. The kind of guy who liked having a fancy job but not actually doing any real work. I couldn’t stand that kind of person. He dithered, dry washing his hands before saying, “We shouldn’t have rebelled.”

“They were going to sacrifice all of us to the demonic realms,” said Merideth, she was the third elder and the only person who was actually old here. She reminded me of my neighbor before she died. It would be weird if she reminded me of her after she died.

“We can’t be sure of that,” said Davos. Meredith looked at me.

“Multiple citizens have said they heard the orcs taunting them about the sacrifice, and if their word is insufficient,” I said, squaring myself off and glaring at the man. “I heard it from the warlock’s own lips. He was planning on perfecting the ritual here before taking it to other places.”

“What other places?” asked Kent.

“I can think of a few,” I replied, ominously. Don’t know too much, don’t say too much. I was currently in ‘knight mode’ where I tried to do whatever it was that a knight did. I wasn’t a big fan, but these people seemed so broken that they needed a larger than life figure to rally around. Except the jerk.

“Ah, the mysterious knight,” said Davos. “Why is it that you’ve come so late? We needed one of your kind decades ago.”

“Who says I’m the only knight here?” I asked, letting it hang. “Regardless, I am here in front of you right now. What will you do next?” I directed that toward Merideth. Kent deferred to her, so that made her de facto in charge.

That was new though, they couldn’t have tied their shoes without permission yesterday.

“Fort up until they come to kill us, I suppose,” said Merideth sadly. “With the resistance gone, there are no free cities that survive in the kingdom.”

“Except Nordrin,” I said.

“Nordrin is a myth,” said Davos with a snort. “It is something they tell children to keep them hopeful.”

“Like knights?” I asked, and Davos frowned.

“It doesn’t matter, you have to understand the orcs are a unified people unlike us. The three of us in this room don’t even agree with what to do, meanwhile Grimdar’s control over the orcs is absolute,” said Kent sadly.

“Did the orcs tell you that? Because I saw orcs fighting orcs a few days ago,” I said. “At the slave camp, Drek.”

Merideth looked at Davos, and his eyes went wide. She cleared her throat. “Grimdar is getting old. While all of the orcs will support the current Whomak, or big boss, when the Whomak grows infirm, a new leader will be selected. There have been rumors that his sons are preparing for such a selection. It is notoriously bloody.”

“She speaks true. The custom is barbaric, but the Whomak’s sons will all fight until only one remains,” said Justice. “Then he will be the new Whomak.”

“I suppose they don’t know about women’s suffrage,” I said.

“No, orc women suffer terribly. They consider them no better than filthy humans, even if they have a few more uses,” said Justice sadly. “The only people who hate orc males more than humans are orc females.”

I was getting better at having these little asides with Justice. I didn’t really have to talk loudly for him to hear me. It also became apparent that he could do a bit of light mind reading if I got really clear on my thoughts, but that still took time.

“Well, history is rife with kingdoms falling because two sons couldn’t agree on who should rule,” I said.

“Grimdar had ten surviving sons I know of,” said Merideth. “One of them, Kobla, rules this region as his personal territory, and he is preparing for war.”

“When he realizes that this town is no longer paying tribute, he will destroy us,” said Kent.

“He will probably send slavers from Drek to reclaim the town and kidnap our families, thanks to you,” said Davos.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I offered. “Drek was abandoned, the garrison was slain to an orc.” If I expected them to be happy about that, I would have been disappointed.

“That means we will see raiders from the east soon,” said Kent. “Part of the reason that camp was so built up was because it controlled the roads from the old capital to here. Without those troops, we will be vulnerable.”

“Have humans never fought orcs successfully before?” I questioned.

“In the past, but we have neither arms, armor, or skills to fight against them now,” said Merideth. “When the old kings still reigned, we stood against the orcs for generations until Grimdar rose. He battered through our last army like they weren’t even there. He was powerful, so much so that a knight was summoned.”

“You were a bit late,” said Davos with a sneer.

“But you could fight them?” I asked.

“We would be at a horrible disadvantage,” said Merideth. “We don’t have the necessary equipment, but mostly we don’t have skills. If we had combat skills, we might be able to oppose the orcs.”

“So if I go to recover the skill trainers, they can teach you skills and you can fight against the orcs successfully,” I said importantly. “I guess I will make it my quest to save those skill trainers.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you. It would be suicide to go to Kobla’s citadel, it is in one of the most defended places in the region,” said Merideth.

“He keeps the resistance fighters at his citadel,” said Davos, holding in a smirk. He did not expect me to come back from wherever that terrible place was.

“Yes, in the past the area was known as Tarrytown, a vacation spot for the rich. Presently it is known only as what the orcs call it,” said Merideth. “Grok-Dok-Dark.”

“Human Killing Mountain,” I said.

“You speak orc,” said Davos, a thread of genuine curiosity in his voice.

“I’m a knight,” I replied, looking each of them in the eye. “I must go forth and save those skill trainers.”

“And the other people,” said Merideth.

“Yes, of course, those people too,” I said, nodding vigorously. “Do you have a forge, because I need to repair my armor.”

The town did and I was permitted to use any forge I came across. I stepped out of the room while the three of them got back to arguing. Before heading outside, I stopped and stared up a flight of steps, then started up the stairs.

“If you were in a room that was full of purple light, where do you think you’d be?” I asked Justice, looking at three doors.

“From the floorplan, it looks like the middle door,” said Justice, bringing up the minimap.

“Oh, you ranked up that spell,” I said.

“Yes, it is up to rank 3. I now have a three mile range and the detail is growing far better,” said Justice proudly. The map was still 2D, but now it showed walls, which was a vast improvement for maneuvering around. He could see around corners much better now, thankfully.

“Does it show objects?” I asked as I pushed open the door and looked inside. I was immediately hit by orc-funk, which smelled like a combination of a dive restaurant and unwashed sweat. They weren’t human, didn’t eat a human diet, and didn’t consider showering to be necessary for any purpose. They also like to use your best sheets.

The room was trashed. At some point it was a nice guest room, now it was going to need a carpenter to fix some of the damage. The orc had obviously cast a spell on the wall, probably a portal to hell or something, which warped the wood terribly.

“What did we find on him anyway?” I asked as I peered through the nightstand. There were several books. I flipped through one that was a collection of old poetry, obviously written either by or for young women who liked the ideal romantic version of love. That was temporary love. Everyone had flaws. The more time you spend with people, the more you realize it.

“We have his spellbook, his staff, his fingers, and a strange amulet,” said Justice. “The amulet may be full of evil magic, so you should be careful around that.”

“Can we identify what the amulet is for?” I asked.

“Sadly, no,” said Justice.

“Then keep it, I don’t want to be corrupted by some evil thing if I can avoid it,” I said.

“You are wise to be so cautious,” said Justice.

“The spellbook?” I asked.

“It is written in a strange tongue,” said Justice, causing the book to form in my hands. For being a magical spellbook, it just felt like a book, wrapped in a very ornate cover. I opened it. The book was written in pure gibberish. Flipping a few pages showed drawings that likewise didn’t make much sense. Finally, I found one that was of an upside down human.

I flipped the book over.

“Oh, it’s written in an unusual script of Orcish. I was looking at it upside down because the cover is on backwards,” said Justice. That gave me a hint on how the sword’s mind worked. He was more like a computer than I gave him credit for. It also spoke of darker things, like the orcs knew enough about magical blades to take precautions.

“Can you read through this and see what it says?” I asked.

“Yes, when it is returned to my storage, though it will take many hours,” said Justice. I glanced through a few more pages but the book was a highly technical spell manual. It would be like me reading how to fix a jet engine by starting on page 302, with no context about what a jet engine was. I might be able to figure out what the words in the book meant, but I wasn’t going to understand it.

I put the book back into storage and went to the desk. There was a diagram here that I recalled from this evening. The townsfolk were roughly in that symbol when they were in the square.

“Is that symbol in the spellbook?” I asked.

“Yes, it is part of the ritual. That section of the spell says, ‘Lots of blood will need to be spilled’ for anchor,” said Justice. “It is a complex ritual. I am still processing it.”

I tapped the blade to the paper, and it vanished. If I was going to play detective, I was going to collect evidence. Why were they attempting a demon summoning ritual, and why did they need a better one?

“What about the staff, can I use it to cast spells?” I asked, causing the staff to appear in my hands. The durable wood had a clear mark where I’d hacked off the warlock’s fingers.

“It appears to be magically locked,” said Justice. “The warlock has prevented anyone else from using the staff.”

“Can you hack it?” I asked.

“Hack it?” asked Justice. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a modern term, break into the staff,” I asked, though Justice still didn’t understand. “Make the staff work for us?”

“Ohhh,” said Justice, the term dawning on him. He was stuck at Grandpa Henry level of comprehension of English. Gramps preferred old westerns to shows that featured computers more extensively. “I can hack it, but not quickly. I could if we knew the means as to how the warlock used the staff.”

I summoned the fingers and placed the wrinkled things onto the staff. It glowed briefly.

“I have it,” said Justice. “I have cleared the staff of its vile taint, and now you can use the staff in the service of good.”

“What spells are on it?” I asked.

“Blood Boil and Agony,” said Justice.

“Use those spells for good, huh? That’s going to be a thing.”

I returned the staff to storage. That was a later problem. I was here for now problems.

Like what to do with all this armor I looted. From the dead people. From the people I had been killing in massive amounts. I think it helped that the orcs didn’t look like people. That was important, because I could convince myself they were like cows.

I certainly didn’t have any problem with killing cows. Not anymore.

“I’m going to have to talk to a psychologist at some point,” I said.

“Henry knew a great one on Earth, you’ll want to talk to Elizabeth,” said Justice.

“Is that why Grandpa and her were always hanging out,” I said, saddened. She was an older woman, in her late thirties or so. You know, when you got OLD. “I thought they were dating.”

“Just business, I’m afraid,” replied Justice.

“Well, thank you for being concerned with my well being,” I grumbled as I walked out of the manor house and started looking around. People were cleaning up the streets because that bastard warlock had gone on a rampage, blowing up people’s chimneys. That, coupled with the fat one’s damage to the roofs, made for a rough time.

I returned to the town square. Now that it was daylight and things were open, it looked a lot different. There were stores, and a few stands that got assembled. A woman was selling pickled turnips, which were surprisingly terrible.

Like, I knew they were going to be bad, but this was a whole different level of bad.

The pickled carrots and the pickled cucumbers, which were just pickles, were better.

“I’ll take two more pickled cucumbers, please,” I said and paid the woman her silver. I had a pile of the stuff, because all of the undead and most of the orcs had coin on them. I was currently sitting at nearly two thousand pieces of silver and a whopping five gold crowns. Those were worth one hundred silver each, but I couldn’t spend them here.

Only rich people had gold, and the poor merchants here weren’t even allowed to touch it. Still, I was heading over to Human Killing Mountain and that meant I needed some upgrades. I finally managed to get Dexterity up to rank 4, which was a minor improvement over rank 3.

“These abilities upgrade at rank 10?” I asked.

“There is a power unlocked at rank five, but they upgrade at rank 10, yes,” said Justice.

“What’s the power?” I asked.

“It depends on the user. Given your actions, I would expect it should do something with attack speed or maybe an improved defense,” offered Justice. “Because you keep getting killed.”

A hammer clanged on metal, and I quickly finished my second pickle. I walked into a shop full of various pieces of metalwork, mostly of middling quality. There were pieces of armor here, but none were better than what I had and most were much worse.

“Hi, I’d like to use your forge,” I said with a smile. “I’d be happy to compensate you.”

“Bugger off. The orcs did a lot of damage and I’m making parts for replacement chimneys for the next few days,” said an enormously large man. “After that, we can talk.”

“I really need to use a forge,” I said.

“Then use the orcs, they aren’t using it anymore,” spat the blacksmith as he continued loudly hammering, now ignoring me.

I mean, when you put it like that, any fool could see what I should be doing. Who’d be stupid enough to go to the only smith in town and kick him off his equipment when there was a whole, unused forge for the taking.

Striding in, I found the orc who was probably the old forge master. I say probably because whoever speared him to death really got a bit more vigorous than was truly necessary. I dragged the body outside and tossed it into a growing pile of other orcs, after searching him.

I was going on record as vastly preferring it when Justice did the looting. Going through a day old dead man’s pockets is gross. While not everyone would defecate as they died, enough did to make it really unpleasant, especially if they were forgemasters.

Plus, the bugs, so many bugs.

My Smithing rank 1 provided me enough instruction to start the forge and thankfully there was enough fuel nearby. I rapidly heated it up and realized I needed tools. There was a hammer, a set of tongs, a different hammer for finishing work, a third hammer I didn’t understand, a barrel of water, a barrel of oil, and a bunch more stuff.

“What do I do?” I asked, throwing the first ruined helmet onto the anvil.

“To Salvage, you need to use your tools to separate the components you want to keep,” said Justice.

“So, it’s like hitting it with a hammer?”

“Haha, no, my comedic squire. That would ruin the leather. You’ll need to cut all of that out first.” My left eyebrow twitched.

Twenty minutes later, I had the helmet hollowed out from all of the leather, which was supported by leather glue which had a fancy name that I ignored, and I was finally able to pound the metal on the anvil. That left me with a squished helmet.

“Now it needs to go into the fire,” said Justice, so I heated up the metal. Then I pounded it flat. Then I made the helmet into a little, terrible-looking ingot.

“That took way too long,” I said.

“Yes, I don’t see why you started with a helmet. They are the most complex pieces of armor for salvaging because of the many components,” said Justice.

“Good to know,” I said, pulling out a suit of metal pants. It was mostly metal held together by a few leather strips which were easy enough to remove. I threw it into the fire while I removed the leather from another similar set of pants.

Then I pounded them into ingots one after another. That process was fairly simple, and my Salvage rank went up twice as I worked through all of the materials. I hadn’t used one of these skills before and the effects on my work was telling.

I was capable of pulling apart and making usable objects that shouldn’t have been able to be reused. The leather from inside the cap on the helmets I salvaged should have been garbage, but I got the pieces out intact. I was able to recover most of the metal with very few impurities after I reforged it.

More strangely, everything got faster the more I did it. I was pulling apart the easier parts of armor in less than half the time from when I started, and while part of that was me doing the same thing over and over again, my hands seemed to move almost under their own accord to get the job done faster.

The only real screw up was when I tried to use Dexterity while Salvaging. That caused the simple pauldrons I was working on to fall apart spectacularly. Metal pins and plates went flying in all directions.

“You cannot burn Stamina while using crafting skills,” said Justice.

“Okay, that’s just one more bit of fun,” I said, summoning my armor onto a rack and getting an idea. “Can you summon armor onto other people?”

“No, you can summon your armor onto an armor dummy because you are a smith, and you presently are Smithing,” said Justice. There goes the idea to summon the super big suit of armor onto someone backward.

I examined the dummy.

My armor looked kind of ridiculous. I’d taken the suit of the statue, whose name was probably Hector, but I didn’t like to think about that. Unfortunately, someone had damaged the gauntlet and time had damaged the rest of it. My Magical Armor skill could fix damage, to a point, but if there wasn’t enough left it couldn’t do anything.

I was missing an upper arm, a pauldron, one plate on the chest, and an entire leg. I’d patched this with the best armor I could find that fit me. Given I’d been fighting undead from various eras, and some orcs, my franken-armor suit had seen better days.

If I could at least get it into the same style, it would have been an improvement. Right now, it was as if the prop manager at a low budget fantasy movie had been drinking and did their best. The orc armor was at least consistent, but armor didn’t magically resize, and while most of my armor didn’t fit perfectly, it at least was built for a human. Orc shoulders are huge, for example, so an orcish pauldron either hung down my arm to the point it limited my mobility or bounced off my helmet when I walked.

The two human pauldrons I had were of different types, sizes, and colors, but given that they were ultimately a big metal plate that sat on a piece of the armor that already existed I was hopeful.

Plus, I had a formula for crafting a new pauldron I was itching to try.

My first pauldron was about like you’d expect. Crappy. Slightly better than I feared though. It looked like someone had taken a piece of armor and let it melt in the car, or furnace. Nothing was quite right, and it made a strange sound when I tapped it with the hammer after it cooled.

“There is a flaw,” said Justice.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Tap the pauldron with me,” said the sword and I drew him.

“Will this grant it special powers?” I asked and tapped the metal. The plate snapped in half where Justice touched it.

“I present you two pieces of armor,” said Justice.

“Great,” I muttered and worked on the second piece. By the fourth, I actually could make a decently shaped one that required two taps of my Magical Sword to break. By the time I got to Smithing rank 3, they were holding up to some punishment.

“See, Squire, you are getting it,” offered Justice as I tossed my latest piece back into the fire to reforge it again. Given each one took about thirty minutes and failed in about thirty seconds, it was annoying.

“Why is my Smithing leveling so quickly?” I asked. I was already well on my way to rank 4. After the initial load of salvage was done, my Salvage skill was locked in place, and the new armor I was crafting didn’t grant me any Salvaging experience.

“Every time you forge a formula that is of a higher degree of skill than your own, you gain skill points,” said Justice. “If you repeatedly forge the same formula, you get none. Because you are killing and salvaging orc gear, you have a glut of high quality materials at the moment, and you are attempting some higher skill pieces of armor.”

That was an MMO problem. You’d go out and get a bunch of materials from various fights but wouldn’t get back to do anything with them for a while. When you finally got around to crafting, you’d rapidly shoot up in levels and then run out of materials. So leveling the skill was somewhat easy, the problem was the process of getting the materials was painful and dangerous.

A pauldron was a rank 4 formula, so I was still getting skill experience for making it but not nearly as much as before. Pretty soon I’d have to upgrade to a better plan, except I actually needed these pauldrons.

When I increased my rank in Smithing to four, the sets of pauldrons were coming out well enough that I was satisfied they wouldn’t break from getting hit. Better, since I knew my own strength, which was augmented by Power, I made the new pauldrons thicker than before and with more padding. Hopefully that would prevent some damage.

I made two because the pauldrons I made were stronger than the pauldrons on my armor, and they even looked the same. That was important to me all of a sudden. As I examined the removed pauldrons, despite my pauldron being heavier, the current one was still slightly tougher. I examined the lines and realized I could make a better pair if I copied this design using my current metal.

Thus, I spent another hour making two more pauldrons. Then another hour making two more pauldrons that were decent quality. Only then was I satisfied with my shoulder protection.

“It is good that you are so attentive to detail,” said Justice in the midst of one of his rambles.

“Excellence is in the details,” I quoted.

I rolled my shoulders in the new pauldrons—they were less pinchy. Dare I say it, they were comfortable to wear. I made them properly sized for myself, and they fit properly instead of kind of sitting there crushing me.

This time I went over the chest pieces of several different suits of armor in my possession. I mainly checked the more powerful orcs, and the magical orc armor suit from the slave camp commander. Many were better than my current suit, but most were totally out of my skill range, and the ones that I could build weren’t better than what I was wearing.

I had most of a suit, so for now I’d work on getting a better plate to fix the weak spot in my chest region, which meant copying a thicker plate from one of the main orc suits. I’d hit that kind of suit a few times and knew it was durable.

Another concern was the different colors of metal. That wasn’t even vanity, orcs liked to target the different colored sections of my armor. It turned out making the metal come out the specific color I needed was simple, because most of my armor was the default color. My often targeted chest plate had been blackened, a technique I hadn’t investigated yet.

I replaced the dark black plate on my chest that worked like an off-brand bat symbol and affixed the newer gunmetal colored plate that matched the rest of the suit. It was a snug fit and slightly stronger than the remaining plate, so I replaced that plate as well.

The repaired armor was an improvement, and the frankensuit started to look a little less monstrous. By now I’d increased my Smithing to rank 5 and was rapidly running out of materials. Every time I salvaged and reforged, I got less useful metal, and I wanted to keep a number of the more advanced suits for later in case I got Smithing up high enough to copy them.

Another problem was that due to my low skill and high strength, the basic solution for my weaker metal was to just make thicker plates, which was eating up more materials than I’d like. Replacing the parts I had with better parts was going to be tricky without scavenging things I didn’t want scavenged.

“I wonder if there’s any more material here,” I said, hoping Justice would get off his rant about the duties of a knight and do something useful.

“Papa cleared it out this morning,” said a woman.

I, to my credit, did not scream and turn around all freaked out. I just really wanted to. I eyed her for a moment. “Does he need all of it?”

She nodded.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Bella, his daughter,” she said, hopping down from a bench. Bella was a strong shouldered tomboy kind of girl. Her skin was darker, and freckled, and she looked powerfully built. “I was to come here and use this forge for the town when you were done with it, but you don’t seem to tire easily.”

I had Justice to thank for that. Every time I got tired, he cast Cleanse, which restored my muscles to full capacity. Where there was a hard limit on the number of times that could be done in a day, I could go more than an hour between castings, so that wasn’t really a problem here.

“Knights don’t,” I said, but I did take a break. You couldn’t really talk while you were hammering, Smithing was loud.

“So you come into town, kill all the orcs, save everyone from a ritual, and then fix up your armor,” said Bella. “And that’s all you want?”

“I’m a knight, we are selfless,” I said.

“Certainly you want something,” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at me. Her whole posture had changed into something I started to recognize.

“Justice,” I began.

“Already cast it,” said the sword.

18

THE AMBUSH

Bella handed me whatever passed for a cigarette around here after taking a long drag on it. She blew out a lungful of smoke. “That was fun.”

I inhaled, unsure if it was nicotine or weed, or maybe a bit of both. “Knights don’t leave anyone behind.”

She snorted at that. “Well, I was rescued many times then.”

“You hardly seem the damsel in distress,” I said, sitting up and looking for my shirt. It was around somewhere, but Bella was naked and next to me, so I spent a few moments longer than strictly necessary searching for it. She did have freckles everywhere.

“Well, I had to reward you somehow,” she said. “And the town certainly isn’t going to do it.”

“I didn’t do it for a reward,” I said, truthfully. I didn’t need a reward from them, I needed a skill trainer.

“Half the town is very upset with you for killing the orcs, the other half was sick of them anyway. When Grimdar took over initially, everything was about the same as when the king ruled, but it has been getting worse,” said Bella.

“How so?” I asked.

“They took both of our skill trainers a few months ago, when a bandit slew an orc nearby,” said Bella. “That was bad. We try to keep our heads down here, but some of the more rural villages are still willing to fight. Plus, with fewer orcs in town, they think they might have a chance. Hell, even the bandits know there are fewer orcs, and they’re getting stupid. It isn’t safe for anyone.”

“I heard something about the orc’s grip weakening, but what do you mean?” I asked.

“There are fewer orcs around than when I was a girl,” said Bella, sitting up. She pulled her knees into her chest and rested her head on one. She took back the cigarette and inhaled the fragrant smoke. “The orcs also aren’t as unified as they once were. I don’t understand much about orcs, but there may be some infighting, and that doesn’t happen when the chief is healthy.”

“So, the rural villages think they can fight off the orcs,” I said.

“That’s what the resistance was doing, the fools,” said Bella. “As long as Kobla remains, that won’t happen.”

“Well, maybe I’ll kill him when I get to the mountain.”

“Which is why I gave you a reward,” said Bella, and she smiled sadly at me. “It isn’t like you’re going to be coming back.”

“Did you want anything?” I chuckled.

“Well, this is a nice forge,” she said, smiling at me temptingly.

“It’s yours then,” I said. She was so happy, she rewarded me again.

She left shortly afterward, and I put my upgraded armor back on. It was better now, and with my Smithing up to rank 5, I could adjust some pieces that I wasn’t able to before. That made the whole suit far more comfortable to wear and slightly less noisy. Minorly less noisy.

Seriously, it was metal on metal, so it didn’t get quiet.

“I could get a leather suit of armor,” I said. “You know, for sneaking, because it’s made of hide.”

Justice sighed, which was new. “The orcs are too strong for that. Nothing less than metal will stop any of their attacks, so wearing a comfortable shirt or light armor is a meaningless distinction.”

“You are such a confidence builder,” I grumbled as I stepped out of the orc smithy. The pile of bodies was gone and at least one of the chimneys was in the early stages of being repaired. By that I mean they’d blocked off the spot where they would be replacing it. I hoped it wouldn’t get cold.

Those bastard orcs would pay.

I bid the town council farewell and left. They were mixed about me leaving. Some people were ecstatic to see me go, while others were very confused that I’d killed all the orcs but hadn’t conquered the town. Overall, I had complicated their easy lives, even if those lives would have been ended without my interaction.

Besides, I had a new goal.

“How many experience points shy of increasing my rank am I?” I asked.

“A few,” said Justice.

“Like a few, as in a few kills, or a few like in…”

“Two,” said Justice.

“Kills?” I asked.

“Experience points, Squire.”

“Do you see a rabbit?” I said. Two experience points was an insult. I could have killed one more orc and I’d have been at level three, which would probably have been super useful back in town. Overall, I blamed Justice. He should be more on top of this.

“I’m scanning for something to kill,” said Justice. “But only if it grants experience points. No casual murder for you.”

I didn’t want to be a murderer, I wanted to be a hero. Someone that people remembered. And I was willing to kill as many orcs as was necessary to manage that. “Does fighting in general grant me experience points or is it only kills?”

“You can earn experience from a defeated enemy even if they are not killed, but only if they are thoroughly defeated,” said Justice. “If there is any doubt, you will not earn experience points.”

“Of course not,” I said as I continued walking for hours. The road stretched on endlessly, but there was a mountain in the distance. I had no idea what I was going to do at the mountain, but that hadn’t stopped me so far.

As I admired the mountain, we came up to a log in the road. It was strangely placed, and was a bit odd being the only log in the road and there were no trees nearby.

“I thought I saw something on the map, but it vanished,” said Justice. I wondered if that meant they were hiding, when an arrow flew past my head. I had to move my head, so I didn’t think it was an accident.

Four more arrows followed, but with my speed I just stepped out of their paths while I searched for the first archer. He was closer. I wondered what the stupid orc was thinking, but now wasn’t the time for that.

I hopped off the side of the road to some limited cover and activated my new armor before I rushed toward the archer. He popped up, and it was the lanky orc I’d seen on the stage. He had fled the town with his oversized friend.

“Shit,” I muttered as I felt my foot hit a rope. I burned Dexterity and flung myself to the side instead of falling into the neat little punji stick pit they had waiting for me. The archer had been hiding behind a small mound of dirt. He was on his feet and shot several arrows at where I landed, but with my new skill rank, I was able to roll to my feet and dive the other direction.

More arrows came from the woods, and I easily avoided those. Orc arrows typically flew faster because they had heavier draws. These arrows were slower. Those orcs must be weak due to hunger or something.

“Now!” yelled the orc, and his massive friend erupted from the small mound of dirt. He was the cover. All the metal plates were good for stuff like that. However, ‘now’ was premature. If I kept coming in, that would have placed me at two to one while dealing with the archers on the hill. I sheathed Justice and pulled out the heavy orc bow I acquired. My new chest piece was smooth enough that I could use the bow in my armor.

“You idiot!” yelled the massive orc as he charged me. He had a good distance to cross, so he wasn’t going to be a problem for at least ten seconds. That left me a chance to do something else.

So, I took aim at the archer. He was already lining up another shot on me as I burned Dexterity for improved accuracy. We both shot at the same time. His arrow was aimed right at the seam in my armor where the chest plates converged. It was a good shot, so I activated Magical Armor causing the arrow to shatter uselessly against it.

My arrow was fired from just as powerful a bow, but the orc wasn’t wearing heavy armor, and I aimed for his lung. The arrow tore through the hide armor he wore and buried itself a foot into his chest. The orc spun around and collapsed.

With my heightened Dexterity I could usually get a second shot in if I was lucky, but even with Dexterity active, I couldn’t find a worthwhile target through the charging orc’s heavy armor. I might have been able to make a shot if I waited a bit longer, but I wasn’t willing to risk it with him so close. Returning the bow, I drew my sword.

I dodged his first strike, and the second. This orc wasn’t quite as powerful or quick as the slave boss, but he was a fair bit more powerful than someone I could take casually. I wanted to wait for my Stamina to recover when I got another idea.

“Pit?” I asked, and Justice highlighted it on my minimap.

The orc swung and I beat back the attack. The massive gong when his warhammer struck Justice should have wrecked the sword, but instead there was a clear chip taken out of the hammer.

The orc screamed and swung again, forcing me farther back. I went to beat back his next attack, but the hammer moved quicker than before.

“He has a skill,” said Justice, and I only barely managed to activate my Magic Armor spell. The hammer smashed past Justice and slammed into my side, lifting and throwing me to the ground. I was pretty sure he just broke most of my ribs.

Blue light to the rescue, and I was back on my feet. He had the Power skill, so I had to be much more careful than before. I burned Dexterity and dodged his next attack before slamming Justice against his heavy armor. The plate rang but held. I swung against his helmet. The orc jerked back, and the strike failed to do meaningful damage.

By then my burn wore off and the next swing of the hammer nearly killed me. I jumped back and the orc followed, swinging for all he was worth. Right into the punji pit. The rows of short wood spikes didn’t do much damage to the heavy armor, but they did utterly screw up his ability to fight on two feet for several seconds.

I burned Power and drove Justice through the rear plate on his armor, twisting the blade several times before I yanked it out. That was about the thickest armor I’d yet encountered on an orc. The top half of the orc continued to thrash while the bottom remained kind of stationary.

“Didn’t I just sever his spine and kind of stir his organs?” I asked as the orc tried to move.

“He may have other skills, like Toughness. That makes opponents enormously hard to kill,” said Justice.

“That was an unfortunate choice,” I said as I sidestepped two more arrows, apparently the crowd in the woods were getting cold feet. I started beating on the orc’s hammering arm. The metal was incredibly tough, but I had a Magic Sword. By the tenth swing, I cleaved the limb entirely, and it didn’t bleed at all. “Okay, I might need to take Toughness.”

“It is a good skill, but it will make it take longer to learn the Sword skill,” said Justice. I switched to the other arm and started hammering again. I ended up burning Power when I recovered a point to sever the other arm.

“Well, I will have to think about it on the way to Kobla,” I said. The orc whimpered and I undid the straps on his helmet. “Now I feel bad.” This was that sad cow all over again.

I slit his throat before smashing the pommel of Justice against his temple to stun him.

“You don’t feel that bad,” said Justice as I kept smashing the orc’s temple until he finally went unconscious.

“Obviously, he was trying to kill me,” I said, looking up to the line where the archers were. “Are you still tracking them?”

“Yes,” said Justice, and I started up the hill where several sets of boot prints marred the forest floor. Small boot prints.

“Those aren’t orc prints,” I said, studying the disturbed ground. “Those are people sized.”

“We must find out who is working with our enemy,” said Justice.

We could do that. Go on a crusade where I tracked down those vile bandits working with the orcs and slayed them all in self righteous anger. Probably in front of their children, who would of course be starving in these desperate times. Then I’d stare at myself in the mirror and wonder who I had become.

“I’m not killing people. I’m not a murderer,” I said. That was a bridge too far. Orcs weren’t human, so I could convince myself I wasn’t a mass murderer. If they were people, I would be in trouble. Even killing bandits would be difficult for me to rationalize. This was all about trying to save my sister, not murdering a bunch of bad archers. Still, they had shot at me.

Maybe I could scare them off.

With Justice it wasn’t a real chore to track them, until they figured out they were being tracked. Then it became a real chore. They cut down a brook and fell off of our minimap.

“I guess we’ll have to let them go,” I said, turning back.

“But they attacked you,” said Justice. “The enemies of a knight shall not go unpunished.”

“Then you punish them. I’m going back to killing orcs,” I said, returning to the road. Justice bitched the whole time, until I remembered. “Did we level up?”

“Yes, you are level 3 now, Squire,” said Justice.

You are a level three Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 2 | Stamina: 4

Skills: Dexterity (rank 4), Power (rank 3), 1 Available.

Crafting skills: Smithing (rank 5), Salvaging (rank 3)

“I bought a new point of Stamina and another skill slot,” said Justice.

“Interesting,” I said, trying to see if I felt different. I really didn’t. Was stronger, perhaps, maybe a bit quicker, but how did you quantify those things? I supposed I needed to do a sprint or something every time I leveled to see how much quicker I was, but actually doing that sort of test in the field was kind of difficult.

I had more Stamina though, that would have to be enough.

“Yes. If you choose Conditioning, we can start to advance your skills to earn a second tier skill,” said Justice.

“Second tier?” I asked.

“Yes. If you earn a specific skill rank in first tier skills, you can learn a second tier skill, they are more powerful.”

I tried to recall what the sword said earlier. “So you want me to take Conditioning, what does that do?”

“As Dexterity makes your body more maneuverable, and Power makes it stronger, Conditioning allows you to endure greater trials. It allows you to recover Stamina faster,” said Justice.

“What about that skill the hard to kill orc had?” I asked.

“That is Toughness, which makes your body stronger and harder to kill,” said Justice. “I do not recommend it for a first skill, as you have me.”

“And you can heal me, but you can also restore my ‘condition,’” I said.

“Yes, but only one of those two paths lead to the Sword Master skill, and it is not Toughness,” said Justice. “The question you should ask yourself, Squire, is do you want to take the wound or give the wound?”

Well, when he put it like that… “I’d like Conditioning, please.”

“Good choice,” said Justice and I felt the new skill wash over me.

Conditioning, Initiate rank 1: You tire 10% less. You recover your first point of stamina in 14 seconds.

That was different. I didn’t know what tiring ten percent less even felt like, but the quicker Stamina recovery could be very useful indeed. I burned a point of Stamina on Power, lifting a rock and flinging it into a nearby field. It flew significantly farther than I could have tossed it on Earth.

Fourteen seconds later, I’d recovered the Stamina point.

I burned another point throwing something again and it likewise recovered in fourteen seconds. That part made sense. Then I burned two points and watched my Stamina recover. The first point took fourteen seconds, and the second took the full thirty seconds. I tried that a few more times and it repeated. Unfortunately, if I was recovering any Stamina when I burned a new point, everything was set to the thirty second timer.

“Now it might be smarter to just use one point of Stamina as a lead off,” I said, considering my options. “Is there anything to recover Mana faster?”

“Yes, there are sorcery skills for that. We can learn those next. I know about skills like Energize and Battery,” said Justice triumphantly. “Energize will allow you to recover Mana more quickly, Battery allows you to store more Mana.”

“I would never have guessed,” I said dryly as I considered the sword’s words. “Wait, can you train me in those skills?”

“No, I do not personally know those skills, but they are common skill books,” said Justice. “Unlike other passive skills, magical skills are almost always taught through skill books.”

“That’s something else to find,” I grumped.

The mountain was still a ways off, even if I could see it. That was the problem with walking everywhere, it took forever. I was used to cars, and I’d have been there already.

Nothing to be done for it. I started walking while burning a point of Stamina every fourteen seconds on Dexterity.

19

FORT NOPE

“Nope,” I said, looking at the fortress.

Justice laughed. “We can do it. We will just have to be clever, and forceful, and smart!”

“And luckier than a two tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, there is no way we are getting past that,” I said, examining the fortress. To say it was a daunting prospect was underselling it.

Kobla’s fortress was massive, ugly, and very well guarded. I counted no fewer than twenty of the lanky orcs, and that was just a casual inspection of the walls. I was pretty sure that if I had better orcs, I’d keep them deeper inside the fortress to use when the need arose. That discounted the ‘grunt’ orcs, of which there were many, who were ambling around on the walls and watching everything like they honestly expected an attack.

What I really needed was a scouting ability that was more powerful than Scan. Something that let me look inside the fortress and really see what was going on. Because the outside was terrible.

“Wait, why is there a fortress here?” I asked, looking around. This appeared to be the base of a mountain, and there was a reasonably nice stream running down and away from the fort. The fort itself was positioned in the middle of a gap in the mountain, but was truly in the middle of nowhere.

Justice brought up the full scan map, which covered three miles. We were in the dead center of that range. We could see a mile and a half distant, which was enough to see the whole fortress, but tactically it didn’t make sense to put a fortress here.

“I am unsure, Squire. It is like they are protecting something, but who can tell what,” said the sword.

“We are in Kobla’s backyard, from what the people said. There really isn’t much beyond this, so the only people who could be attacking him are his brothers, and the situation with his father is recent,” I said, gesturing toward the fort. “This took a while to build. Why did they turn Tarrytown, which was some sort of vacation spot, into this monstrosity?”

Justice considered that. When the sword was thinking, it got slightly warmer. Not a useful amount of warm mind you, but enough that I could tell when the sword was really considering something.

“I have read the book while we traveled,” said Justice. “There seems to be something untoward here. The ritual was to summon some power, but I cannot fathom what kind.”

“There’s a mine maybe, some resource they are extracting?” I asked, checking the map. It wouldn’t be a very big operation. Justice’s map was pretty thorough when it came to the outside of buildings, and if there was an operation here, I couldn’t tell. At a range of less than a mile, any large operation should be obvious.

“Perhaps there is a rock, or ore, they need,” said Justice.

I looked at the stream and shook my head. “I don’t know a kind of hard mining that would leave water that pure.”

“The water is full of orc droppings,” said Justice.

“Still cleaner than what you’d see in a gold mine, or a coal mine,” I offered. The water was dirty, as in I wouldn’t drink it, but it didn’t have the chemical smell that I associated with any hard mining where the water would have been used for something.

Beyond the fortress wisp of smoke.

“This isn’t Tarrytown. It’s just a fort, but it isn’t guarding against orcs. The fort is guarding against what is beyond this pass.”

“You might be right, Squire, but then what are we looking at?” asked Justice.

“Good question,” I answered.

We crept around the fortress, getting to where the pass thinned somewhat. Their fort filled a gap in the mountain pass that led farther into where nothing should be. The gap wasn’t very wide, and the archers monitored it constantly. All of the vegetation was cut down and even the grass was short.

I dug my fingers into the earth. “Ash.”

“They are burning it regularly to keep the grass low,” said Justice, adding a bit of useful information for once. We continued to move as he monitored the map. Even after moving, all we could see was more mountain.

“We have to be close,” I said, trying to figure out how to sneak through a large chunk of wide open ground. There were so many orcs watching the limited areas around the fortress-that-wasn’t-mountain that I didn’t see how it would be possible to go this way. “It’s a shame I couldn’t just climb the mountain, that would make avoiding the orcs easier.”

“Why not, Squire?” asked Justice. “I think climbing the mountain would be an excellent idea!”

“I don’t have any gear,” I said. About the only thing I had for mountain climbing in my storage was an extra suit of clothing that might work as a heavy coat and some rope.

“You have gumption, and the powers granted you as a knight,” said Justice.

“Is there a skill?”

“Yes, it is called Power, Dexterity, and Conditioning!” said the sword.

“You’re saying that because I’m superhuman, that I can just climb the mountain?” That made me groan. “Yup, I realized as soon as I said it out loud.”

Justice laughed.

I pulled back and found a spot far enough away that no archer could reasonably find me and started up the slope. I was free climbing, but wasn’t going up any shear surfaces. At most it was very steep, and Justice could be driven into solid rock if I got desperate.

And when I broke something, Justice could just heal it.

I made the incredibly dangerous climb and only broke my leg twice. The second time was the only bad fall, some twenty feet. I managed to land on my legs and still broke one rather badly. Justice’s Heal spell fixed even a compound fracture which was both good to know and not something I wanted to repeat.

It also helped I wasn’t trying to climb to the top, just the lower areas where mountain goats would have mocked me for being scared. I got over the summit that made the gap the fort was protecting and started down the other side.

“My Scan is still not showing anything,” said Justice.

“I see it,” I said, drawing Justice and pointing. I wasn’t sure that actually helped him, but what can I say, waving around a sword is fun. He was currently pointed at a series of camps located in this little valley.

“A prison camp,” said Justice as he surveyed the situation. “No real way to grow sufficient food to feed the population. Lots of trees for lumber, and I believe I see a mine over there.”

“Then the fortress is to keep the prisoners in,” I said considering everything, “And keep other orcs out?”

“That will require further investigation, Squire,” said Justice.

“Point,” I replied, searching some reason as to why they would keep a camp like this.

“I see a patrol doing a circuit,” said Justice. I saw ’em too. You often wondered why old cavalry units wore stupid hats, but from this distance it was obvious. I could easily tell who they were even at this range.

“They’re riding horses,” I said. “I figured they would be riding wolves.”

“Wolves are terrible for riding in armor,” said Justice. “That is a stupid fantasy trope. Their backs aren’t built for it. If you have a wolf, you would be best served to point him at the enemy then attack your opponent from the other side.”

“You’ve seen wolves being ridden?” I asked.

“In real life, no. I did watch that atrocious Hobbit movie with Henry. It got everything wrong,” said Justice. “The Magic Sword was broken, and the rings were the powerful ones? It was a bad comedy!”

“Didn’t realize you were a fantasy purist,” I said.

“Fantasy? Does a magical talking sword sound like fantasy to you,” said Justice.

“I mean, of course not, how silly for anyone to think that.” I went about examining the structure of the valley below. The gap was between the two shortest mountains, and the rest of the peaks were considerably higher. There was no real way to get out of the small valley aside from where I was and getting up here required me to burn Stamina over and over to achieve it.

Even including the serious bodily injury, I was rapidly advancing Conditioning as I continued to repeatedly deplete my Stamina. Power had even increased rank, finally. Overall, this was hell, and I didn’t fancy anyone’s chances of doing it without significant climbing equipment, a much better trail, or magical powers.

“Hey, I found a campsite,” said Justice. There indeed was a campsite near here at the end of a trail where people came loaded up with significant climbing equipment. The site was hidden up and away far enough that the mountain concealed it from the fort and the valley. It looked like the trail I missed would have been much easier to climb up. The fact that said trail was dangerously thin was only testament to how stupid I’d been for coming my way.

There were footprints in the snow too. Also, six people hiding with bows, all aimed at me at ranges short enough I couldn’t be certain I could dodge, and if I did, I couldn’t be certain I’d stay on the mountain. That was a problem.

“We have been ambushed,” said Justice. “I knew we shouldn’t have come this way!”

I glared at the sword. He’d technically only suggested that climbing would be a good idea. Spotting the group’s leader, I said, “I see you.”

They looked at each other, and then one stood and spoke in a girl’s voice, “So then you know what we can do.”

There was a time to tell the truth. The people looked lean, but not hungry. There were bits of orc equipment on them that were being carried like trophies. Anger flared in their eyes, but it wasn’t solely directed at me.

“Of course, I was seeking anyone who still has the guts to fight orcs,” I said, getting ready to dodge if need be. They were only facing me from one side and the ridge behind me was just long enough that I might be able to slide down and not kill myself in the process.

“You sought us out?” said an older male, likewise rising up. He was human, middle-aged, and pointing a converted orc warbow at my chest.

“I heard some remnants of the resistance remained. I am a Magical Sword Knight, and I am here to liberate the valley,” I said. I’d gone with option one. Option two was claiming that I was sent by the orcs to check on them. I was getting a real powerful ‘we hate orcs’ vibe from these guys. Then again, they might hate the orcs because they had to work for the orcs.

I had a few bosses like that.

One of the fighters laughed a short barking laugh, but I kept my eyes glued to their leader.

“You were told wrong, the resistance is gone, broken. The few that remain are in that valley,” said the man bitterly. “No human can stand against the orcs.”

I was losing them. They were as broken as the resistance. I knew the look. They’d run up against the machine and been chewed up. Still, there had to be ways to motivate them. I didn’t have any pizza, which might have worked because I couldn’t tell how hungry they actually were.

Then I looked at them more closely. The girl standing next to their leader in particular still had fight in her. She wanted to kill all the orcs but couldn’t. What could I do with that? I needed to get to the skill trainers so I could save Hope. And to my horror, it came to me what I was going to have to do.

I was going to have to drag out Sir Yorick again.

“The resistance lives as long as any free human draws breath,” I said, plowing on before anyone had a chance to smell the bullshit. “I have already liberated Drek, slain the orcs in Himdal, which is now another free city, and I’ve met with the remains of the resistance in Nordrim. Yet you claim no human can stand against them. You have a knight on your side, you have Justice!”

I tried not to throw up in my mouth. It was a hard thing. Keeping my face straight was next to impossible. I mean, that was so sappy that no one in their right mind could possibly⁠—

“The words, they are true. A knight will come to save us,” said the leader, dropping to one knee. The other fighters all took a step out of their covered positions, staring at me in awe. I almost felt bad. Almost.

“I am here now,” I said.

“I am Eldron, the leader of this group,” said the middle-aged man. He was wearing winter garb that was much more in tune with what I should have been wearing. Man was it chilly, but not super cold, which was another benefit of Conditioning.

“We will need to liberate this valley. What plans do you have?” I asked.

“Sir Knight, we have never contemplated such a thing,” said Eldron.

“I am Elana, and you ask the impossible,” said a young, red-haired woman who was the only one here not eyeing me like a weed smoker eyeing their taco delivery driver. She was the one who looked like she wanted to fight the orcs, only now she’d taken a whiff of what I was selling and seemed unsure about me.

“For a knight, many things that seem impossible are possible,” I said.

“A knight is brave, a peerless warrior, and uncommon in their wisdom,” said Elana, carefully choosing her words. “Our group is small, disorganized, and of no match against the orc warriors. We would like to help you, but we are of little value to one such as yourself.”

“Nonsense. Even the intelligence you gather on the enemy will be enough to aid me,” I said, still laying it on extra thick. I wasn’t selling to her anymore, I was selling to the group. Hopefully they would pony up something useful.

Eldron shook his head. “The fortress cannot be breached, and if they hear a hint of rebellion, they will simply stop transporting food into the valley. All of the game there was hunted long ago, everyone will starve.”

“Can we not take them through this hidden pass?” I asked. Their route was much better than my free climbing route, and obviously hidden, or Justice would have seen it.

“Not in sufficient numbers. There are thousands of prisoners in that camp,” said Elana. “We could get a handful out at most before the orcs notice.”

“Like the skill trainers,” I offered. Maybe I could bring them to Himdal and then bring back reinforcements.

“That might be possible, but why?” asked Eldron.

“My knightly quests have informed me that the wicked Kobla requires all of the skill trainers for some vile ritual, removing them will remove the ability to perform this ritual and may save more lives,” I said.

“I spoke true, the dark warlock did leave,” said Elana.

“He never leaves the fortress,” said Eldron.

“Him and I did battle. I was able to slay him in honorable combat,” I said, my voice not quite hitching.

“You give too much credit to these vile orcs,” said Elana, spitting on the ground. “They are intolerant of all humans. Do not waste your honor on them.”

“Though it goes against my nature, I will attempt to face them on even ground as you suggest,” I stated. Everyone looked horrified.

“No, good knight, your vows are what separate you from common men such as myself, your honor cannot be besmirched,” said Eldron.

Dammit, he snatched that hall pass right out of my hands.

I nodded solemnly. “I apologize, you speak true. It is just the terrible hardships the orcs have foisted upon my fellow humans. They weigh heavily on my soul.” Everyone calmed back down. Time for a subject change!

The camp was on the top of a rather inhospitable mountain near a large fortress full of orcs that would have rather smashed a human’s skull in than said hello. These people were idiots if they just came here to visit, and I suspected idiots didn’t last long with orcs about.

“Why are you here?” I asked Eldron.

“Some of our number are in the valley, attempting to collect loved ones. We smuggle a few willing souls out every few months, so their numbers are not missed.”

“Many in the camps die then?” I asked, concerned. I needed that potion trainer alive. “I should go there, see how the camps are arranged.”

“Are you going to lead a prison break?” asked Eldron.

“Perhaps. I don’t see how to get past that fortress without suffering enormous casualties,” I said. Which I didn’t. That fortress was built specifically to hold the people in that valley like a cork in a bottle. A bottle full of soon to be starving people, because I just eliminated one or both of their primary sources of food. I didn’t expect that to end well.

I walked over to better see the fortress.

“Get down,” said Justice, and I did so. Crawling over to look at the gap, I realized that we had clearly been looking at the rear of the fortress. It was worse from the valley side, which had even more guards.

There were several large ballistae on the towers, covering the surrounding area. They appeared to have a good vantage point from all sides. There were also gates on the front and back. Something looked odd.

“How many orcs?” I asked Justice.

“Right now, I can see at least a hundred,” said the sword. “With about twenty percent of them being the elite fighters.”

“And those horse riding orcs in the valley,” I said, considering that. I couldn’t take on that many by myself, but I might have another option.

“Eldron, how many fighters could your valiant group bring to bear?” I asked.

“Maybe fifty, and that would be a challenge,” said Eldron. I examined his bow since he was next to me. The string was different from the one on my bow. It wasn’t as strong, so the arms of the bow stretched out a bit more, reducing the pull strength to something a human could use.

“Have you ambushed an orc patrol before?” I asked.

Elana and Eldron exchanged a look. “Maybe. If the orcs find you killing them, they usually do terrible things to all the nearby villages, so even killing a handful is a problem.”

“So killing dozens would be problematic?” I asked, glancing over meaningfully.

“Yes, especially the larger ones,” said Eldron.

“I have only slain a half a dozen of those, so far,” I muttered as I continued staring at the fort, and waited.

“Father…” Elana started to say, then their voices got too quiet for me to hear. I thought there was a familial resemblance between them. They kept muttering to each other, and she finally said, “You’ve slain dozens of orcs and half a dozen of their elites?”

“I am a knight, I will do whatever is necessary to liberate these people,” I said.

Both fighters pulled back and got closer to their camp. I slid Justice from his sheath and pointed him at them, casually. I fiddled with a rock while the sword listened in.

“They are not pleased with you. That makes no sense. You have been killing orcs who have been oppressing them,” said Justice.

“They are petty criminals, they don’t want this kind of spotlight shown on their activities,” I said. “However, they probably realize that the fire I’ve lit is going to burn them badly.”

“One is aiming their bow at you,” said Justice, and I burned Dexterity to roll over and fling a rock at the man’s arrow. He wasn’t committed to shooting me, yet, but had the arrow in place. When the rock struck the arrow, it snapped in half.

I already had Justice out, so I advanced close enough to threaten them while still moving at augmented speed. When I got there, I stopped and waited for time to move back to normal speed.

“I deal with bandits with the blade, and allies with my heart,” I said, mimicking something Justice had prattled on about. Being a knight was tiring, but I doubted I would get so much cooperation on sight without the title. The man looked terrified, probably because I was pointing a sword at him.

I didn’t really want to kill him, and in fact, I probably couldn’t have. Beat him up, sure. That was several paces short of death. But seeing him preparing to shoot me in the back was a good reminder that these people weren’t all morons. This was a bad situation, and the body of a knight and his sword would certainly have solved a few of their immediate problems.

Not enough though. That Kobla sounded like an asshole.

Eldron wormed his way between me and his man. “This is a foolish child, he was afraid.”

“I understand,” I said, sheathing Justice. “I will forgive his mistake. Let it not happen again.” I stared each person in the eye until I saw agreement, or what I hoped was agreement. He might have also been pissing himself. I moved supernaturally fast when I burned Stamina. I’d seen the orcs do it, and it’s utterly terrifying.

“I will gather the men you have asked for, once word gets around that cities have been liberated, they will be eager to join,” said Eldron haltingly. He hitched entirely on the word eager.

“He means they will join you because you’ve doomed us all otherwise,” said Elana, shaking her head. “Your stupidity is going to bring down Kobla’s entire army from the fortress.”

“Excellent. Then I shall have a plan to deal with them when we are ready, but first, I will talk to the resistance fighters in the valley,” I stated. “When humanity works together, we can overcome any obstacle!”

Elana swatted a fly on her forehead, which didn’t make any sense as there were none up here.

20

SUSPICIOUS

“I’m proud of your belief in the duties of knighthood,” said Justice as we climbed down the other side of the mountain into the valley.

“Of course, I am firmly committed to the cause,” I said as I slid down a rock face for at least thirty feet. My leg would have been hamburger without Justice’s healing magic. Which should be coming any moment now.

“But I am suspicious,” said the traitorous sword.

“What do you mean?” I muttered, stopping and taking a break. We were on the inside of the valley now, and I was pretty sure no one could see us, so now seemed a good time to hash this out.

“Your commitment level to your oath seems to vary depending on the situation. All of your words to those people on the mountain top rang hollow,” said Justice.

“Mostly because I was lying to them,” I said, and the sword grew cold. “I have no idea how to take on a fortress or get these people out of this valley.”

“Then why tell them you have a plan?” asked Justice.

“Did you see them?” I asked. “They’re all broken people. They know they don’t stand a chance and gave up. I can’t stand to see people like that.”

“But you sound like you know what you are doing,” said Justice.

“I know how to sound confident,” I said. “It’s a trick you pick up when the sister that always had your back is sick and no one seems to know how to do anything about it.”

“I am training you to be a knight,” said Justice.

“Look, I don’t know what a knight even is. A Magical Sword Knight sounds like something that’s made up.”

Justice didn’t say anything for several seconds. “So what were you trying to do, Squire?”

“I was trying to be a hero, but it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“Are you still?” asked Justice.

“I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing and it’s just terrifying most of the time,” I said.

“Then why are you doing this?” asked Justice.

“Someone has to do something.”

“You have to be a hero?” asked Justice.

“Someone does! I look around and see all these defeated people who want someone to look up to and I keep thinking that I’m the only one who can do it,” I said. “I’m trying to be Sir Lancelot, but I think I’m more Sir Gadabout.”

“The worst knight,” said Justice.

“He bumbled everything,” I replied. “You know King Arthur?”

“I’d hardly call Sir Gadabout an actual knight, but I suppose when you read everything you can about King Author as a child you get creative. I could hear Henry telling you stories,” said Justice. “He hoped you would learn good lessons.”

So, Grandpa had been preparing me for this, and I even screwed that up. I deflated, leaning against the cold mountain while the cold wind blew across my cold flesh.

“Alright,” said Justice.

“Alright? I keep ending up being Sir Yorick, the guy who thinks he knows what he’s doing. I keep being a fake hero when they need a real hero,” I said.

“Being a hero is difficult. Henry didn’t think he did a good job all the time,” said Justice.

I considered that, not knowing if I’d done better or worse for these people. I suspected I did good, but that was short-term. Who knows if what I accomplished didn’t end up getting everyone killed. “Why did Grandpa agree to this?”

Justice was silent.

“Because he didn’t agree, you shanghaied him, just like you shanghaied me with promises you couldn’t keep,” I said. Then something horrible occurred to me. “Was it to get my health potion?”

“No. Henry had a choice, just like you. Initially he did it for the money, he needed to help pay for the farm,” said Justice.

“That was you?” I said flatly. There was a family legend about how right before the bank repossessed everything, a long lost uncle of Grandpa’s died and left him enough money to pay for the farm.

“Henry eventually became a very respectable knight,” said Justice.

“Of course Grandpa did, he was very dedicated to doing what was right,” I said, relaxing. Gramps was the kind of guy who really would like helping out the oppressed for the right reasons.

We both sat against the mountain in companionable silence for a bit while we processed our own problems.

“If you do not wish to be a knight, I shall not force you,” said Justice.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure you have so many other candidates.”

“It will be hard to find another knight of your caliber,” said Justice.

“My caliber?”

“Yes. You have all the qualities of a knight, they just aren’t yet refined,” said Justice. “That’s half my mission.”

“I can’t,” I said angrily.

“Can’t or won’t?” said Justice. “Because I know you can.”

“What if I screw up?”

“Then don’t. Stop thinking of yourself as a failure all the time.”

“You want me to pretend to be Sir Yorick,” I said.

“I want you to be Sir Yorick and help these people,” said Justice. “I’ll do my best to steer you on the right path. That will get you your sister’s potion. And maybe you do a bit of hero work on the side.”

“But what if I screw up being Sir Yorick? I usually end up doing dangerous stuff and I don’t know how it turns out,” I replied.

“Heroic stuff,” said Justice. “Just try.”

I thought about that. I was stupid, not a hero. I was a middle child, with a brilliant older sister who got sick. I had a smart, hard working older brother who wanted to be a farmer since Dad put him on the tractor for the first time. I had a derpy baby brother who was Mom’s baby and could do no wrong, who also happened to have joined the Marines and was making everyone proud.

Then there was me.

I wasn’t a bad kid, but I wasn’t exactly notable either. I was growing to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to amount to much, and that I didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Then this whole hero job came out of nowhere.

I never got the anime protagonist that got to a new world and instantly dropped everything to save this place and people he didn’t know. The people here were fine, but I’d die if I went through with what Justice wanted.

I think I wanted to be a hero just so people would remember me for something more than my silly name. I was having the same problem as always though, I didn’t commit. I had ambitions but wasn’t the kind of man who acted on them.

Rarely does a man get such an interesting opportunity.

I was always Grandpa’s favorite, and he always told me that when opportunity knocked, you better answer or you were going to be left behind. I’d say he didn’t expect this sort of opportunity, but he literally had. This was his opportunity and he’d run with it.

I needed to start running and stop being so damn afraid.

“Okay. I can be Sir Yorick until we find my sister’s potion,” I said. That wasn’t a permanent thing, I could manage it for a while. I could probably avoid royally screwing up in short spurts.

“That will do for now,” said Justice. “We’ll cross the next bridge when we come to it.”

“But I’m not going to make any more promises I can’t keep,” I said. “I’m going to be careful and stop doing stupid things. I’m going to be intelligent and practical with my decisions.”

“I have confidence in you,” said Justice.

“I’m not kidding. I’m going to be sane and responsible, no more of this stupid hero nonsense. I need to put that behind me and accept my limitations!”

“Of course. I will support you and not encourage you to behave heroically,” replied Justice. “By the way, there is a small child running away from two angry orcs. I believe they are going to kill him.”

I spotted the child, and both orcs. Before I realized how stupid it was, I was already moving.

“Fuc—” I uttered before summoning my armor and continuing to run down the side of the hill like a mad idiot. Dexterity made me fast, but even more importantly, when I burned it, I became preternaturally acrobatic. Running down the slope should have been impossible, but Dexterity made it trivial. Of course, by the time I got to the bottom I was running much too fast.

I skidded to a halt in front of the orcs on horseback just as they reached the child. I sucked in a breath of air and drew Justice.

“Who are you?” growled an orc.

I held up a finger and sucked in another breath. Then another. One of the orcs stepped forward.

“Seriously, no manners,” I coughed out then straightened up. “I am Sir Yorick, a knight.”

I glanced behind me to spot a child holding a pig, that looked like it was probably for a family of four. It was dead, and pre-cooked. I sighed. “I am protecting this thief from you guys.”

The first orc laughed, lifting a catch pole. That looked painful. He went for my throat with it, and I activated Power before chopping it in half.

Burning a point of Dexterity, I blurred forward and thrust with Justice toward his lightly armored guts. The orc with the pole jerked his weapon back incredibly fast, but he was still on horseback which vastly limited his movement. I aimed for the lungs and got both of them in the first thrust. The other orc’s eyes went wide, but I was between their horses. I yanked Justice out of the first orc and buried the blade in the other orc’s side. The horses jerked back and both orcs fell out of their saddles.

“Were there any more orcs chasing you?” I asked. I fought skill users before, but they didn’t seem all that commonplace. The more I fought, the less common they seemed. I would have expected both of the elite horse riding orcs to have skills.

“No, sir,” said the boy, gripping the roasted pig tight.

“Why are you not getting any food?” I asked.

“My mother was kidnapped by the orcs. No one is sure why. The orcs don’t feed us if you aren’t in the villages, and we aren’t allowed in the villages because the orcs don’t want stray young ones running around,” said the boy. He looked terrified. Dammit, Justice.

“Well, I am Sir Yorick, and knights take care of everyone. Show me these other kids, maybe I can help.”

Apparently, knights were notorious for helping everyone, and the child, who did not know me or have any other reason to trust me, took us straight to his secret hideout.

“What to do with the horses,” I said as we walked into a small grove of trees that were well off the beaten track. I hid them there, as the animals were worthless past this point, with the ground being too holey and rocky to be of any use. It also looked like the first time it snowed, these kids would all be buried, but that was a worry for later. The kids were suitably terrified that a strange man walked in with their friend.

“I’m a knight,” I said. They instantly calmed down. Honestly didn’t know why that kept working, and it was rather concerning. Thomas, the kid I saved, tried to explain what happened while they ate the pig. The kids were all a bit more gaunt than I’d like, so I gave them about half of my beans and decided to keep more in storage in the future. The four children were even happier with the dry food than the pig because it would store longer.

“Well, they do have some good intelligence,” said Justice as the kids started telling stories about their lives in the valley.

“Yes, but nothing that is going to help us get the orcs out of the fortress,” I said dejectedly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. After all, if there wasn’t a way to get in, I wouldn’t be tempted to do something stupid. The kids were talking excitedly, and Thomas was leading the charge.

“Then he killed both of them, I helped,” said Thomas. This got the same reaction I was learning to expect. Shock and horror.

“They will look for us,” said a young boy.

“You will have to hide them somewhere,” said Justice.

“We’re doomed,” said a girl.

“And comfort them,” said Justice.

“They will send all their horsemen here to kill us,” said the third, a weepy-eyed little girl.

Justice said nothing, and I felt the words leave my lips unbidden, “You think they’d all come here?”

“Yes, there are fewer patrols lately, but they will certainly respond to this,” said Thomas, suddenly worried.

“Like, when, today, tomorrow?” I asked, carefully.

“Probably in a few hours. They have dogs and will come looking for us when the other two don’t report back,” said the girl.

“And there are like ten, well, eight of them?” I asked. At least that was how many I saw when we were on the mountain.

“There are twenty,” said Elana. I stared daggers at Justice.

“She just appeared. Plus, I was totally not looking for her and she was listed as a friendly,” said Justice.

“Sure,” I said dismissively before looking over at Elana. “Eighteen, two are already dealt with.” I wasn’t about to look bad in front of the cute girl. I gripped Justice extra tight and felt a smugness radiating from him.

“Well, they’re all coming here now,” said Elana. “So unless you think you can take on all those orcs on horseback at once, we need to go.” She glared at me like all my sister’s friends who thought I couldn’t do anything right. The kids were becoming terrified. The little girl looked like she was about to cry, and Elana was just making everything worse.

I tried to figure out some way to get out of here, but with the orcs chasing us that was going to be impossible for me. Elana and I might be able to escape, but not the kids. Any plan I came up with was just going to get them killed. They needed someone who could save them.

They needed Sir Yorick.

“Excellent. My plan is to take all of them at once. You take the kids and go,” I said.

Elana’s head twitched as she stared. The four children were all looking at me very intently now, the fear that was overwhelming them replaced with hope as I looked around the grove and started picking out spots to fight in.

“Wait, are you seriously going to fight all twenty of them on horseback yourself,” said Elana, quite flustered. She reminded me of Hope when she was younger, just a bit. More of a personality thing than her appearance. Hope had a vision of how things were going to happen, and when you went against that she did not handle the change well.

“Eighteen, and they won’t be riding horses here,” I said. “After you leave with the kids, maybe sneak around and see if you can deal with whatever one is guarding the horses, you can manage one, right?”

Elana stared at me, then gestured to the children, gathering them up. “You’re crazy.”

“I am Sir Yorick,” I replied and tried to find a knightly place to hide. That wasn’t as hard as I expected because no one expected you to be high up in a tree with no low hanging branches. I waited patiently as the bait departed, when several of the orcs saw the kids running and gave chase.

“I thought she said there would be dogs,” I said, just as two large dogs ran below me. “Oh, there they are.”

“Squire, we must help them!” yelled Justice.

“Hold your horses, we need to wait for all of them to get past first,” I said as the first orcs ran by. They weren’t skill enhanced, but they were still faster than your average humans. One knocked over my bag of beans.

“The children will be caught!” said the sword.

“They’re good runners, besides, they had a head start,” I said, dropping down and cleaving the last orc in half by burning Power. “Seventeen, and they won’t be chasing after the kids for very long.”

I’d come to the conclusion that my natural speed at running had been elevated to quick, and with the Dexterity skill I could easily outpace anyone who wasn’t seriously trying for speed. The orcs in the back fit that bill easily and I didn’t even need to burn Stamina to kill them.

Tapping the back of their unhelmeted heads as I ran past them did the trick. I would eventually have to thank the orc armor smiths for making uncomfortable helmets, but for now, I popped four more melons before anyone realized what was going on.

And thirteen didn’t actually manage to say anything before he went down. “The first twelve are running faster than I expected.”

“Eleven,” said Justice as I hopped over a mound of dirt that turned out to be an orc with an arrow in his side. I chopped with Justice as I ran past and took off the orc’s head.

“That was totally my kill, are they getting too close?” I asked as I burned Dexterity to speed up. Two orcs decided they were done with the chase and were attempting to tend to their two shot dogs as I appeared around the corner and started slashing. Then there were nine and things started getting tougher.

An orc spotted me and yelled, drawing a curved sword. We both attempted a feint and our blades clashed in the middle. The orc smirked and tried to push through me, even with my Power skill, the results were close. I burned Stamina and shifted my sword until it was against his throat while he stared at me in shock. I yanked the blade and was met with a fountain of blood.

“Eight, and armor,” I said and continued running. My armor magically formed up on me and started clanking. Two orcs stopped to look up a tree, where Scan revealed a friendly human. One of the children was hiding there, probably the small girl given how little space was available.

With my armor on, both orcs heard me approaching and were facing me with weapons drawn when I got close. I struck with a two handed blow against the first, his cavalry sword bouncing clear as Justice took off his ear. The second orc didn’t fancy his luck in a sword fight and did something new.

He tackled me. We went down in a heap, and his weight plus my armor was enough to largely pin me in place. His friend swung with his saber, smashing my helmet. That was both loud and extremely disorienting. If the orc had a thrusting sword, I would have been in serious trouble. Burning Power again, I threw the orc off and grabbed the sword fighter by the ankle.

I pulled, dropping him to the ground while I found Justice. The sword was still tied up with the other orc, and Power was running out. When Power ended, the large orc was going to be back at advantage, so I rolled up onto his chest and punched him in the face with my metal glove. Something cracked and the orc went still.

The other orc stood there laughing and holding Justice. Until blue lightning flashed across his body for a full three seconds. I reached over and broke the orc’s hand off. It took three punches before the calcified remains of his hand came free, and then I continued after the other orcs, yelling, “Stay there!” to the tree.

“The child moved as soon as you left,” said Justice as we continued running.

“Smart kid,” I said, continuing after the next orc through the woods at the base of the mountain. “Six left?”.

“Four, two more died while you were fooling around, the girl is a capable archer,” said Justice.

“I didn’t know you could see her shooting arrows on your Scan,” I said.

“I can’t,” said Justice as we ran by two bodies with arrows in their throats. “But I have a feeling.”

“Makes sense.” I spotted a small stream and heard yelling. I hopped onto the nearby rocks and started running up only to find the last four orcs laughing as Elana held her bow at the ready. She’d get one shot off before the orcs overran the hill and killed her.

Of course, I was loud as hell in this armor, so the rear two orcs turned to face me.

“Ahoy, you blighter, how’d you get past everyone?” said the first orc, genuinely puzzled. I showed him, his partner, and the guy next to him, leaving just one orc. The final orc turned to face me, his eyes full of malice.

“You killed all of my brothers!” said the orc, holding a wicked-looking dagger. “I’ll kill you for that.”

“Be careful, he has a skill!” yelled Elana as the orc dashed toward me in a blur, he also had Dexterity. I burned Stamina, matching his speed, almost. He was still faster, if not by a huge margin. He wielded a dagger though, and that was a bad idea if the other guy had a sword. I swatted it out of his hands, causing the blade to splash into the water before I slashed at him.

He dodged under the attack and put some distance between us.

“Seems we are at an impasse here,” he said.

“Could be,” I said, holding my sword at the optimum striking stance. It was up just a bit to allow me to smash it down extra hard on his head. “But you don’t seem very attentive.”

The orc looked at me curiously, then his eyes opened wide. Myself, I was looking at the arrowhead pointing out of his neck. It was a new addition because Elana liked to redecorate orcs when she could.

I took off his head while he tried to speak.

“You used the children and me as bait,” said Elana, drawing another arrow.

“The entire orc cavalry unit is dead. They can’t do raids into the valley anymore,” I replied. Elana paused, considering that for a moment.

“Did they leave one to watch the horses?” she asked.

Shit-shit-shit.

I burned another point of Stamina and got to the edge of the small forest where twenty horses were resting. Sighing in relief, I began to relax.

“There were twenty-one, and one rider is going back to the fort,” said Justice.

“Any chance we could catch him,” I said, eyeing a nearby horse.

“We are scarcely more than a mile from the fort now, and he has a mile head start,” said Justice.

“You could just say no,” I replied.

“I like you to feel informed,” said the sword as Elana reached me. She was gasping for breath after a hard run, while I was just standing there unbothered wearing plate armor due to my Conditioning.

“Did you stop him?” she asked. The fort sounded a huge horn as a reply. It could be heard all across the valley.

“I did not,” I said.

“You idiot,” hissed Elana.

“Well, all part of the plan. I assume you know who’s in charge down here,” I said. “Let’s go talk to whatever passes for leaders in these parts.”

21

THE PRISONERS

Elana liked to grumble about things outside her control a lot. It wasn’t very cute, which was kind of sad, because with all of her coats off she didn’t look half bad. She had that round faced perpetual little sister look, complete with freckles and red hair, and that even made her glare hard to take seriously. I smiled at her.

Well, that glare I took seriously.

“She is quite upset with you,” said Justice.

“That’s because she’s a planner who was never going to get off the pot,” I said, waving at several people as we rode by on horses. I knew how to ride from my time on the farm, and the ring just made it even simpler, so even all the weight of the armor wasn’t really hindering me very much. Elana had obviously never ridden before and wasn’t having nearly as much fun.

“So do you have a class?” I asked.

“No, I have a job, I’m a bandit,” said Elana.

“A bandit isn’t a bad job for a scout,” said Justice consideringly. “The focus on ambushes, mobility, and archery all support the class. She probably lacks any active skills, so she doesn’t qualify for an archery class.”

“You don’t have any skills?” I asked the angry young woman.

“No, there are no skill trainers, I have just been practicing with my bow for years,” she angrily retorted.

“I would say furiously retorted,” said Justice. “If she had a trainer, she would be quite a bit more deadly.” We continued riding in seething silence for a few seconds.

“Oh, well, when we find them maybe one can teach you, you seem like a good fit,” I said.

Yeah, she was really pissed.

“Thank you for your generous offer of other people’s skills, sir knight,” she said.

“I don’t think she capitalized my title,” I said. It sounded downright impossible to not capitalize proper names, but she’d somehow done it. I didn’t even want to try to repeat the process myself, I imagined it would be really challenging.

Glad I didn’t have to narrate this.

“So, I’m going to lead these people in a rebellion against the orcs, isn’t that what you were trying to do, for years, unsuccessfully?” I offered.

“You left the children to die,” she spat out, then waved to the kids also riding horses. They were basically tied to their saddles.

“No, I left the children with you. I assumed you would run,” I said.

“You didn’t know I was going to be there,” she said.

“Then I wouldn’t have left the room, the orcs would have spotted me and rushed to fight,” I said.

“Do you really think you could have taken all the orcs by yourself?” she spat, then reconsidered. “Of course you do, you are cocky as hell.”

“With good reason, have you met me?” I asked, teasing her. She was an infinitely teasable girl. I usually didn’t bother, but with how much trouble I was about to be in, the teasing was just my nerves acting up.

Elana shook her head. “I regret meeting you more every passing hour.”

“Don’t be like that, it will make the rebellion harder,” I said as she stopped her horse in front of a properly built building. Unlike the majority of the places around here which were either tent cities or shoddily made log cabins, there were a few buildings in town that must have been made prior to the occupation.

I hopped down and handed my reins to a nearby villager. “Oh, and please feed the kids, they are with me.”

I walked over to Elana’s horse and offered her my knee, literally, to stand on to get off. She turned an unhealthy shade of red and looked around. Realizing she was quite high up and there was no way down, she grudgingly swung over and slid her foot onto my knee.

That seemed a bit harder than necessary, and when she slammed her other foot down on my leg, I was quite confident she was slightly upset. If I wasn’t wearing a metal plate, that surely would have been painful. I waved at everyone for a moment as she grabbed me by the slot in my helmet and started dragging me into the building.

There were dozens of people here, and they all looked terrified. I was mentally adjusting the killing of the cavalry unit from incredibly stupid to horrifically so, but I was kind of committed now. Had to play this up like it was a positive or this whole situation was going to unravel.

“Sir Yorick,” I said, bowing to the room. By now everyone was ogling me, and Elana was talking to an older woman who looked about Eldron’s age. Elana was very comfortable around her. The older woman had red-brown hair with several streaks of gray. She looked deceptively strong and clear headed. Her eyes and Elana’s matched exactly.

“That may be her mother,” said Justice.

“I kind of figured,” I said.

“I am Zahir, I speak for the people here,” she said, sitting down. There was a chair next to me, but it was not offered. It was going to be one of those kinds of talks. I’d had a few of those with my managers over the years. One of those disappointed in your performance, please try harder or worse.

Could they fire me? I didn’t know if knights had an evaluation form. That would be kind of rough if they did, I was objectively not doing a very good job.

“Greeting, Zahir. I have come to speak to you about your skill trainers,” I began.

“I thought you were here to discuss revolution,” she replied. “Your recent actions are going to incredibly complicate our relationship with the orcs.”

“But you are slaves.”

“Indentured servants,” Zahir replied. “It is far below what we’d like, but at least the orcs ensure those of us that work are fed.”

There was some grumbling at the last bit. A young man asked, “When is our next ration going to arrive?”

“Is it from Drek?”

Zahir was about to respond to the naysayer when I spoke out of turn. She looked at me cautiously. “Yes. All of our foods come from Drek. They are shipped down the old road.”

“Drek has been liberated,” I said. “Last I saw, the slaves there were leaving and taking all the food with them.”

The room got noisy and the yelling started. Zahir slammed her fist onto the table three times. “Do not fear, the granaries at Himdal will supply us until this problem is resolved.”

“I really don’t want to be this guy,” I began, causing Zahir to glare at me. Yup, definitely the mom. “Himdal was also liberated.”

“So what’s stopping us from turning you in?” said a man.

“Well, that still doesn’t get you any food,” I explained with a shrug. Elana glared at me as well, but then looked around the room. The pro-orc faction was largely pro-orc because they were getting fed. Aside from that, they weren’t too happy with the situation.

“Kobla is weak,” said Elana. “Now is the time to strike!”

“Daughter, you have been trying to lead the rebellion since you could walk,” said Zahir.

“I take after my mother,” she spat. “Before she got old.”

“Your mother was a fool who got a bunch of people captured before being thrown into the world’s largest prison,” replied Zahir hotly.

“But now we have a knight,” said Elana. She glanced at me then exhaled. “He’s really super cool, and totally invincible in combat, like a real knight!”

Oh, so we’re all lying to Zahir.

“Is that true, Daughter?” asked Zahir.

“Yes, totally, he’s got a Magical Sword and everything,” she said, giving me a double thumbs up. I wouldn’t say she gave me the fakest smile ever, but it was close.

“Yes, we should plan a strike, I need to speak to the skill trainers before we go much further,” I said, this was going too fast. I was planning on getting a meeting with the skill trainers and then having some time to figure out the next stage of this plan.

But now I was here, and everyone was looking up to me. If I backed out, I’d look like a failure and a coward. I couldn’t accept that, I’d worked too hard to be written off as a pathetic failure, I’d have to fight. I felt my eye twitch as I realized that was exactly what Justice was hoping for.

“We are out of food, good Sir Knight,” said Zahir. “What would you have us do?”

I looked over the room, trying to summon as much dignity as I could. “We must plan carefully, a premature attack will cost your people dearly and I do not want that on my conscience. There must be a way that we can achieve victory with limited loss of life, also, can I speak to the skill trainers?”

“Why do you need to talk to them?” said Zahir.

“There is a dark ritual that Kobla is preparing, I believe he needs the skill trainers to do it. I will need to talk to each one of them, in particular the potions master, to understand what is going on,” I said.

“Dark Ritual?” cried Thomas. “My mom is the potion trainer. The orcs took her to the fort last week.” The kid looked like he was about to cry—scratch that, break down entirely. Elana gave him a hug and I tried not to feel three inches tall.

The Potion Trainer is a real person, her kid is Thomas, remember that.

I rubbed my teeth with my tongue for a second, swallowed, and plowed on. “Friends, we must rescue them, that is all that is important at this juncture. I will storm the fortress and recover your people no matter the cost!”

“Should we help?” asked Elana.

“Of course, every weapon, every arrow could mean the difference between the life and death of the trainers,” I said.

“We have few weapons,” said Zahir.

“I brought some,” I replied, emptying my storage of all the weapons I’d collected on my adventure over Justice’s objections. Some were orc weapons that were too large for humans to use. Most were weapons looted from undead that Justice clung to despite my orders to hand them out. At the time, there hadn’t been enough people. Now there were enough willing hands assuming no one realized I was giving them equipment from zombies.

“There is a moving, rotted finger in this glove,” said a man.

“You might want to shake them out first. Don’t look at equipment from a storage bag too closely,” I replied.

“There aren’t enough weapons here for us to storm the fort,” said Zahir.

“Not if the gate is closed, but I have a strategy for that using my keen, knightly intellect,” I replied.

22

YORICK DIES WEARING A BLUE DRESS

“This is stupid,” said Justice, like a naysayer who didn’t believe in anything. Well, I believed in us, because we had this.

Or this was going to be a really short chapter in my life. The Final Chapter, really. It would be called Yorick Dies Wearing a Blue Dress.

The plot involved me walking to the main gate of the castle wearing the warlock’s blue dress. I mean, I think it was supposed to be a robe but mechanically those weren’t that different. I could speak orc, which would theoretically allow me access because they were expecting the warlock to return at some point.

There were a lot of problems with the plan, of which most were carefully ignored. At least orcs couldn’t see very well in the dark, so I came in just before the sun set. Light enough to see the blue, dark enough to allow for an escape from the archers if necessary. Assuming none of them had skills.

That was one of those pesky problems.

Well, anyway, I was confident it would work, or at least I was when I explained it to everyone. It turned out my group’s confidence in their knight was more a curse than a blessing. Once I started talking, they kept cheering so I didn’t shut up until I was out the front door heading here. Like an idiot.

Justice was strapped to my back, which was a terrible place for a sword. I had no idea how I was going to quickly draw it, and the weight seemed off after carrying it on my hip for the last week.

The archers spotted me, because they weren’t blind. I was hunched over, walking with a large, very elaborate magical staff. Thank goodness the robe had a hood which completely obscured my face. I was also wearing some gloves that concealed my pink skin. Hopefully no one checked any further than that.

“Let me in,” I hissed, in Orcish.

“What?” yelled an orc.

“Open the door and let me in,” I hissed louder.

“Ahoy, I can’t understand what you are saying,” yelled the orc.

“Let me in, you blithering oaf,” I hissed at a near yell.

“No need to be rude about it,” spat the orc.

I lifted the staff and channeled Mana through it casting the Agony spell. It washed over the orc, and he screamed before slumping to the ground, where he continued screaming.

“What is the duration of that?” I asked.

“Using your Mana? Like five minutes,” Justice said.

“Oh, is that good?” I asked.

“It normally lasts about thirty seconds. So they are going to think you really hated that guy.”

“Makes sense, he seemed like a deaf jerk,” I replied.

The gate had an orc-sized door in it which opened post haste. I plodded through, brushing past two orc guards, into a room full of even more orc guards. There were like twenty of them in here, all glaring at me angrily.

“You may not have wanted to cast Agony on their friend,” said Justice.

“Little late for that now,” I grumbled.

“Ahoy, what’s your hurry?” said an orc, reaching for my hood suspiciously, like a normal intelligent person who couldn’t see someone’s face. He got the hood back enough to expose my lower jaw, where I’d stuck every finger that had fallen out of my storage around my face like a beard. Zombie fingers did not stop moving when they were removed from zombie hands. The orc shrieked, and I pulled my hood back down.

“There were problems with the ritual,” I coughed. “I will retire to my room.”

No one said anything and the hallway to the left of the entrance found itself empty of everyone. I hobbled that direction.

“Shall we tell Kobla?”

“No, I will speak to him in the morning after I fix this,” I oozed ominously, waving my hand around my head. I took a step and one of the fingers fell from my face and started twitching on the floor. The orcs stepped back. “Burn that, then place a silver coin in the ash and bury it.”

I cleared the room as the orcs proceeded to have the world’s most deadly game of not it.

“Give me locations,” I said, peering down the various halls. I had been afraid that the fortress would be teeming with orcs, while the reality seemed to be that most of the orcs present had been on the walls at least once while I was observing them.

That was hopeful, but still, I needed to find where the warlock was staying or someplace else suitably out of the way. We walked past the kitchen, and I smelled a horrible aroma.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, trying not to gag.

“Leather, possibly some dogs. They are nearly out of rations,” said Justice as I looked into the kitchen. There were obvious racks to store more food and they were all quite empty. It looked like they were cutting apart boots and throwing them into pots.

“Well, I wouldn’t want them to starve,” I said, opening my storage and dumping out several loads of mushrooms while the cook was away. I heard him coming back and quickly stepped out of the room.

“Most of the rooms in this fortress are occupied,” said Justice uncomfortably as I walked by one of the corner towers. I saw that it was locked. Reaching into the robe’s pocket, I produced a key. I slid it into the lock and turned it, instantly a minor backlash of energy flowed into my hand, but I was able to open the door anyway.

I stepped in, shut the door, and promptly fell onto the floor as everything got dark. Then my body thrashed, and I sat up.

“Did I just die?”

“Yes, there was a killing curse on the door,” said Justice.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked.

“Well, I could just heal you afterward and you need to learn.”

That was probably deserved. I threw down the hood and brushed off my face. The writhing zombie fingers were a great disguise because they were so disgusting no one wanted to look at them. I wasn’t going to do anything else with them. I didn’t even want to think of what I’d attached them with.

Justice cast Cleanse and I relaxed somewhat.

I was standing in the base of a tower, and it had been made up to be some sort of library. The library wasn’t massive, but was easily the largest library I’d seen in this world.

“Any worthwhile books?” I asked, glancing at the shelves.

“A few are showing up, run me gently across their spines,” said Justice. We didn’t have unlimited storage space, so I’d have to trust his judgment in what was worthwhile. I ran him across their spines, and as I did so, an occasional book would vanish into my storage. It didn’t take long to get all twelve books Justice wanted, and I looked up the stairs to what must be the warlock’s living chambers.

Clutching Justice, I went up, finding a loaf of half-eaten bread on a table across from a very human style mattress that stunk to high heaven. As my nose twitched, I caught another aroma, and sidestepped just as someone struck at me from behind.

The creature that attacked me was both obviously an orc, and a female. I could tell both due to her choice in clothing. She swung again and I stepped back, this time I grabbed her wrist. She tried to pull free, displaying a strength well above that of a human but much less than what I could manage with Power.

I burned Stamina and twisted her arm until I’d forced her into a chair.

“I will tell you animals nothing!” she spat out in Orcish.

“You’ll tell me everything I want to know,” I replied in Orcish.

“You speak the language,” she said, bewildered.

“Yes, quite fluently,” I replied.

“Your tongue is an abomination unworthy of an orc,” she said in English.

“It is good to know your enemy,” I retorted.

She eyed me appraisingly. She looked like a thinner, weaker version of an orc. Far more Amazonian than any human woman I’d ever seen in real life. I think she’d put a number of female bodybuilders to shame with her physique, and worse, I could tell that all of her muscles meant nothing to her. She had keen yellow eyes, with long black hair obscuring her chest. She wore a thin white robe that looked comfortable, but left little to the imagination. It might have even been modest if she’d bothered to tie it.

I was getting a strong death by Snu Snu vibe from her.

“I am Sir Yorick,” I said.

“The grok has a name,” she said dismissively. I stared at her flatly, contemplating murder until she got uncomfortable. “My name is Kilva, pet.”

“I’m not a pet,” I assured her. She made a clicking sound with her tongue.

“How did you get in here ” she asked.

“I have the key,” I said.

She snorted. “Just the key? To bypass the spell on the door you must be a powerful wizard. No one dares enter here for fear of death,” she said.

“Yes, I have powerful magic.”

She frowned. “I saw you face down on the ground. I suspected I was going to have to order one of the grunts to clean up the mess.”

“That is part of the spell,” I said. She considered that for a moment.

“I’ve performed in strange rituals before while I was in finishing school,” she said very evenly. That word must not have translated well.

“Not much bothers you, does it?” I asked.

“I am an orc female, such is our lot in life,” she said, examining her fingernails. They were quite a bit sharper than strictly necessary. “Who killed the warlock? I am his now by right of conquest.”

“That would be me,” I said, eyeing her uncomfortably. “Does that really mean you are mine now?”

She nodded solemnly, then clicked her tongue loudly, which was apparently an expression of mirth. “No. It would be like if a dog slew him, even more embarrassing, actually. Please tell me you did something like drop a heavy rock on him.”

“Sword,” I said.

She groaned. “That’s so embarrassing. An orc being slain by a human. Such an orc will never enter into the spirit hall.”

“Spirit hall?” I asked.

“How can you know our language and not any of our customs,” she groaned. “When an orc dies, their soul is judged, and they are set to either chop wood or travel into the spirit hall where they will drink and be merry forever.”

“And if they are killed by a human?” I asked.

“If they are killed by a lesser species, a human, a dog, or a mole, anything pathetic really, then their soul is seen as unworthy and sent to the forest of cowards to be part of the trees.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Certainly. I mourn his passing. Now I’ll have to figure out what to do when I get back home to my father in Torblan,” she said.

“And you’re okay with me killing your husband?” I asked.

“It was an arranged marriage,” said Kilva dismissively.

“And the fact that you’re being sent back to your father like some chattel slave?” I questioned.

“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not some human woman who strives for something more in life than she was allotted. I am special, unique. Special families are blessed with daughters, everyone gets sons. Lots of sons.”

“What’s the ratio?” I asked. She snorted, apparently that was a bit of a joke to her.

“For every single orc female, there are fifteen males, at birth at least. By the time they are adults there will only be eight of those left. Those are the numbers that we are playing with, and that means the most important thing I can do is have many daughters. Sons are just a byproduct,” she smiled. “But I think I have distracted you enough.”

“What?” I said, turning around. The last thing I saw was a fist as large as my head.

23

THE CAGE

I was gently rocking, my back was warm, and I was comfortable. Except for the searing pain in my face, my ass, my back, my arms, and all the other parts of me. My eyes shot open and took a moment to focus as I hovered there in a well lit room.

There was a chorus of laughter coming from somewhere. I was in a cage, suspended over the floor by a chain attached to a fraying rope where a chandelier should have been. That wasn’t too bad. Then, I looked down. I was suspended over fire. The fire was a big one, and blazingly hot.

“Justice, what’s going on?” I mumbled.

Silence.

I looked for the sheath and it was missing. So were the robes. I was wearing my regular clothing and they were starting to smoke. The fire was heating up the cage. I hopped off the bottom of the cage and stuck my arms and legs straight out, getting me off of the hottest part.

The laughter got louder.

There were orcs everywhere. Dozens of them, probably most of the orcs in the fort. They were eating, drinking, and laughing. At me. The idiot who was stuck in the cage, trying not to die.

I realized they were talking in Orcish, but I didn’t understand Orcish anymore, did I? I’d been in multiple conversations where Justice was translating their language into English on the fly. As the orcs continued hooting and laughing, I realized that I’d picked up enough.

“What is going on here,” I yelled in Orcish. Or I yelled out something close to that. The room got quiet.

“Do not profane our language with your filthy human tongue,” spat the largest orc I’d yet seen. That was the gist at least. Might have been a few swear words in there though. He was bigger than even the massively fat orc, except all muscle. Solid, strong, powerfully built muscle.

“Kobla, I presume,” I said pressing against the cage door with my feet.

“Yes, and you must be the pissant human who ambushed my patrol,” said Kobla. “I’m going to march on every human settlement in my domain and raze them all to the ground for that.”

“You’ll find their gates barred against you,” I said, pressing harder.

“That will just make it more fun,” said Kobla, reaching down and scratching a massive wolf on the top of its head. The wolf looked at me with an expression I was more used to from dingos. It was a soulless gaze, and the wolf clearly wondered how I tasted.

“Where’s my sword?” I asked.

“This sword,” said Kobla, gesturing to a black wrapped object at the table. “Killed one of my brothers when he tried to wield it. I assume it is magic. I will send for a breaker right away.”

“A breaker?” I asked.

“You cannot assume you are the first Magical Sword Knight that has come here,” laughed Kobla. “I have seen my father deal with at least two of your ilk. One of my men even has the remains of another.”

“No longer,” I said. Kobla’s eyes flared.

“You would not dare!” he spat, then stared at Justice’s scabbard where I’d attached Backbiter’s hilt. The wolf was gnawing on the scabbard.

“Knight’s dare,” I retorted. It was good fiction and all, but I was kind of in a cage. Spouting defiance was about all I had and the spots on the cage were getting kind of hot even though I wasn’t touching the bottom.

The laughter stopped, and the other orcs were all staring at me in a mixed bag of hostility and horror. I was pretty sure I’d let that orc live, though he might have been killed after I left. I killed a bunch of other orcs though, at least enough to offend someone.

As they all sat there, unmoving and uneating, something occurred to me. They were praying. Praying for the dead orcs I killed. They had a great deal of empathy, respect, and love for other orcs, just none for humans.

I knew people like that. All the love for mine, none for yours. They were the worst kind of people because while nothing was too good for them, nothing was too bad for anyone else.

I pressed on the cage again and burned Power. Even doing so I could only make the cage flex slightly. I was going to die. The metal was starting to get past uncomfortably hot into the baking of flesh level. I needed to get out even if there were some pretty dire consequences to the escape.

“Yup, killed Garuk like a bitch,” I said, still pushing. “He came at me, and I took off both arms and he died whimpering, like a coward. Probably was. After all, you become a tree in the coward’s forest if you die by human hands.”

Garuk was still alive as far as I knew, but he was late getting back, and I did defeat him.

Half of the orcs in the hall including Kobla shot to their feet at that. The naked hostility in their eyes was a thing of wonder, if you wondered what it was like to be in a room full of killers who wanted you dead. Someone threw a flagon at me, the watered down ale splattered all over the bars dropping their temperature by at least a degree or two as the liquid rapidly evaporated.

“Of course, he’s not the only one I killed. The slavers at Drek? I don’t think but a handful of them escaped, running from the humans as we revolted. Killed a big guy there, after tricking his own archer into shooting him. Don’t worry though, I killed him, not the archer.”

One of the orcs bellowed, standing up and swaying in his anger. He had a similar build to the slaver captain and might have been a brother. That would make sense based on the limited amount of info I had about the orcs’ family structure. There would undoubtedly be a bunch of direct family members here and they all called themselves brothers.

“Then there was the town, Himdal, you know, where I killed the warlock before he completed the ritual. Man, you guys were easy to fool to get in here,” I continued. Several more clangs sounded as the cage was struck by several more flagons. “Of course, I had to kill the whole garrison there by myself, including all the other orcs. One of them was a lanky orc, who looked a lot like him. He cried like a child before he died.”

The orc I called out looked somewhat similar to the lanky orc, but then again, a lot of them did. The lanky orcs were typically the ranged fighters, and this one wasn’t that different, except he looked way angrier than most. He pulled out a dagger and flung it at the cage. It bounced off the side.

“Ha, you throw about as well,” I laughed.

He threw a second dagger, this time it went through the bars before bouncing off the rear of the cage. That was luck. I half-expected it to pass right on through, but hitting me at this range when I activated Dexterity was not going to happen. Since I burned Dexterity, I was able to snatch the deflected dagger out of the air and then shove my arm through the bars before the orcs could react. Activating Power, I found the rope and flung the dagger at it with all the strength I could muster.

The dagger arced through the air, and smacked into the taut rope, before bouncing off and falling into the fire.

The room watched in silence, then started laughing. Orcs started sitting down, and I jammed both my feet hard onto the bottom of the cage still under Power. In the silent room you could hear a plink as the first fibers of the rope started going.

“Someone put a spear into that human,” yelled Kobla as he struggled to stand. A nearby orc took a halting step toward the cage and then looked at his hand and screamed.

I slammed down with Power again and the rope started unraveling. It was a good rope, and I couldn’t just burst it, but every powerful slam with my heels put far too much force on it and the damage the dagger did was significant.

Another orc grabbed for a spear, only to miss and fall onto a nearby table knocking an entire bowl of leather and toxic mushroom stew onto the wall. Kobla stared at the splatter pattern for a horrible second, then to his own mostly empty bowl.

“We’ve been poisoned,” he muttered, trying to push the bowl away but only succeeded in spilling it in front of him. The rope snapped.

One moment I was falling, and the next I had both heels into the cage door while I drove my back into red hot steel and burned more Stamina. The impact coupled with my push was enough and the cage door popped free.

I jerked out of the coals, the back of my clothing on fire and landed on the stone floor of the great room. The wolf snarled as it raced toward me. I waited, then lifted the spear a fumbling nearby orc had dropped.

The wolf’s eyes went wide as it skittered to a stop with its nose pressing against the tip of the spear. I thrust the weapon at the wolf, and it sidestepped, snatching the end in his mouth and yanking much harder than it had any right to.

I released the spear and used my ring of jumping to launch myself toward the table, grabbing Justice, and then I headed for the door. My back was a scalded mess, and I really didn’t want to actually try to fight without any of my gear.

Fumbling the black cloth off him, I held Justice at the ready and found his weight was entirely off. There was a large chunk of metal affixed to the center of the blade and a second one closer to the hilt.

“What is that?” I asked and Justice didn’t respond. At all.

“Get him!” bellowed an orc, in Orcish. I understood that more clearly, so something was still there. They attached two of those metal contraptions to my sword and neither appeared to be good for his well being.

I dashed into a hallway. The wolf was right behind me, snarling. I was hurt and I’d blown through my entire Stamina pool getting out of the room. Worse, my weapon was weighted entirely toward being ineffective in a swordfight.

The wolf bounded into the hallway. I almost had one point of Stamina back, all I needed to do was stall the dog for a few seconds. I backed off as the wolf advanced. It watched my sword with a cruel intelligence, waiting for me to do something.

I don’t know what I did, but the wolf decided it was time to attack. He lunged before I’d recovered my Stamina and I attempted to beat him back with the sword. The weight was a broad metal disk attached to the sword in the middle, it reduced the cutting area and unbalanced Justice.

Still, I attempted my standard powerful strike with the tip of the blade. The wolf brushed that aside and I barely managed to get my throat out of the way. However, now the wolf was beyond me, toward the exit, and I was closer to the great hall full of pissed off orcs.

Shit.

The wolf snapped at me again, this time feinting as I tried to move the unwieldy sword around. Realizing this was a losing battle, I released Justice from my traditional two handed grip and punched the wolf with a Power infused blow to the neck as it snapped at my other forearm.

The wolf slammed into the wall, blood evident in the spot where I’d punched him. Which was my blood, because I’d broken the hell out of my hand. My bones could not physically handle a full Power punch. Still, the wolf was stunned and Power was active, so I stabbed it with Justice, but even there the weight saved him because I only got a few inches of penetration.

I wounded the wolf, badly perhaps, but didn’t kill it. I didn’t have any more time, I knew approximately where I was, and I ran for the exit. I could probably get out and then I’d have to come up with a new plan that didn’t suck.

Finding the main entrance, I placed Justice under my arm and flipped open the orc-sized door in the gate. Throwing it open I spotted Elana, who had her bow drawn. She looked confused, I looked serious. Because I was in a serious amount of pain.

“Left, left again to the main hall, and they are all poisoned, bonus points if you kill the wolf,” I said. The resistance army did not hesitate, they charged. This was the one opportunity they had been waiting for and now it was happening. It didn’t matter what I said or did, it just mattered that they had a chance to fight for themselves.

I slumped in the corner, my adrenaline running out.

“Justice, talk to me,” I said. Maybe he was out of power?

Spending a point of Mana, I cast Magic Strike. The hilt glowed blue for an instant, but when the Mana got to the smaller weight attached to the center of the blade it stopped before sparking out in all directions, and partially zapped me. It wasn’t electricity, it was something I didn’t recognize.

Backbiter, that dagger. The hilt was all that survived. Justice said something, the blade was where the mind was, but what did the hilt do? I placed my fingers on the tip of the blade, using my broken hand, and very carefully avoiding the edge, I cast Magical Strike again.

“Doomed, he’ll never figure it out,” said Justice.

“Figure out what?” I asked.

“That my spirit resides in the blade, not the hilt. The hilt operates the magical conduit connecting knight to his sword, but is ultimately only useful in that regard.”

“But I can still channel Mana into you directly,” I said.

Justice paused, then laughed. “Yes, Squire! You can!”

“How do we get these off?” I asked.

“I am unsure at this time, though as long as I have any Mana, they cannot harm me,” said Justice.

“How much Mana do you have?” I asked.

“I recover a half a point every time you use Magical Strike, and less when you use Magic Armor,” said Justice. “I am currently at less than a point of Mana and can do nothing for your hand.”

“Then I’ll fight left handed. I can’t leave those people by themselves,” I said, getting unsteadily to my feet.

“I can summon your armor,” said Justice, helpfully. Like an idiot.

I screamed as the metal lay on my melted flesh. Then I soldiered on, because I’d gone to work feeling worse than this.

Except for the hand, it was really screwed up.

24

AFTERMATH

“For the end game boss, he seemed pretty weak,” I said, staring at Kobla, who’s body had no fewer than twelve arrows in it. Elana had spared no expense in the ‘shooting him in the face’ portion of her training.

I found that by holding Justice by the blade, I could allow him to recharge normally and so I was walking around holding my sword like an idiot, but I had two hands to choose from so I didn’t mind over much.

Elana nodded. “I must thank you, Sir Knight, I feared this was a suicide mission and yet when you opened the gate, I found the orcs far weaker than we could have expected. I did not suspect that poison was a trick used by knights.”

“Only in cases of dire need,” I replied, and she nodded appreciatively. Her father might have lofty ideals about how a knight should operate, but Elana was far more practical. Not every orc had been affected the same way by the poison. At least a few went berserk and started killing their friends. Most were barely conscious when they were killed.

The mushroom, dog, and leather stew was quite a hit over the normal leather broth they had been eating. Turned out that mushrooms were a standard part of the orc diet, and normally they would have recognized the poison, however the leather was the last of the ‘eating leather’ and it was so foul that it totally overwhelmed the taste.

My scabbard was gone. They’d fed it to the dog. What little of it remained was mainly gold foil and of course Backbiter. Elana found the dagger’s hilt and returned it to me, eventually.

“She might have made a good scout,” said Justice.

“Well, I earn one of those at level ten, so we can talk then,” I replied, clipping Backbiter to my pants. Justice chuckled.

Still, it was a good day. The human resistance was reborn and Kobla was dead. All I needed to find was the potion trainer and we were good to go.

“Any idea where the prisoners are?” I asked.

“None,” said Elana. “We have scoured the fort and see no evidence of them.”

“Justice, do you notice something different with Scan?” I asked mentally. With the direct grip on the blade, I was able to mentally talk to the sword.

It was painful, but only a bit, and was much better than having a one-sided conversation with the air. I started looking like a crazy person with all those sidebars.

“I don’t see anything unusual, Squire,” said Justice.

“I didn’t say something unusual, I said something different,” I replied.

“There is a wagon missing,” said Justice after a moment. I wasn’t sure how his mind worked, but his memory of past events was a lot clearer than mine. I was sure that would be useful in more situations than just this.

“One of the wagons is missing,” I said, Elana looked at me curiously. “Excuse me, is one of the wagons missing?”

She walked us to the courtyard in the middle of the fortress.

“There are five here,” she said.

“There were six yesterday,” I replied. Now that I could see the courtyard and had Justice’s recollection, I did notice the two sets of three wagons parked inside the fortress. Now one of the groups was short a wagon.

“Shit,” muttered Elana. “They did have wagons coming and going, but I think you’re right. There were six wagons here yesterday.”

“Did you find a female orc?” I asked.

“No,” said Elana as I started doing the math.

“And we killed about eighty orcs, including the cavalry unit,” I said.

She nodded gravely.

“This fortress held more than that, about twenty more orcs and several elites,” I said, walking back into the fortress toward the warlock’s tower. “I think we might have screwed up.”

“What do you mean?” asked Elana as I got to the door.

“I spoke to a female orc yesterday,” I said.

“So,” replied Elana, then something dawned on her. “Wait, orc females are timid things, they don’t talk to humans.”

“That orc was not timid at all, and she considered the human tongue an abomination,” I said, placing the tip of Justice into the lock. “If I die, put my sword on top of me, preferably touching my flesh.”

“Why?” asked Elana, confused.

“It is a knightly custom, I don’t pretend to understand it either,” I said and then burned Power to drive the sword into the keyhole. A purple charge ran down the length of the blade, stopping at the Mana resistor. It smoked for a second, then popped.

I exhaled, catching the final jolt of power of the killing spell. Justice laughed.

“Your foul magic has no power over Justice!”

“I’m pretty sure my hand is going to fall off,” I muttered as Justice cast his healing spell on me. My hand felt much better, and I could hear Justice while holding the hilt again.

“You have overloaded the resistor,” said Justice happily. “That just leaves this accursed weight in my middle.”

“There’s a library in here,” I said, using a second point of Stamina to twist Justice in the lock, and my Magical Sword lockpick did the job. There was a loud cracking sound, and the entire mechanism was destroyed. I shoved open the door to reveal bare shelves.

“Was,” said Elana, stepping in cautiously. I did the same, looking for traps but I was distracted by the barren shelves.

“Stop,” said Justice, and I grabbed Elana’s shoulder. She looked angry, but I pointed to the wall where a large panel was exposed. That wasn’t like that the last time I was here.

“Possible trap,” I said.

“It is a magical ward, designed to go after whoever disturbs the shelves,” said Justice.

“A bit late,” I said.

“I suspect Kilva did it,” said Justice. “Probably after she left, taking the whole contents of the library with her.”

“What did we steal?” I asked.

“There were several skill books on Mana and three books on magical rituals,” said Justice. “Plus a few treatises about Magical Swords that should not be in the hand of the enemy.”

“So they have breakers who are focused on destroying Magical Swords, how common are swords like you?” I asked.

“Not very, so the fact that they have destroyed several is a problem,” said Justice.

“Hopefully those books will elaborate on getting the weight off,” I said.

“Good point, Squire,” said Justice. “I will be forced to concentrate on those while you do your knightly duties. I may be quiet for a time.”

“I’ll manage, somehow,” I said not quite wanting to admit the constant babble about justice and knights were more interesting than just walking around in abject silence. Justice’s recollections about the Magical Sword Knights were like the Arthurian legends Grandpa liked to tell me when I was a kid. I was one of those people who liked to have the TV on for background noise when working.

Justice did tend to shut up when other people were around because he liked to listen. If he could talk and listen at the same time, it would be a special brand of hell for me.

“My mother just arrived and would like to speak to you again,” said Elana after I closed the door. I didn’t have any real training in overcoming magical wards, but hopefully those new books would tell us something.

“She wasn’t here?” I asked, she looked older but spry. I figured the head of the resistance would be eager for battle.

“No,” said Elana. “She thought this was a fool’s errand and you were going to get all of us killed. She specifically forbade anyone from coming.”

“Oh,” I replied. “But you came anyway?”

“I figured if anyone could use some help, it would be you,” said Elana.

“Glad to see you care,” I replied.

“I’m glad you think I do,” Elana said with a shrug.

I knelt and looked at the ruined lock. “Why is there so much gold in here?”

“Gold is a magical conductor,” said Justice. “There was a piece of it running down the inside of your scabbard and onto your leg, that is why we were able to communicate while I was sheathed.”

“Neat,” I said, shoving Justice into the lock. “We need to loot this.”

“I’m not sure how to do that with it all in one big chunk like this,” said Justice. I was. I started sawing through the lock with my invulnerable Magical Sword. I even used a Magic Strike once to carve through the wood more easily. Magical Strike on wood made the sword act like a very effective saw blade. Eventually we got most of the magical gold.

“Are you done?” said Elana, not quite impatiently. She was banged up just like everyone else and spent her limited free time resting outside the room while I mutilated the door.

“Priorities,” I replied and started walking with her back to the courtyard. The main hall was where the orc leader ruled the area. Right now, it was piled with corpses and kind of useless until they cleaned it out.

Plus, it smelled terrible.

Zahir was outside, holding a staff and watching me critically. I checked my minimap. Elana had stepped away at the edge of an imaginary circle, leaving me all by my lonesome to stride toward the freed leader of the resistance.

“I misjudged you,” said Zahir without preamble. “I assumed you were an idiot with no actual plan who was going to get all of us killed in your foolish effort to kill Kobla.”

Zahir looked around at the crowd and then at the fortress. “I was clearly wrong. Kobla is dead, as are all of his lieutenants due to my daughter’s efforts. The fortress is ours and the enemy is routed.”

I bowed my head at her, acknowledging her words.

“Our efforts to fight the orcs have always ended in failure, yet yours seem to succeed, how is that?” she asked.

Pure luck, dogged determination, the fact that I had a sword that could cut through anything? They needed a reason. Why was I doing this?

“Hope,” I said.

“The person or the ideal?” asked Justice.

It didn’t matter. Remembering Princess Leia, I continued. “A new hope rises and through this we will strike back at the empire until the return of the kingdom!”

Everyone looked at me for a terrible moment, finally Zahir spoke. “So you are saying that if we had more hope we would have won?”

“Elana had hope, and this fortress is ours,” I said. “Those of you that came with hope in your chests were triumphant while those who doubted remained. In Himdal, Kent and Merideth had hope in their hearts, and they are in a free city! In Drek, Darren, a former slave, rose up because he had hope, and together we slew orcs until they were free. In Nordrin, there was no hope until I cleared out the graveyard of zombies and defeated Boss Garuk. Now Princess Nadia has hope, and she has charged me with this quest.”

I waited. Because there was no way anyone was going to buy that load of bull shit. I couldn’t even say bull shit normally here, it was some buuuuulllll shit. Deep and stinky. The kind you’d need the big shovel for. I should know, I’d used that shovel before.

“The princess lives,” said Zahir. “The survivors from the battle at Nordrin claimed she had been killed.”

“She lives. Nadia is still hidden in Nordrin, planning for the resistance to march against the orcs and reclaim the kingdom for a free humanity, she needs but your hope to succeed,” I said, channeling Sir Yorick, the blowhard.

I smiled and tried to look knightly. I had no idea what knightly actually looked like, I just hoped these people were gullible. Just when I was pretty confident that this hadn’t worked, at all, Elana stood next to me.

“I will fight with the knight,” she said. “I will regain the hope stolen from us by the orcs!”

Then others came, and then still more.

“But what are we to do?” asked Zahir. “We don’t have an army, we don’t have a target.”

“I have a target,” I said. “I overhead the enemy speak, we must march to Torblan. There we can defeat the enemy in a rousing victory!”

Again, silence. I really wished I knew where Torblan was, that would be really handy right now. I had a map, but Torblan wasn’t on it. There were like four human cities in this part of the world, and all of them had been renamed.

The only one I didn’t want to go to was Kenin’s Folly, which looked to be a massive, strategic fortress that blocked off the whole southern chunk of the kingdom, because if you were going to concentrate forces anywhere, it was there.

“You mean to retake Kenin?” said Zahir in hushed tones.

Dammit.

“Of course,” I said, nodding powerfully while I thought of something else to say. “A victory there will assure the southern portion of the kingdom is secure while we figure out how to launch further attacks to the north to reclaim all human lands!”

“Corgo leads in Kenin, there are actual orc populations in that city,” said Zahir.

“Then they will be removed,” I stated coldly. “For they do not consider humans to be anything more than farm animals!”

Everyone was nodding now. Zahir was wide-eyed.

“We lack the manpower for such an assault!”

I held the eye of the leader of the resistance. “You’ll find far more humans living in the rural areas than you suspect, each of them skilled with a bow. Some skilled with blades. We will march to that city and conquer it, for Hope!”

“For Hope!” screamed everyone.

25

SO, ME AND MY BIG MOUTH

“I did not expect you to offer to lead the entire resistance yourself,” said Justice. “After our talk, I gathered that you were more committed, not that you needed to be committed.”

“You know me, I’m an idiot once I get going,” I said.

“To me it sounds like your feelings are turning more knightly,” said Justice. “I can sense the honor and virtue welling up in you.”

“You can sense something,” I groaned. I was disappointed in myself. This was stupid but I was doing it anyway. Then I remembered Thomas, who’s mother was kidnapped and the general misery of the other humans and pushed it away. “What should we do next?”

“Finally coming to me for advice? Remember, we are a team,” said Justice. “Let’s assess our situation. You have an objective, but no plan yet. You need to determine what resources you have.”

“Zahir seems to know something,” I said. “She could probably come up with a plan to attack Kenin if she had an army,” I said.

“Well then, get her an army,” replied Justice.

“To do that, I’d need a base and supplies,” I said, and thought about it. “Like Himdal, with its ample granaries.”

“What about weapons?”

“The ones they have now are in pretty poor shape. There is a forge here, but Himdal has two blacksmiths that I know about,” I said.

“So, cash in one of your favors and get Himdal to help you,” said Justice.

“Yeah, we could get enough supplies there for a small army, bigger than any group of orcs we’ve seen so far, and rearm the troops at the same time,” I said, growing more confident. “That might work.”

Completed Quest: Save the Resistance

You have saved the people, but not the skill trainers, from the orcs! Congratulations.

Quest: Prepare the Resistance for Victory!

The resistance needs you to prepare them to march into battle against the orcs. You can do this!

Now that I had a notion of what to do, a more immediate problem became apparent. Justice was still kind of useless as a sword. I assumed that it was poor form for a Magical Sword Knight to not have a usable Magical Sword. While the castle forge was inadequate for an army, it would probably work for this.

Heading to the castle forge, I ran into Elana, who grabbed me and pulled me into a nearby empty room. Once again, another woman had been overpowered by my natural charm and charisma. She was cute enough, so I was into it right until she slapped me.

Hard.

“That was a load of shite, and you know it,” she ground out.

“What?” I asked. That hurt. Getting slapped was way more painful than television made it look like. She was an archer, her upper body strength was way too high for her to be casually swinging for the rooftops.

“You know hope isn’t why I followed you,” said Elana. “I followed you because I’d die to kill a few more orcs and that was the only chance we’d ever have to get into this fortress.”

“Sooo, you hoped that I’d sneak you in,” I said.

“No, I assumed you were going to screw up and we’d all die,” she said. “You have no idea what we are doing next, do you?”

“I’m going to talk to the town elders at Himdal,” I said, rubbing my cheek. “They have granaries and can properly refit the troops. Then we can march on Kenin.”

Elana stared at me for a good five seconds. “You can’t seriously think the town elders at Himdal are going to help you!”

“They owe me a favor,” I said.

“At least one of them is a full collaborator,” said Elana, so angry her nostrils flared.

“If Davos is a problem I’ll take care of him,” I said defensively. Elana’s glare fractured against that statement. She took half a step back, staring at me like she didn’t even know me. I didn’t know what that expression was, but I knew my unbroken string of fiery young women who wanted Sir Yorick was breaking.

“But,” she began, unable to finish the thought. “It almost…”

She never finished saying anything.

“So you aren’t overcome by my natural rugged good looks?” I said, and she shook her head then slapped me again. That was my fault. I should have known that was going to happen. It was just that I tended to fall into good luck after a battle.

Maybe it was the fact that everyone wanted to feel alive after the fighting.

“I will never be overcome by Sir Yorick. You’re faking it, you are no hero!” said Elana. “I will tell you that if you betray us, I will hunt you down and put an arrow in your gut.”

“I could probably live through that,” I said.

“Then I’ll keep trying,” she ground out. “I am a very good shot.”

“Noted. I’m going to leave now and go to the forge where I’ll fix my Magical Sword to lead the resistance to Himdal to prepare for our attack on Kenin,” I said.

Elana stormed out, straightened her leather armor, and then calmly walked to the courtyard like nothing happened.

“Maybe she won’t be a good scout, she doesn’t like getting questions answered,” said Justice as I stepped out of the room.

“Can you heal my face? I think I have two, giant handprints on it.”

“Of course, Squire,” said Justice. “After you get this weight off of me.”

“That’s cheating, I was going to do that anyway,” I said.

The forge was empty, because the orc-built fortress was oversized for people. I was taller than most of the humans here, and the orcs were much taller than me. Their tools were similarly much heavier, and all of that put together made for an incredibly challenging Smithing experience.

Unless you had the Power skill, at which point nothing was too taxing.

“I am topped off with Mana,” said Justice as he glinted in the light.

I started with a simple approach. I grabbed a very big hammer and slammed it onto the locked weight. It thunked. I burned Power and slammed it again, this time it hit so hard my ears rang and I’m pretty sure I dented the anvil, but not the lock.

“Is the anvil magical?” I asked, flipping Justice onto his edge.

“I do not believe so,” said Justice.

“And nothing I can do will break you,” I continued.

“I’m invulnerable,” said Justice.

So, with Justice’s edge on the anvil, I brought up the hammer and slammed it onto the weight. Ten times. I figured the hammer plus Justice’s incredibly sharp edge would be enough to slice through anything.

Except the weight didn’t budge.

“This has to be magic,” I said, starting a fire.

“I do not sense magical energy from it,” said Justice as I continued stoking the fire.

“What do the books say?” I asked, fiddling with the heat.

“They mentioned a sword weight that uses the nature of the sword against itself,” said Justice. I shoved him into the furnace and let go. That heat was insane, and pretty soon, the sword was glowing. I fetched a pair of tongs and pulled him out.

The sword hurt to be around because it was so hot, and I was forced to look for an apron. There wasn’t one.

“They ate the damn apron,” I groaned, standing closer and slamming the hammer down on the weight until my arms got tired. I used Dexterity and Power on a strike. With Dexterity active, I literally moved more than twice as fast as normal, and power doubled my attacks. That meant together I could get almost six double-Powered strikes on the same target.

And that was all I could manage.

“That wasn’t even a light tickle,” said Justice.

I stepped back, my shirt was ruined. Sparks flew from me pounding on the weight, but the weight was unaffected. The sparks were actually chunks of the anvil being cut free by white hot Justice cutting into the steel. The chunks of hot anvil burned holes through my shirt and into my skin. I was pretty sure I’d baked something. I had to use Justice for a quick heal before I could even stand back up properly.

I shoved him back into the heat.

“Pounding isn’t working, anything else you’ve discovered?” I examined the hammer. It was shot, my strikes against the superheated metal had warped the head and deformed the shaft. I could fix it, and by that I mean reforge the whole hammer.

“No, it seems to mimic my properties,” said Justice uncomfortably.

“Do you mean that it is impossible to break while it’s attached to you,” I said, pulling Justice out with tongs again and dropping him into a bucket of cold water.

“Waah!” yelled the sword, and for a moment I was concerned I’d damaged him. I fished him out of the now boiling water with more tongs. “You must warn a gentle sword before you submerged them in that vile liquid. That was quite uncomfortable.”

“How can I hear you when I’m not holding you?” I asked.

“Because I am using some of your Mana,” said Justice. “I recover naturally due to some parts in my hilt, however whenever you use Magical Strike, some of your Mana resides within me and I am able to use that to speak with you over short ranges, though it naturally abates over time.”

“So it has your properties, and you can’t be damaged,” I said.

“Unless I am out of Mana, and even then, I am incredibly durable,” said Justice.

“Well then, deplete your Mana,” I said.

“I shall do no such thing. If I have no Mana I would be vulnerable,” said Justice.

“I’m expected to give my all for the Magical Sword Knight Corps, but you won’t even trust me to remove the weight that renders you useless as a sword,” I asked.

Justice considered that. “You got me, Squire. Perhaps I am not useful with this weight in my center. I will summon one book, on your word of honor you will not read it unless I do not awaken.”

“You have my word,” I said and suddenly I felt healed, again, and cleansed, then Justice was silent. I was abruptly aware that he placed himself into my hands and was very vulnerable.

I stared at him, wondering if I could steal the portal spell from him somehow. But no, he trusted me, so I had to trust him. That was the nature of things. If people trust you, you were supposed to do that.

I did have a precious bit of privacy. What the hell was Justice thinking? He vastly misrepresented this quest of his. I was in real danger here, and why I kept stepping further into it was anyone’s guess. Was he talking me into this?

No, it’s because I want to be a hero.

Elana didn’t think so. She recognized that I was just making it up as I went along. I’d decided to be Sir Yorick, but I still didn’t really know who Sir Yorick was. There was some piece of me that understood I wasn’t a hero. I was just a middle child who wouldn’t ever amount to anything.

I couldn’t be the hero these people needed.

I stared at the sword for a long moment then grabbed for the weight, it slid slowly. It was like a magnet off one of those security doors. As long as the door was powered, you weren’t getting the magnet off, but Justice wasn’t powered right now.

Then something occurred to me which was odd. Grandpa Henry was missing, and if anyone knew about what happened to him, it would have been Justice, yet that thought never entered my head until now.

Strange.

I carefully slid off the weight—well, as carefully as I had to. Justice was still an incredibly tough sword made of something more durable than steel. It was just now he was less invulnerable.

Of course, Justice was still out of it. I glanced at the book he’d asked me to swear not to read. I’d given my word, but who actually still believed that? Justice did. Because Justice actually trusted me. If he was just manipulating me, he wouldn’t have done that.

I cast Magical Strike on Justice and the sword vibrated.

Snort—“What, where am I, who am I, wait, I’m Justice and I’m awesome!”

“You awake?” I asked.

“Yes, that was a strange nap, Squire. You seem the same and the fire seems just as hot, so I presume this didn’t take very long.”

“Nope,” I replied, tapping Justice on the book. It vanished. I tossed the magnet into the fire and watched it for a few seconds. Without Justice, the material wasn’t capable of standing up to that temperature. It glowed red, then started to droop. It melted into the furnace, which wasn’t a great idea, but whatever.

“We aren’t going to be able to use that for anything,” I said, stepping out of the forge. The furnace was contaminated, and I’d nearly split the anvil in half.

“I am restored. We can resume our quest to liberate these people from evil,” said Justice. “Your name will go down in legend!”

“Great, I wanted to ask you something,” I said, trying to remember what I’d thought of, but the notion escaped me. “Can’t have been that important, let’s be heroes.”

26

RETURNING

Strangely enough, no one wanted to live in a former prison camp, even if it used to be really nice. Elana and Zahir managed to gather everyone up and we began our journey back to Himdal.

We met Eldron and his fifty archers on the way. They were surprised they missed the fighting. They were even more surprised we won. They didn’t believe a knight was here, and they didn’t think Zahir was ever leaving her exile.

To say the meeting between Eldron, who kept the faith, and Zahir, who lost it, was awkward was putting it mildly.

“Wife,” said Eldron.

“Husband,” replied Zahir.

Elana was looking hopefully between them, as if her daughterly love could somehow fix whatever had broken in their marriage. She was going to be disappointed. That was almost worse than a divorce, the thought that somehow if you had been a better kid they would have stayed together. Watching parents suffer through a terrible event outside their control was somewhat of a specialty of mine.

The awkwardness was getting painful, so I cleared my throat. “Excellent, with these new fighters we can begin to stage our great liberation of humanity!”

“What?” asked Eldron.

“We are going to Kenin,” I said. “Victory is assured!”

The fifty archers all stared at each other. They were expecting to fight against an unassailable fortress. That meant when it was decided that the fortress was unassailable, they could leave.

Kenin was deep inside enemy territory, so naturally, leaving was probably suicide. That was a whole different thing to sign on for. I looked at all of them with the brimming confidence of an idiot.

“You have a knight at your side, you can accomplish anything,” I said. When that didn’t work, I followed up with, “We’ll be taking objectives on the way so that our supply lines are secure.”

They thought about that. Secure supplies were good, but that also meant there was an escape path. The more everyone thought about that, the more they liked the idea. After all, no one liked being oppressed.

We left early with an entire caravan behind us. The five wagons were being pulled by the cavalry horses. I picked the biggest horse to ride. I had taken all the animals after all, and I didn’t want to walk anymore than I already had.

Justice, now free of the evil attachment, was his usually chatty self.

“So you lead a column of freed humans towards further liberation, what more could anyone ask?”

Lots really, but that isn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear something about the undying human spirit. “Nothing, this is good. We did a good thing.”

“We did the best thing,” said Justice. “The corps would be proud of you.”

Justice was really proud that his squire had been so successful. That apparently looked good on his reports to the Magical Sword Knights, or something. He was practically singing about it.

I rode along pleasantly at the head of the column.

“So you get a horse,” said Elana as she walked over to me in the middle of the day.

“I took the horses, so of course I got a horse,” I said. The horse attempted to bite her and I yanked hard on the reins. “Plus, this one is an asshole, and I don’t trust anyone else to ride it or for it to pull a wagon.”

She paused, then looked at my obviously angry horse. The horse was not pleased that I was riding it. It wasn’t pleased that it was marching anywhere. Generally, it was pissed off and vicious.

Elana stepped back. “You aren’t a complete idiot.”

I nodded down at her. “I am completely amazing.”

She snorted. “Fine, I’ll believe that after you secure us food from Himdal.”

I had a plan for that too.

We arrived at Himdal that evening, it had been nearly a half a day walk by myself. With the caravan it took all day. I wondered how we would have managed without the wagons. The people were hardy, but they were chronically underfed.

I stopped at the gate and loudly declared, “I have returned!”

The gate guard loudly replied back, “Bugger off.”

Elana looked over at me.

“One second,” I said, trotting up to the gate in my armor. “Darvos, are you up there?” Justice could tag people with Scan, and that held up if they weren’t hiding very well. Like, for example, if they just ducked down behind a battlement.

“No,” said Darvos. “And we are still loyal to Kobla, so you can bugger off.”

“He’s dead,” I said. “And the fortress and Drek have both fallen. Last time I broke into your city and slew all the orcs without any help, and this time I brought an army with me.”

The other gate guard looked at Darvos. The little biter was trying to ‘stand firm’ only without standing. I guess crawl firm? I didn’t know the particulars. He hid strongly against his fellow humans.

Darvos shouted, “It doesn’t matter! Kobla’s brother will come, orcs always come back.”

“And you enjoy the taste of their boots, I understand, but perhaps all of the citizens of this city are unwilling to bow down, such as yourself,” I said. “Or worse, they realize what will happen after the tales of a general rebellion are spread by the orcs that passed here earlier today. You seem to better understand the orc’s minds. What do you think they will do to you when they figure out the town rebelled?”

The gate cracked open.

Darvos was arrested or confined; there currently wasn’t really a functioning government. He had apparently seized power when the fleeing orcs stopped for supplies and were refused. They had loudly informed the town of what was going to happen when they came back.

Convincing himself that if they just complied everything was going to be okay, Darvos had executed a simple coup with some of the least bright citizens. It didn’t go over well with most of the population who were already pretty convinced they were dead men, but they had their own problems.

Mainly, getting the heck out of Dodge, or in this case, Hildar.

The knight returning with the full resistance ‘army’ convinced some of the citizens to listen, and I was rapidly dragged back to the large manor house with Zahir in tow.

“Greetings, it is good to see that you are both… okay,” I said looking at Meridith, who was okay, and Kent who was not. He had tried to be a hero and that got him struck with a pipe. The result was eye popping.

Literally.

“I’m gonna kill him,” said Kent from his seat next to the desk. He wasn’t going to be standing up soon, the damage was quite serious. “Did you find that potion trainer?”

“No, I believe they were taken with the orcs,” I said.

“That checks out,” said Merideth. “There were four humans in the mix, none of them looked happy to be there.”

“Those were our skill trainers,” I said and considered the options. “How well guarded were they?”

“Twenty big orcs, each the size of the two elites you fought here,” said Merideth. I considered that and dismissed it. I might be able to do as many as three at once, and that would be a feat. I wasn’t going against twenty.

I didn’t even ask about Kilva. She didn’t like humans to look at her and if there was a wagon, she would be in it.

“They are going to Drek?” I asked, considering the roads.

“Beyond, most likely, they had raised the blue flag, it means they are transporting females,” said Merideth. “At least that is the rumor.”

“There was one female in Kobla’s fort,” I said, nodding.

“You saw a female?” asked Kent, the curiosity overcoming the pain momentarily.

“Yes, she was vicious, articulate, and cunning,” I said. “Also racist against humans on a whole different level than the regular orcs. She only wanted to speak in orc and insulted me constantly for having the gall to speak her language.”

“Where did you learn the orc language?” asked Zahir. “I don’t know any human who knows more than a handful of words in that throat tearing language.”

I cleared my throat and responded as Sir Yorick, “I’m a knight?”

Kent nodded. “That has to be the single best explanation for someone knowing something they absolutely shouldn’t know.”

“Was there a knight school, did you receive the knowledge magically?” asked Merideth.

“It is a secret,” I said. “Should our methods be common knowledge, the enemy might work to bypass it.”

Meridith got ready to argue, then realized it was pointless. “A knight will never give up his secrets.”

“Nope,” I said, Justice had been extremely clear on that. Plus, I had no idea how he’d learned the language.

“Fine, General Zahir, seeing as we are all in the pot together, what is the plan?” asked Merideth and I stepped back, waiting to hear the former leader of the resistance explain her plan to take back Kenin. She looked at me, like a traitor.

“Oh no, I believe the knight should be the one to explain this brilliant strategic maneuver,” she said. “I will be discussing the tactics of the situation.”

Of course, I had been planning for this. As soon as Justice prodded me into my plan, he spent the rest of the trip discussing what I’d need to be successful. He was like a podcast of horrible military history. This rebellion was not his first rodeo, and he knew lots of ways to do stupid things like assault fortresses. Going through his daily blast of knight led rebellions, I had a pretty good idea of what to do.

Summoning the map, I slammed it down on the desk. The women were both impressed, but not Kent. He couldn’t see squat.

“As you see, Kenin is located northeast of the crossroads, which is well beyond where Drek is located. While I was at Drek, several banners of orcs attacked, indicating there is friction between Kobla and his brother. However, given that Corgo only deployed two banners it seems to me that either he doesn’t have a lot left in the chest, or it was a failed scouting expedition.”

Everyone was following so far, and what I was saying wasn’t exactly some brilliant military read on the situation. There had been troops, they left.

“Kenin is a three day march from Drek, so if there were any scouts left, they have undoubtedly returned and reported that the camp was in a state of revolt, however the problem there is that those people have all left and marched south.”

Zahir looked startled. “Towards Nordrin, that place can handle that many?”

“Yes, as the farthest frontier town they will have a massive warchest of supplies as well as a group of highly motivated ex-slaves with no desire to return to the tender ministrations of the orcs,” I said.

“What is past Nordrin?” asked Kent.

“Nothing of value,” I replied, and Zahir eyed me. “Trees, poison ivy, and spiders.”

“Seriously?” asked Merideth.

“That’s pretty much the sum of it. The town was built in Nordrin’s gap, it is one of the few passages into the Dark Woods.”

The entire southern part of the map was the Dark Woods, a massive, Amazonian-sized forest that seemed to cover as far down as one might hope. There wasn’t any ‘map’ farther south, so either the kingdom hadn’t tried, or the ocean was just as dangerous.

On the map, Nordrin was at least ten miles into the forest, surrounded on all sides. The trees weren’t much of a problem, it was the massive colonies of spiders everywhere. Logging anything but the absolute edges was suicide, and even those weren’t safe.

“So how do we take Kenin?” asked Kent.

“I will have to scout. I have several plans, but the rear of the fortress should be similar to Kobla’s fortress,” I said. “It doesn’t look like they were too original when designing the place.”

Zahir looked at me as if deciding something, then nodded to herself.

“They serve the same purpose, but Kenin’s Folly is on a whole different scale,” said Zahir. “That fort was built back during the rebellion of Lord Kenin. He controlled these lands and built the fortress to keep the king out.”

“And it was folly to try?” I asked.

“That is what the bards have sung for generations. Kenin couldn’t stand against the king’s mighty army and his fortress was overtaken in a night, but that is not the actual reason.” Zahir smiled. “It is called Kenin’s Folly because there was a mistake that renders the fortress entirely vulnerable to assault, if you attack from the southern side of the mountains.”

Zahir pulled out a sheet of parchment and started drawing on it. “Kenin’s fortress is large, covering the width of the gap unlike Kobla’s fort. Kenin had a problem though, there are caves, lots of them, and most are totally unknown.”

“The king sent in a strike force?” I asked.

“Yes, while most of the caves are unknown, the king knew of a cave that led directly underneath the castle. He sent an elite detachment of skill users who were able to entirely avoid the defenses,” said Zahir.

“And do you know where that cave is?” I asked.

“Yes and no. I know where it was, but the king collapsed the cave so the fortress couldn’t be retaken from him,” said Zahir. “They were always finding and filling caves under the fortress, until it didn’t matter anymore because the orcs took it.”

“They took it through siege?”

“You don’t know what the orcs were like twenty years ago, Sir Knight, they were a whole different beast,” said Zahir. Meridith nodded.

“The fat one you killed took this town more or less by himself, while my father and the town guard were waiting for him. Orcs and their glowing red eyes were tales to scare your children with,” said Merideth.

“I’ve never seen one with glowing eyes,” said Kent.

“Be thankful for that,” said Zahir. “Once I thought I saw Kobla’s eyes turn, but it didn’t last. That was when he was stomping all of the king’s hand picked guards after we sent the princess away.”

“She lives,” asked Merideth.

“Apparently, I have yet to see for myself, but this knight swears to it,” said Zahir. “I can say she did not die like her brother when we fought the orcs in the last battle.”

“I’m surprised you let the prince fight, he was so young,” said Merideth.

“I didn’t, I armed him, but he was supposed to depart if the battle went poorly. It went very poorly. I had four of the king’s guard watching over him. Each was among the best remaining skill users in the kingdom. They all perished moments before the prince did,” she said finally.

The room was quiet for a moment.

“This is why everyone who already fought the orcs are concerned about trying it again,” said Zahir.

There was genuine fear in everyone’s eyes. Eye, in Kent’s case. They’d fought these monsters before and lost. I needed to give them a chance to win.

“I will lead every charge,” I said. That wasn’t enough. “I swear upon my sword, that I shall bring Justice to these orcs.”

“We’re going to need more than that,” said Merideth.

“I swear I will take the fortress,” I offered. That was pretty much my quest, and that didn’t look effective either.

“We could train them in combat skills,” said Justice.

“You can do that?” I asked.

“Yes, I can train anyone in a skill that I possess, I just don’t like to advertise that fact. Most people are less effective with them than the knights,” said Justice. “Just have them kneel and tap me on both of their shoulders while thinking of a skill.”

I looked back at Merideth who was still waiting. “Would everyone having skills help?”

27

THE ARMY OF LIBERATION

“Kneel,” I said, and Elana glared at me.

“I will bite you in the—” she began.

“No, to receive a skill,” I said.

She stared, then looked at her mother and Merideth. They shrugged, which I’ve been told is a great confidence booster. Elana dropped to her knees and glared at me.

“Repeat after me, I humbly accept this skill,” I began. Elana repeated after me. “In the name of Justice.” I got through the second part without groaning.

“In the name of Justice,” said Elana. She swayed for a second then stood up. “I feel amazing.”

“I have granted you the skill Dexterity. It will allow you to become even more accurate,” I said.

She pulled out her bow and looked at a target nearby. She drew an arrow and loosed it, the shot was slightly off center. This wasn’t a good start. Then she burned Dexterity and rapidly shot two more arrows, each splitting the arrow already in the target.

“Holy shit,” said Zahir. “Skill training usually takes weeks and requires one on one training. Can you do this to everyone?”

“Not everyone will be compatible with Dexterity, but I have more than one skill,” I said.

Justice could only grant combat skills, which meant everyone got a lot more lethal. Most people just received Power or Dexterity. Those were the good ones and worked the best in most situations. Some weren’t able to take any skills, that was due to their stats or level or something that Justice didn’t key me in on, but there were others.

“I feel like I could take on a knight,” said Bella as she winked at me. Zahir looked at me sideways. I was thinking about taking her up on her offer when a wooden sword was tossed into my hands. Bella was waving around her own sword confidently.

“What skill did you grant her?” I said, thrusting Justice into his new ‘scabbard.’ A simple loop of leather on my belt. We both hated it and I had to leave my hand on him to communicate.

“Swordsmen, or Swordswoman I suppose, I usually just call it Swords,” said Justice.

“How come she can learn an advanced skill to start?” I asked. “I want to learn Swords!”

“Not everyone has to start with the basic skills, someone with an aptitude can learn a skill regardless of their supporting skills,” said Justice. “Also, she is a swordsmith, they are allowed to take the skill as part of their class.”

As I thought about that, Bella came in swinging. She was very good at the sword. This was not her first day wielding the thing, and this was not her first time coming up against someone also wielding a sword. In fact, if not for the passive Dexterity and Power skills backing me up, she would have nailed me several times.

But I had those and as she went for a high strike, I caught her under her guard on the forearm. She yelped and pulled back her wrist, feigning injury. She was too powerfully built for that little tap to hurt over much. When she realized her trick failed, she stopped feigning her injury and lunged again.

Suddenly she was faster, much faster, and her sword was in every place I didn’t want it to be. I burned Dexterity, but that wasn’t enough because her strikes were too powerful, so I also burned Power. Together I was able to lock blades with her and twist around her wrists until the blade fell from her hands.

“You win,” said Bella, smiling at me with her dimple showing, and the dagger at her belt which was clearly close enough at hand that she could have easily grabbed it. That was slightly disturbing, assuming you liked to keep your guts in.

She left and I had questions.

“So some people can learn advanced skills to start because of their class?” I asked.

“Of course, Squire, that is how things work. Though in truth she is a very low rank in her Sword Smithing,” said Justice. “I can tell these things, due to my special connection to swords.”

“Because you are a sword?” I asked.

“Well, I’m not a plowshare.”

“I noticed that other people’s Dexterity skill didn’t seem as effective as mine even from the start,” I said.

“That is because you are a knight, your skills are amplified by your noble nature,” said Justice.

“Really?”

“Squire, you are simply a less common individual who has a higher capacity for abilities than most. You immediately unlocked both basic abilities for a skill, Elana only has the ability to burn Dexterity at the moment, she won’t gain the passive increase you started with until rank 3. Further, you also gain another ability when you reach rank 5, she doesn’t until rank 10 when the skill upgrades.”

“And the skills?” I asked.

“Knightly skills, of which all of your active slots contain, are about double the effectiveness of normal skill slots,” said Justice. “If you possessed the Sword skill, you would be even more effective than Bella!”

“That’s great. I didn’t level up, but what are my skills looking like?” I asked, bringing up the menu.

Power, Initiate rank 4: Your strikes will be 40% more powerful, additionally you can burn stamina to briefly increase your weapon strikes impact by 80%.

Dexterity, Initiate rank 5: You are 50% more mobile, you can burn one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 90%.

Conditioning, Initiate rank 3: You tire 30% less. You recover your first point of stamina in 13 seconds.

“Strange, Conditioning seems to be leveling more quickly than I’d expect,” I said.

“That is because you have two skills feeding it,” said Justice. “Every time you burn Stamina that skill advances, and the more dire the situation the more rapidly it does so. Given your current proclivity for nearly getting us both killed, it should be advancing quickly.”

“Why didn’t I take it first then?” I asked.

“The corps discovered that Conditioning ranks up fastest when used in your current configuration. If you started with it, the level would be nearly the same and you would have most likely succumbed to your earlier enemies,” said Justice.

“Okay, what about Dexterity, I thought you said something happened at rank 5?”

“It does, are you ready for your new power!” said Justice in a way that made me confident that I wasn’t. Then the sword started glowing, causing my belt to smoke. Justice was currently hanging naked down my leg with the hilt held up in a loop. It was stupid and dangerous, but I didn’t have a scabbard. “Quickly, draw me lest your pants be destroyed!”

I groaned and drew the sword. Power flooded into me as I held aloft my Magic Sword. I flinched, but aside from the sudden burst of power, not much seemed different. “I’m surprised I wasn’t struck by lightning,” I said.

“That happens at level 10,” said Justice. “You can examine your new power now!”

Dexterity, Initiate rank 5: You are 50% more mobile, you can burn one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 90%. You can exhaust one stamina to avoid a strike.

“Exhaust?” I asked.

“That is a state more used than just burned, it takes ten times as long to recover,” said Justice.

“So over two minutes for my first point and five minutes for each extra point,” I whistled. “Steep, but it looks like they recover separately?”

“Yes, and it will allow you to avoid a strike that is aimed at your vitals,” said Justice, giving me a moment to process his decision. “You keep getting your ass kicked by nearly everyone, so I was hoping this selection would prevent that somewhat.”

“There were more choices?” I asked.

“Certainly, but as your trusty sword and mentor, I chose the best one,” said Justice.

I could argue that, but sadly he wasn’t terrible at this job, and I certainly didn’t know what I was doing. “I’d at least like to see the choices next time, to understand why you chose this power.”

“Good idea, by the time you are a knight you will be choosing all of your own abilities, but as a squire it is my duty to ensure you are given the best selection to ensure you make it to knighthood,” said Justice.

Justice was still picking a power set for me that he thought would give me the highest chance of survival while being effective enough to level up fastest. I might have some influence on the skill upgrades if I begged, but Justice was going to do what he thought best. Given that he had a much better knowledge of the system here, I suspected that was probably in my best interest. Maybe.

Either that or the sword was setting me up. Who could tell?

I was nowhere near level four yet, and I suspected my lack of involvement in the battle at Kobla’s fortress was to blame. I checked on my magical skills and found that Magical Strike was nearly rank 2.

“That’s at 99%,” I said.

“Well over 99%,” replied Justice. “You have been doing good!”

“Can I train my Mana skills?” I asked, considering my options.

“For Magical Strike to gain significant advancement, you will need to use it upon living targets who are hostile to you,” said Justice uneasily. “The stronger and more powerful the better.”

“We both know I only need a few more points,” I said. Justice got cold.

“It is not dignified,” said Justice.

“I’ll take undignified. I only need a bit more to get it to the next rank,” I said. Justice said nothing for several seconds as we walked back to the orc forge. Finally, he relented.

“We can do the rock thing again,” Justice said sourly.

“Only a little,” I said, gesturing toward a boulder near the smithy. Someone had been busy, there was now a sign over the door that read Bella’s Smithy. I found the rock quickly enough and drew Justice from my belt loop.

“This is so undignified,” groaned Justice. “Just cast the spell and start swinging, you are very close, otherwise I wouldn’t allow this.”

“You can deny me use of you?” I asked. A flicker of power ran into my hand, burning it. “Because you are my sword, and I wouldn’t dare to use you without your consent.” He could carbonize orcs, and I didn’t suspect I was made of tougher stuff than them.

“We’ll hit it until you level, then stop,” I said. Justice seemed mollified. The rock was very stone faced, though it had its faults. I didn’t know about attacking this rock though, it had such ‘sedimental’ value.

“Are you going to start?” grumbled Justice.

“The great conjunction comes. May the quartz be with us,” I said and cast Magical Strike, slamming the sword on the rock. It carved out a near inch deep gash. If you have never hit rock with a sword before, that’s super impressive.

“Is my Mana recovering faster?” I asked, checking the point. It used to take an hour to fully recover, but now it fully recovered every thirty minutes, a vast improvement.

“Yes, you have become more comfortable with your Mana, the recovery process will get faster every few levels until it peaks out at ten minutes a point. Right now, you should recover a point every fifteen minutes.”

I continued pounding on the rock for an hour. To be more specific, I pounded on the rock for twelve seconds out of that hour, but after the four casting of Magical Strike, my last slash gouged nearly two inches deep in the boulder and snapped the rock in half.

“You have leveled up, stop now,” said Justice.

“That was unsatisfying,” I said. All of that work beating a rock had netted me around .1% of my Magical Strike skill. This place really liked you to do things in real world situations, not training.

Training was still useful for properly learning how to employ what you had. I wouldn’t be nearly as effective with Justice if I hadn’t started out just attacking slow moving zombies while Justice yelled at me for hours, but after you got that down, using the skill in combat was the only way to improve it.

The average gym on Exagin would be a rather boring place, considering everything had to be trained in the field.

“Now that we are prepared for combat, we should march the army forward and do battle with the orcs,” said Justice.

“It’s dark out, and I don’t think we’ve given Zahir enough time to get the soldiers ready,” I said.

“I forgot you flesh sacks need sleep,” said Justice. “I suppose you want to rest as well?”

“Or I could craft some sleeves and legs for my armor,” I said, stepping into the smithy, which was occupied. There were several finely crafted swords against the wall already and sheaths for each blade. Bella looked up from her dinner and gestured to my sword.

“Let me see it,” she said, reaching below the worktable.

“‘Let me see it?’ Like a common blade? I think not. She doesn’t have any idea what she is doing,” said Justice as Bella pulled out several stones, a rag, and several jars of oils. “On the other hand, you should trust your allies!”

“Sword polish?” I asked.

“You do not take care of that work of art,” she said, pulling out a sharpening stone and some sort of oil.

“I know, right? A squire, not taking care of his equipment. She looks like she has powerful hands,” said Justice, who was so full of my Mana at the moment I could hear him deep in my own thoughts. I learned a few things about sword sharpening.

First off, Justice didn’t need one. He was a Magical Sword, his edge stayed perpetually sharp. There was one tiny flaw in the blade, but even that nick was sharp. I was going to ask about that, when she started polishing properly.

I learned then and there, Justice liked being polished, entirely too much.

“Right there,” declared the sword. “So good!”

“There is a bit of crud on the edge here,” said Bella, vigorously wiping the edge with another stone. “And could you make this thing stop quivering?”

“I cannot,” I said, trying to block out Justice.

“Why are you facing the wall?” she asked as I heard a cloth being pulled out.

“The minx has silk. Forgemasters preserve me!” moaned Justice.

“It is custom, when other people are handling my weapon,” I said.

“So you feel awkward if someone else touches your blade,” she said, and I heard a slow grinding as she took a stone down the edge of the blade to polish it.

“Control, sword, you have slain dragons,” moaned Justice.

“It is very awkward,” I said.

“Do you want me to stop,” she said, stopping as she was concerned she might damage him.

“NOOOOO!” screamed Justice. “I was so close.”

“Can I help pick out my rank bonus with the Power skill?” I mentally asked.

“Anything, please!” begged the sword.

“Please finish. Really go to town on Justice, I want that blade to shine,” I said, turning around and nodding at Bella, who had a bit of polish on her nose. I tapped mine to indicate the issue.

“I know, it just splatters everywhere if you’re doing it right,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

Fortunately for all, Justice was a single sword and of a finite size, so there was an ending to this process. She finished up and my exhausted, but happy, sword was dropped back into a new scabbard. I sat him on a table at the edge of the room and cast Magical Strike on him so he could talk to me if needed.

I had him summon me up the gold from the destroyed lock and looked at the enchanted bits of metal.

“Ohh, what is that?” asked Bella, totally unaware that Justice had vowed to serve her needs for all eternity as long as she kept polishing him. Which she was going to have to because I wasn’t ever going to polish him myself.

“Magic gold,” I said, unsure of what magic gold meant.

“Oh, I see. Alchemically enchanted then used for a magical device of some sort,” she said. “You need special equipment to work it.”

“Crap,” I said.

“Which I so happen to have,” said Bella, grinning. “They found the crucible in the warlock’s room. Dad didn’t want it and I do more filigree work with plated gold anyway.”

“The orcs let you have gold?” I asked.

“The orcs don’t care about gold, or jewels, or money as we see it,” said Bella. “They care about land and duty. They care about you being where you are supposed to be and doing what you are supposed to do.”

“That’s not terrible,” I said.

“They also like to tell you what those are,” she said. “I had a brother, we were both training to be smiths. They decided there was one too many, so he was shipped off. Never saw him again.”

“They see humans as livestock,” I said.

“That’s probably the best description of our actual relationship I’ve heard,” said Bella. “Some of us might be more useful in a specific role, or more capable in one way or another, but in the end, they are just putting animals in the task they do best and disposing of the extras.”

“I wonder why they didn’t kill the resistance leaders?” I asked.

“Seriously? To the orcs being useless is a fate worse than death. They took the resistance, which was fighting against them, and bottled the leaders up for going on fifteen years now,” said Bella. “Can you imagine being able to change the world and losing that ability while being forced to watch everything you did be undone while you stood around uselessly?”

“That would break some people,” I said. I knew of some humans who watched everything they did get destroyed every day, and yet they still folded all the shirts like they were supposed to.

“It breaks orcs, they didn’t even care enough to realize that it wouldn’t break someone like Zahir,” said Bella.

I was less sure of that. Zahir was missing steps, but seemed dedicated to the cause, so I was content to let her continue running the resistance.

“In any case, let me see that gold,” said Bella, pulling out a crucible and placing it on the fire. The inside looked especially clean for something used to melt metals occasionally. We dropped in the gold and Bella pulled out a thin bar of metal and clipped off the end.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Lead, it oxidizes with the impurities in gold,” she said, wiping off her thumb and sliding a glove on. After several minutes, the gold parts melted down into a single mass and she pulled it out and poured it into a mold. Then she skimmed off the lead and other parts leaving a more or less pure chunk of gold behind.

“What are you trying to make?” she asked.

“I need a new scabbard,” I said. “My old scabbard had a gold inlay on the inside that touched my hip.”

“To conduct magic to or from the sword,” she asked, pulling down a well oiled scabbard from the wall. She measured Justice and put a mark on the end of the scabbard, which was several inches too long. Bella then fetched several pieces of leatherworking gear.

“Both,” I replied.

“Neat. That’s fairly easy to make. Gold conducts magical energy best and alchemical gold is the best gold for that,” she said, reaching into her tools and pulling out a hole punch. “You want to help, or you want me to do it?”

“I was going to do it,” I said.

“My workshop,” she said with a mischievous smile, snapping at me with her leatherworking punch. I backed down, suitably defeated.

Bella was very good at leatherworking on scabbards, because they were used with swords, and she was great with swords.

First, she cut down the existing scabbard so it was a perfect fit for Justice. Then Bella took some of the gold and made a thin, durable mounting that sat across the region between the hilt and the sword. That gold was placed in the interior of the scabbard and punched through to the exterior where the scabbard sat on my hip. Then she grabbed a belt and measured my waist before attaching the scabbard.

The new scabbard looked sharp and was well fitted. Even better, it was comfortable to wear. Even more so than the previous scabbard.

Then Bella twisted the scabbard on the belt and the whole thing came off. I blinked several times. “It’s magnetic?”

“Magical,” said Bella. “Alchemical gold naturally has a property similar to magnetism, but you don’t see it very often. I noticed that was how your original scabbard was built.”

I blinked several times. “Wait, how does the scabbard and belt work when I summon my armor.”

“I banish the belt and attach the scabbard directly to the armor,” said Justice lazily.

I summoned my armor, which was easy to do while Justice was practically zonked out. The belt vanished and the scabbard locked onto the side of the armor. Bella examined that.

“Do you want the alchemical gold here too, so you have a better connection?” she asked.

“Of course,” I replied looking at where the gold was literally pressing into the metal of the armor and locking on like a magnet. I grabbed and pulled on the scabbard several times, and while I could wiggle it, the gold stayed in the same spot.

Bella held out her hand for the scabbard and I kind of concentrated on removing it.

“You have to focus more, Squire,” said Justice lazily.

I focused, wanting nothing more than the sword to come loose and the magnet popped. The scabbard came loose, and Bella marked a point in the armor with a tool.

“Lose the pants,” she said. I summoned the armor to her mannequin, and she began working on the point where the scabbard attached. She ended up melting the gold into thin sheets and tapping the filigree onto the necessary parts of the armor.

When I summoned the pants back on, to her regret, the sword attached to the armor which locked into the belt. I could hear Justice snoring. That was a much better connection than previously. I wondered what else I could do with that.

“And just to be nice, that plate detaches and can be easily attached to a different suit of armor if you ever upgrade,” said Bella. Glancing at how it interfaced with my belt, I was impressed with the modular design.

“Thank you, this is great,” I said.

“Worthy of a workshop,” said Bella, holding out her hands. “Alright, that was the functional stuff, but I’m not letting you leave here with a plain scabbard.”

Placing the armor back into storage, I removed the scabbard and handed it back over to Bella. She got to work, tapping the leather on the scabbard with several tools, then working on it with more gold.

“There was some gold left over, so I made a dragon on the front. Same effect though, so you can grab the sword anywhere around there and charge it,” said Bella.

“Excellent,” I said.

“I still have a bit left over. I could make you some prongs to fit the slots for the missing gems on the blade,” she said. “Assuming you have some magical gems.”

Looking over at Justice’s hilt, I knew he had two gems already, both blue as in the same color of the magic he cast on me. The gems weren’t large, but they were sparkly.

“Justice?” I asked.

“Yes,” moaned the sword dreamily.

“How do magic gems work?” I asked.

“They are the source of my magical power, I have two presently. One is capable of casting two spells, Cleanse and Scan, the other is just for Healing. Combined they give me three points of Mana.”

I looked back at Bella. “Yeah, make the prongs.”

She nodded and sat down at a table where there were lots of very small tools for very precise things. “I haven’t really worked on many magical weapons before, you should be able to mount these by just attaching them at the correct points. The gem is going to be the hard part.”

“I take it the orcs confiscated those?” I asked.

“They were weapons, so yes, and they aren’t of much use for weapons so most of them went to the breakers,” she said absently while she formed the metal the way she needed it. “The only place you really see them is in magical staffs. Shame the warlock’s staff is missing. I’m sure it had a really nice one.”

I tapped Justice and the staff appeared in my hand.

Bella blinked, shrugged, and then handed me a very mean-looking knife.

I sat down and studied the staff, which was a nasty thing to begin with. I didn’t like the spells that were on it, but a single point of Mana could make a difference. As I poked into the wooden staff repeatedly, I heard a clink as the dagger found a gem.

The staff was durable, but not unbelievably so. It required some sawing and prying, but eventually the gem popped out, at which point the staff became far more brittle. I moved to throw it into the fireplace, but Bella glared at me.

“Get that out of my shop.”

I took the stick and dropped it back into storage, examining the gemstone in the light. It looked, fiery?

Almost an hour had passed by the time Bella finished both sets of prongs. She glanced over at the sword and got ready to attach them, but I told her to wait and picked up the sword.

“Justice, are you awake yet?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, after a good polish I get tired,” said the sword, yawning. “What have you been up to?”

“Better scabbard, and Bella made you some prongs for your two missing gems,” I said.

“Thank her for me, I was feeling naked without those,” said Justice.

“How did you lose those?” I asked.

“That is a secret for Magic Swords alone,” said Justice, who was usually way more talkative than that.

I let it pass, for now, everyone needed a few secrets. “I pried this gemstone out of the staff, is it okay to use?”

“Yes,” said Justice. “Place it into the socket.”

“But it was used for evil magic, and had evil spells in it,” I said.

“Don’t worry, I can handle it,” said Justice.

I tapped Bella on the shoulder and dropped the gem into her palm. She sat it in a very precise spot in her workspace then set the first prong in place. There was a tiny unnatural click as she did so. Bella had a tool in hand that looked like a primitive attempt at a soldering iron, and she pulled it back unused. She tapped the soft golden prong with her tiny hammer. It was attached and hard as steel.

She frowned, glaring at her tools. “That’s just cheating.”

“It is a Magical Sword,” I said.

She rapidly set the other prongs in place, each audibly clicking into their spots before taking the gemstone. She examined the prongs and tapped one with her pliers. Then she squeezed the small golden end, then again with more force. “Well, I need you to spread this a bit.”

Justice complied and she put the gem in place.

“I knew it!” she said, smiling at me in triumph. “Your sword is an intelligent Magical Sword.”

“You couldn’t sit there quietly and let her bedazzle you?” I grumbled.

“She tricked me, her keen intellect is troublesome,” said Justice. “I fear we may have to do something to preserve my secret, as much as it pains me.”

“What are your terms?” I asked.

“I get to study your sword,” she said.

“I shall subject myself to no such ordeal!” bellowed Justice.

“And keep him polished. You do not care for that sword properly,” she said.

“Well, our goose is cooked. I suppose we have to concede to her demands,” said Justice. “Alas, there is no other way. If I must, I will relent to another polishing.”

“Uh huh. Sure, but you have to keep it secret,” I said. “Your word.”

Bella looked up at me and nodded. “You know I can keep a secret.”

“Thank you,” I replied and stood up.

“Oh, you aren’t leaving yet,” she smiled. “I believe I did quite a bit of work for you, and you haven’t paid me yet.”

“What did you have in mind?” I said, dropping Justice into his new scabbard.

She bit her lip. “There are some heavy objects in the back, I’ll need your help to get them down.”

“Out of coffee?” I asked.

“What is coffee?” she replied, removing her apron and stepping into the back room. “And bring the sword.”

28

MOVING OUT

I was tricked. There was no shelf. Her room was back there. There was a small counter for fixing food and a bed. Technically there was a warm bottle of wine or two, but they didn’t last very long. Maybe three. Some time the next morning there was a pounding on the door.

“Closed!” yelled Bella.

“The knight is missing,” yelled a voice.

I was unceremoniously kicked out of bed. I grabbed Justice and concentrated. My clothes formed around me, and the effects of the alcohol washed away. Fully dressed and ready for the day, I walked over to the door.

It was good to be the knight.

Elana glared at me as I opened the door, shook her head, and walked out of the forge.

“We are leaving, Sir Knight,” she said as she stepped out.

“Shit, I wanted to do something,” I grunted.

“You did,” yawned Bella.

“No, not that, my armor,” I said.

“Papa said something about that. Swing by his forge on the way out,” said Bella who slumped back into bed. “I have to get up and I don’t want you to see me naked.”

“But?” I began and she nakedly threw a pillow at me.

I stepped out of the room happy as a clam. I should have felt terrible given how little sleep I’d gotten. Plus, I knew what cheap wine did to a person and I’d drank at least three bottles, maybe four. Cleanse was a great spell.

Smiling like an idiot, I walked down the alley to another alley which led to an alley that ended up in the main square. I’d have taken the road, but it winded just about everywhere.

“Did you get that out of your system?” said Justice.

“Yes,” I grunted.

“Good, it is shameful when a knight loses control as you did,” said Justice.

“I don’t want to hear about it after that polishing,” I said, moving past a collapsed chimney. Damn orcs.

“Swords have needs too,” said Justice. He was quiet for a few seconds, and I was trying to figure out if he was embarrassed or angry.

“So, what does the new gem do?” I asked.

“Nothing, at the moment,” said Justice.

“What about the evil magic that was in it?” I asked.

“Evil magic, what, no… I am being overpowered by dark forces,” spat Justice. The blade trembled and the red gem glowed brightly.

“Not funny,” I said.

“Had to try,” said Justice, reducing the brightness of the gem back to normal. “No, what is the term… Erased? Formatted? Yes, I formatted the gem back to a neutral state.”

“You know the term formatted,” I said.

“Henry had a computer. I logged into the internet once, with his help,” said Justice. “There were lots of naked pictures there. Swords without scabbards, scandalous.”

“You’re outside your scabbard all the time,” I said.

“When you are holding me, my dignity is intact, nothing is as depressing as a blade just sitting there,” said Justice. I decided not to mention swords mounted on walls to him, that was probably pornographic.

Swordographic?

“What can we do with the gem?” I asked.

“At the most basic level, a magical gemstone can hold one point of Mana for a blade. At minimum, I will use it for that. If I find a new spell, I can imprint it into the stone and have a new spell.”

“You only had two gems, how did you have room for Scan?” I asked.

“If a magical gemstone remains on my hilt long enough it will expand, when it reaches the maximum potency, I can learn an empowered version of the spell, or imprint a second spell,” said Justice.

Justice had two blue stones near the top of his hilt, and one red gem on the bottom. There was also an empty slot.

“Why would there be empty slots?” I asked.

“If the need is great, I can drain a gem to grant myself a significant amount of Mana even if I am depleted,” said Justice. “I must be careful though, if I draw too harshly the gem will be destroyed.”

“Can you format an existing spell?” I asked.

“Why would I? My selection is perfect,” said Justice.

“I was just thinking that we could have used the spells on that gemstone until you figured out a better one,” I said.

“No luck, I am a sword, I can only learn sword spells. Those were staff spells,” said Justice.

“Of course, why didn’t I think of that,” I said.

“Because you are a person, not a sword,” replied Justice.

I chuckled. Justice was strange, not really human, but close. That made him a bit odder than I suspected he realized. “Shame the stones don’t have a default spell.”

“A default spell, that would be silly. But it does have a base effect. For a ruby that is fire, and fire is useless against swords,” said Justice.

“Works great on people though,” I said.

“I suppose, but people are not swords,” said Justice.

“I don’t recall fighting any swords,” I said.

“We fight weapons all the time, protecting their wielders,” said Justice.

“Most of those aren’t intelligent weapons. In fact, I don’t think any of them were,” I said.

Justice considered that. “Point. I will make myself burn when appropriate.”

“What’s the base effect on the other gems?” I asked.

“Sapphire’s base effect is moisture, I can make myself wet,” said Justice and the sword shuddered. I was keenly aware I was never going to see that feature in use.

“Let’s see fire,” I said. I took the sword out of the sheath and held it aloft, which was turning out to be Justice’s favorite pose. The sword sparked and was ablaze. A lot. I would expect holding that much fire in the palm of my hand to be painful, but it wasn’t. I slowly reached to touch the blade.

“The base effect will burn your hand,” said Justice and I yanked my hand away. I finished counting at fifteen when the flames died and then I held the back of my hand up to the blade. It was back to a normal temperature. The nearby walls were not, they felt like someone had lit a bonfire next to them, but I’d kept the weapon far enough away that nothing was burning. Smoking maybe, but not burning and that was okay.

Sheathing Justice, I waved at several small children and walked into the other smithy as several adults ran past me holding buckets. I scooted inside and walked over to the large blacksmith.

“You again,” he said gruffly as he carried a piece of armor over to the shelf from an armor dummy. All of his gear was gone. He was probably doing quite well considering.

“Yes, I was told by someone that you might have something for me?”

“Depends,” said the blacksmith, standing up to his full height. He was bigger than me, but not by much. Still, he was imposing enough with his massive arms crossed over his barrel chest. “What did you really do to my daughter?”

Aw, shit.

“Well, you see, there was a forge, the orc forge you told me about, and I needed to do work, and she supervised, and one thing led to another,” I said.

The large man nodded, unfolded his arms, and then patted me on the shoulder. “You really gave her that forge! Ha, I thought she was making it up. She’s been telling the whole town that the knight gave it to her as the right of conquest.”

“Of course, she’s very skilled. Did some work on my sword,” I said. “Polished it too, like a champ.”

The massive smith looked at me there. “That’s not an analogy for something, is it?”

I unsheathed Justice partially, so the brilliant shine could show. The smith nodded. “My baby angel is growing up. I’m so proud.”

“I don’t know your name, I’m Yorick, the knight,” I said.

“I’m Leopold, but most just call me Leo,” said Leo. “She had your measurements and told me your armor was substandard. I’d like to fix that. Can you bring it here?”

I tapped an empty dummy and my armor appeared. I could do that now without consulting Justice, I thought. That was interesting. The new scabbard had advantages.

“Frankensuit,” said Leo as he tapped the breastplate. “Heavy plating, not the best quenching. You used oil, you should have used water.”

“Yeah, they were cracking when I put it in water, so I switched to oil because it cooled them less quickly,” I said.

“You needed better water,” chuckled Leo, pulling out a bottle and handing it to me. “Alchemical treatment really gets the heat out while maintaining strength.”

“I’ve been told Alchemy is bad news,” I said.

“That’s just an old wive’s tale. Alchemy has a lot of uses when it comes to heat. You can make wetter water, or fire resistant oils to protect leather,” said Leo.

“That’s handy,” I said as the smith examined my armor.

“That arm and both legs are from different suits, I have a set ready,” said Leo, going to a shelf and pulling down several parts. I’d seen his work and wasn’t impressed, but obviously I was an idiot because this stuff looked much better. And had been finished for a while.

Eldron, Elana, and others were all wearing nicer gear than what I expected they would be. I glanced over at the arrowheads and recognized some that Elana used. “You don’t sell your best work in the shop.”

“All commissions here. I have some things up for show, of course, but those are just the rejects,” said Leo. “Plus, the orcs like to walk in and see a human smith failing to make weapons. I make a mean plow.”

We removed the arms and legs from my armor, they were attached by leather straps and rings. The actual shorts part of the armor was from the original suit. The legs had to be swapped out because the original wearer was a shortie and all the plates left unfortunately large gaps where I didn’t want them.

The new limbs for the armor were perfect, slotting in nicely. I returned the armor to my inventory and summoned it onto myself. I could tell instantly it was more comfortable, and that was before he adjusted it. Leo removed the chest plates and attached two new ones. They were thinner and lighter than mine, but still heavier than other plates I could see in the workshop.

“Might have to do some minor adjustments here,” said Leo as he pulled out a hammer and started tapping on my chest. “These plates are lighter and still stronger than the plates you were using.”

“Thank you,” I said, flexing my hands. The gauntlets were now mobile, this was a solid improvement all around.

“The palms and bottoms of the fingers are filigreed in alchemical gold, so if you find magical gloves the effects will bleed through,” said Leo. “You can thank my daughter for the work and the warlock for the gold.”

“That’s extremely impressive, you do really good work,” I said.

“Good,” said Leo as he reversed the hammer and tapped me none too gently on the codpiece. “If my little girl gets pregnant, I’ll pound this flat.”

“Understood, sir,” I said and promptly left the shop. Elana was there, glaring at me.

“Alright, have you done all your chores, are you ready to march with the army now or should we wait a bit longer for Sir Yorick to find another local floozie.”

“Hi,” waved Bella as she sauntered by, wearing an oversized pack. Her father stepped out of the smithy and looked fondly at his daughter.

“You make me proud,” he said as she gave him a big kiss on the cheek and continued for the town gate. He glared at me, then walked back into the shop.

“I think we’re good,” I replied and started walking. Elana followed behind me.

The town was still crowded, but the people were moving around with purpose.

“Any idea what they’re doing?” I asked.

“My Scan is not up to that level yet, it looks to me like they are organizing something, probably for the people outside,” said Justice.

“How many?” I asked as I stepped through the gate and spotted hundreds of people.

The wagons were about the only thing that remained the same. The non-combatants in the caravan either went into town or dispersed to the countryside. The fighters stayed, and some of those fighters had been children when they were captured. Others were more experienced.

There was more than that though. Lots of the people were dressed similarly to Elana, and she got many nods as I walked out with her trailing me. Her father was resting comfortably at the head of over a hundred bowmen. There were even more melee fighters, armored mostly with spears, and a smattering of other weapons.

“Your mother didn’t fight in the rear?” I asked as Zahir sat astride one of the orc horses, wearing full armor.

“No, General Zahir was in charge of fighting the orcs since before I was born,” said Elana. “Her nickname was Forester, whatever that means.” I hopped up onto my horse and trotted over next to the general.

“I was afraid you’d keep us until noon,” Zahir said.

“You could have left without me. I’d have caught up,” I replied.

“Hardly. These men only think we can win because of you,” said Zahir as she started trotting her horse.

“Now it is the time for speeches,” said Justice. “We should prepare a fancy one, about honor, and duty, and Justice!”

Someone yelled move out, and we did. With no speech, to Justice’s shock. I heard about that for the rest of the day.

29

RETURN TO THE CROSSROADS

“Who can motivate their men without speeches?” questioned Justice. All was not right in the world if he couldn’t pontificate about the merits of his amazing diction. I was still tuning him out. This was the fifteenth rant on lack of motivational speeches and how armies without speeches lost battles.

We spent the night in the field, a short distance from the ruins of Drek. Someone had swung by after we left and burned the place to the ground. There wasn’t much there to begin with, but now there was a burned pile of rubble surrounded by burned fields.

It was not a fun trip. Bella had been busy tending to everyone’s armor and gear that wasn’t travel ready, and there was a bunch of it. Zahir made it obvious she wanted a figurehead who was seen but not heard. Elana followed me around and tried not to glare.

It was super fun.

“Are you my bodyguard?” I asked.

“More like an attaché,” she replied. “In that I’m attached, because if I leave you alone you are going to find all the women in this camp and ravish them.”

“I don’t ravish,” I said. “I visit, like a gentleman.”

“Ha,” spat Elana. “You might be able to convince them with this whole Sir Yorick act of yours, but I see right through it.”

I didn’t respond to that. Sir Yorick was just an act. I couldn’t pull off that confident swagger without forcing myself and Elana could tell. She was annoying like that.

I rode comfortably for a few more minutes while Elana practiced riding. She finally got her confidence back and started talking again.

“You could have done a watch last night, Sir Yorick,” said Elana critically.

“Why, nothing hostile came within a mile of the camp,” I said.

“You don’t seriously have the power to search the area for danger,” Elana growled.

“How would I camp out by myself otherwise?” I asked.

“Hiding, like the rest of us.”

“Oh, that sounds dreadful,” I teased. “But there is a scout about a mile and a half that way.” I gestured into the distance.

“Do we have any scouts of our own out there?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

“Three, and they just got him. Do you want to ride out and check?”

I pressed my knees on my horse. He was bored so he instantly responded by speeding up and out of the formation. I savored my magical ring at moments like this. I easily rode over the ridges and through the grass. Elana was not that good on horseback, but when we got there, she had managed not to fall off. We’d ridden over one of the ridges that were in the grassland and found the scouts dragging back the body of an orc tied behind his horse.

Elana talked to the scouts, and I walked over to the dead orc. I searched his body, finding a small written note and several silver coins. I checked his eyes which looked normal and his fingers which didn’t have bow calluses.

“What are we thinking here?” I asked Justice.

“I don’t see anything special about him, the orders are just a basic search pattern and a pass for him to return from the field,” said Justice.

“Probably so they don’t think he’s a deserter,” I said, wondering.

Justice picked up on that. “What do you mean?”

“Normal grunt orc,” I said, examining the horse. It was a lighter breed, not a warhorse. Possibly useful for scouting, but it looked like more of a distance runner. Something felt fishy about this.

“Do you see an army, or other scouts?” I asked Justice as I lifted the corpse and casually placed it over the saddle like a bag of grain. I took a length of rope and tied him so that he wouldn’t fall off.

“No, and they shouldn’t be searching by themselves if they expect problems,” said Justice.

“Who were those orders made to?” I asked.

“It just says that the orc is on patrol and is required. The note is addressed from the commander,” said Justice.

“Whose symbol is that?” I said looking at the note. I was used to Kobla’s and Corgo’s symbols, but this one was different.

“That is strange,” said Justice. “I don’t know all of the sigils for the orcs, but this one looks pretty generic and is made from blue wax.”

“You take the body back, leave the horse at the camp and return here,” I said to one scout then gestured to the other two scouts. “You two, follow me.”

“What about me?” asked Elana.

“You are my attaché, you always follow me,” I chuckled and checked my minimap.

“He was cutting across, maybe to get to the army’s flank,” said Elana as I came to the top of a ridge.

“Maybe, but see the grass,” I said pointing to the next ridge where there was an obvious trampled section of grass in the distance. “He’s been moving in a straight line out of the sight of the road for a while.”

To be more clear, Justice pointed that out. I was a novice at determining what scouts were up to. I just happened to have a commentary track running in the background whenever it got quiet.

“Where did you see him?” I asked one of the scouts.

“Over there. He took a shot at Mitch, but I got him before he could take a second shot,” said the scout pointing up the path where they’d dragged the orc’s body. Mitch nodded, he was the tallest guy here by a lot, and his chest plate practically glinted in the sun.

“So he saw you first, makes sense. He was on horseback, so he’d have the height and it looks like you were right in front of him,” I said. With all the ridges that fit the evidence, if the ground was flatter, they’d have seen him a mile off.

A group of horses was loud, but this lone orc’s horse was light and running in grassland. That wouldn’t make much noise, and the constant wind causing the grass to sway was noisy enough to muffle most quiet sounds.

Justice spotted the orc’s ambush point, and I pointed. “There, that’s where he started shooting.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Elana.

“Whatever he dropped.” I knelt and let Justice Scan the area.

“You think he’s what? Not a scout?” asked Elana as she started searching. The other two scouts followed and started looking into the tall grass. She started processing what she was seeing. “A scout would be searching for enemies around an army, and there isn’t an orc army around here, so he can’t be a scout.”

“His armor is travel worn, like he hasn’t seen a good campsite in days,” I said. “This area is full of angry cats, he’d have to be checking for them constantly traveling by himself. That makes someone paranoid and tired.”

“He’s a messenger,” said Elana.

“The orc saw Mitch first right when he crossed the ridge, because Mitch is taller and wearing crappy armor for scouting,” I said. Mitch looked over and then pulled off his helmet. “He’ll go to Bella after this and get that taken care of.”

“And he didn’t know about Edwin and Jon,” said Elana. Jon nodded.

“They’re shorter, and both men were well armored for not standing out in the grass, so the tired orc saw Mitch and tried to shoot him. He missed and then took a shot to the side, that didn’t kill him.”

“No, sir. You gave me the Dexterity skill, and since he lived through the first shot, I shot him again like you said,” said Jon. Technically I said keep shooting the orcs until they were good and dead, but he understood.

“He’s a messenger holding a critical message and he doesn’t want that to fall into enemy hands, so while he’s running, he gets rid of the message,” I said looking around.

“Did he drop it?” asked Jon.

“No, he threw it,” I said.

“How do you know?” asked Elana.

“It’s right over there,” I said, pointing to a cylinder that Justice conveniently pointed out.

With the grass as high as it was, I had to walk over and grab the cylinder before Elana believed I saw it. Jon and Mitch believed instantly, because of course a knight could do that. I dropped the tube into my storage and let Justice peak at it.

“What does that say?” I asked.

“It is in Orcish, and is in a code,” said Justice.

“Can you figure it out?” I asked.

“Not at the moment. I’m still going through those books you told me to read. There are lots of complicated arcane rituals there and I need some time to process them,” said Justice.

“How long?” I asked.

“Several weeks, maybe longer, my mind is like steel, it is difficult to etch but what is placed there will always remain,” said Justice.

“Unless it rusts,” I grumbled.

“Perish the thought, you take that back!” said Justice.

“I’m sure you won’t rust,” I said. “Wait, if you can just remember where you left off, why don’t you do the cylinder first, it’s probably a higher priority.”

“Seriously, this book might have something to do with the fate of the world, what could be more pressing than that?”

“If the orcs are doing something, they could kill me and then you’d be stuck in a ditch somewhere,” I said and counted to three.

“The cylinder is full of a coded message, it would take me weeks to decrypt it,” began Justice.

“Anything would be useful,” I said.

“I was not finished, Squire,” said Justice. “Except, I have already decrypted similar messages in the past from orcs, and it uses a similar cipher. Plus, they used a common phrase in their language at the end. Evil dictators should learn to not end their secret messages with the same thing every time. Instead of taking weeks, the time will be much shorter.”

“Like how long?” I asked.

“I’m coming for you little brother, submit or die!” said Justice. “The message was short. There is a ring inside the tube as well, it has a skull on it with a thunderbolt beside it.”

“Like those raiders,” I said.

“Yes, like the banner the orcs at Drek were carrying,” said Justice.

“So Corgo, Kobla’s brother,” I said.

“That would seem to be accurate,” said Justice.

We stopped our horses at the head of the column and General Zahir rode over to us. “Report?”

“Our scouts were attacked by a messenger who was avoiding the road, we don’t think he was with anyone,” said Elana before I could speak. She continued, “He had a message, which the knight has.”

I produced the tube and handed it over. Zahir opened the tube and pulled out the ring and the note, then frowned.

“The ring is a signet ring from Corgo, this is an old orc method to show that the message is important. The cipher is not one we’ve ever cracked. It requires you to be able to read the orc language to even attempt it.”

“The knight can speak Orcish,” said Elana, looking at me.

“I already read the message,” I replied.

“Is it in a cipher?” asked Zahir.

“Yes, you are quite correct,” I replied, watching Elana’s emotions play out on her face. She was not happy that an enemy secret was going to remain uncovered, but also believed I was failing, so that part was good in her eyes. To Elana’s estimation, I could get knocked down a few pegs. “Would you like the literal or summary translation?”

“You cracked the cipher?” Zahir asked.

“I’m a knight, they used the phrase ‘Submit or Die’ which in Orcish is—” I began. Zahir cut me off.

“What is the full message?” she said, glaring at her daughter.

“I’m coming for you little brother, submit or die!” I said. “That’s actually pretty close to a literal translation.”

Zahir blinked at me. “Well, that explains why the king was so desperate to get a knight here.”

“Knights are always useful,” I replied. “Given the tone of the message, I’d expect a group of orcs to meet us here in the next day or so. Shall we prepare a welcome party?”

30

PREPARATIONS

We didn’t prepare the battle right there. Zahir didn’t like the terrain, so she sent Eldron off to find a better spot, which turned out to be nearly four miles down the road. There was a bluff overlooking the road that fit her strategy nicely, assuming of course the orcs would present themselves.

That was my job, because I was apparently a great scout. Elana and I started down the road, searching for orcs. We were moving cautiously, and I was under strict orders to kill no more than two. Elana could kill as many as she liked, lucky girl.

“That is not a bad idea. The orcs will become furious with one death, more so with two, but if large numbers are killed, they will become suspicious,” said Justice.

“And we don’t see them,” I replied as we continued riding.

“Not yet, but I have a feeling down in my tang,” said Justice.

“Is that like your taint?”

“Don’t be vulgar,” said Justice and I slowed my horse.

“What’s that?” I asked, veering off the road. I thought I saw movement in the distance, but it couldn’t have been much if Justice missed it. Then again, he had missed things before.

“I don’t see anything,” said Elana, bringing her bow to ready. I didn’t know how accurate she’d be on horseback, but she was improving. She hadn’t fallen off at all today, so far, but the day was young.

I unsheathed Justice, keeping him close. He was particularly shiny at the moment, and that meant he was likely to give away our position with a reflection, however his ‘reception’ got marginally better when he was out. If it were darker out I’d have held him aloft, but that wasn’t a good idea presently.

“Something,” I said, pointing to a ridge. The grass was moving strangely, though it might have been an animal. “Can you shoot that far?”

“I think so, right past the ridgeline,” said Elana, pulling back her bow and releasing a single arrow. It blasted off into the distance and thumped into the ground right behind the ridge. “Nothing?”

An orc stood up and took aim with a bow. But at that range, dodging the arrow was trivial. He had four buddies though, and they all stood in unison and started volleying arrows at us.

“They are starting to close,” said Justice.

“And we’re only allowed to kill two of them,” I said, causing Elana to frown at me.

“Only two? We should be escaping,” she replied, leading our horses behind a rise, making the orcs’ shots nearly impossible. They kept on trying anyway.

“We have horses and they’re at very long range. I don’t know why they’re even firing this many arrows with us behind the rise,” I started, but then I stopped worrying about the far away orcs and spotted another group of scouts sneaking up on us. “We’re made. Get ready to run.”

I summoned my bow and took aim at the lead orc just as he stood. I released before he was even fully drawn, and we were only about twenty paces distant. The arrow slammed into his chest.

He wasn’t much to be worried about, it was his four friends.

They were almost as quick off the draw, and we were a much closer target. Still, I pinwheeled my horse and started galloping away while Elana attempted to do the same. The difference was that I knew how to ride better than she did, and what we were doing was not simple. Elana tried to hold on, she really did, but we only made it about ten lengths before I heard her scream.

She fell, slamming to the ground.

I hesitated for an instant as the orcs ran forward. Militarily, I should go back to base to report. As a knight, I should save the girl. As someone who wasn’t an idiot, I should have left. Unfortunately, I had Justice, and he was a bad influence.

“We must save the girl,” said Justice. Yea, I already knew he was going to say that. I leapt off my horse and gracefully flipped before landing nearly on my face and rolling several times.

I pushed myself up just as an arrow whizzed past me. I summoned my armor and charged straight back toward the orcs. Only to realize my mistake. An arrow slammed into my newly replaced upper armor and shattered, but not without leaving a massive dent in the plate.

British longbows had a draw of around ninety pounds, maybe a bit more depending on the expert. An orcish bow was fifty percent greater than that. That caused a bunch of problems for me.

The arrows moved much faster than human arrows, and they hit harder. The orcs were not playing games with me. They were releasing arrows more or less at once in an attempt to catch me with something. They weren’t getting lucky, yet, but I was still just outside the distance they could strike me while I was mobile. With Dexterity, I was just too nimble to get struck by arrows until they were at a shorter range.

This was going to be bad. They waited to attack until they could volley at me when I was in their kill box.

“There’s no way I can close,” I said, dodging several more arrows.

“I have an idea,” said Justice. “Hold me up and close your eyes!”

“Shut your damn eyes!” I yelled to Elana as I ran past her holding my sword in a reverse grip.

I shoved my armored bracer against my visor as Justice glowed brightly, and then incredibly brightly. I was blinded and didn’t even see the arrow that slammed into my chest armor.

“Justice, I’ve been hit,” I grunted.

“What?” said Justice. Arcane fire still burned on the sword.

“I’m wounded!” I yelled.

“How did that happen? Pull out the arrow,” said Justice, and I grabbed and yanked. The new plate turned a lethal wound into something that was just going to require surgery later. Or a heal spell.

Justice healed me and I could see again while the orcs no longer could. After that it was a slaughter, I burned Dexterity to close and cleaved one orc’s legs off before decapitating another. After I was done playing around, I switched back to my normal grip and shattered the skulls of the remaining archers.

Ashoka told me wrong, reverse grip sucked. Everything you could do in reverse grip you could do in standard grip, but with the added benefit of more range.

I got back over to Elana who was struggling to stand. “My leg, I think it’s broken.”

“It is a bad sprain, but she cannot run,” said Justice.

“No time,” I said, grabbing her by the belt and lifting her onto my shoulder. If she was upset before, this was a new level of pissed off.

“I don’t need your help!” she screamed as I started running.

“They’ll kill you!” I yelled and continued running.

“Serpentine,” said Justice and I abruptly shifted my running pattern. These bastards weren’t going to Rikton me. Arrows pelted the ground next to me. Justice tried to tell me where the arrows were going to land, but even with the enhanced connection, I couldn’t process the information fast enough. Instead, I just burned Dexterity when he sounded desperate.

I only took two hits. One glanced off my unhindered shoulder, my pauldron took the hit admirably, meaning the arrow only went most of the way in. The second one I felt hit my armor the instant Elana screamed.

When I’d picked her up, I threw her head over my chest, so her legs were dangling behind me. That was distributing the weight oddly, but it also put the more vital parts of her in the front. Where the arrows had to go through me first. Her legs, which were already in bad shape, were less well shielded.

It took four strides before the arrow worked its way out of the back of my armor, and frankly, she got louder then. Fortunately, the arrow was keeping all the blood in, and they were using armor piercing arrows instead of broadheads.

Of course, her armor might have stopped a broadhead.

“She is bleeding but will survive if you can keep getting distance. You have dodged over thirty arrows so far and two of the archers are getting more arrows from the ones you killed,” said Justice.

“Where is the stupid horse?” I said as a possible alternative to bad news.

“Over the next ridge, he seems to be waiting on you,” said Justice.

“He is a dumb horse,” I said as I crossed the ridge and spotted my horse waiting patiently. I’d ‘owned’ him for about two days, and he already liked me better than his last owner. I didn’t know if that was because I gave excellent scritchy scratches or if it was because orcs treated horses like they did people. Badly.

In either case, I wasn’t about to waste time. I flipped Elana over and sat her on the back of the saddle. “No, you can’t send me to safety while you stay and fight!”

I hopped on the saddle in front of her. “Giddyup!”

Elana’s horse beat us to camp by several minutes. She’d taken an arrow to the side, and while that wasn’t lethal, it had scared the ever loving crap out of her. Someone was tending to her. My horse was tired, though more excited than anything. He wanted to go back into combat.

“What is your horse’s name, sir?” asked one of the ferriers.

Silver? Mandarb? Bill? Artax?

No, there was only one real choice. “Gringolet.”

“That’s weird,” said the ferrier.

“It’s a famous name for a knight’s horse, his nickname is Gringer,” I replied. People had no respect for classics. Of course, that was an Earth classic, and even there not many people would know the name of Lancelot’s horse. But he was a knight in fantasy, and I was a real knight.

My Magic Sword told me so.

“How many?” asked Zahir.

“Five, but in my defense, they were assholes,” I said, opening my hand and showing her a piece of clothing I’d torn from an orc. “They were wearing these.”

“The same skull and thunderbolt as before,” said Zahir. “This is the force we were expecting, and those are regular army patches. The main body is coming.”

“Then it all worked out,” I smiled.

“My daughter fell off her horse,” said Zahir. “You should have left her.”

“No knight would leave a comrade to the enemy while they drew breath,” I said. “Besides, I had a trick.”

“Yes, the flashing light,” said Zahir. “The medics tell me if we cover her eyes for several weeks, they are somewhat confident she won’t stay blind.”

“See, it all worked out.”

“Talk to me in several weeks,” said Zahir, walking over to check on her daughter and prepare the scouts.

“The light pulse may have been a bit brighter than I initially expected,” said Justice.

“Did you break the gem?” I grumbled.

“No, I have some skill at magic. I overloaded it and there was certainly a risk of damage, but the alternatives were worse,” said Justice.

“How long until it recovers?” I asked.

“A few days, at least,” said Justice. “Until then, I can use it sparingly.”

“Only in the cause of Justice?” I asked.

“You get it!”

I waited around for several minutes while Zahir and Elana talked. Some of the army was formed up around the road, but most of the archers and about half of the infantry were missing.

“That hill is new,” said Justice, and I glanced over at the nearly perfect grass covered ‘hill’ just off the road. Zahir must have ordered it built while we were off scouting. The ‘hill’ wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, and the grass it was made of would probably dry out in a day or so, but for now it would pass.

“That’s evil,” I said, realizing it would give a massive field of fire toward the orcs from an angle they weren’t expecting.

There was shouting and choice words were said. The general stormed off, leaving Elana in a tent.

“So, how did that go?” I asked.

“The general is disappointed. She feels that I should learn to ride a stupid horse like any capable adult could,” said Elana. “I risked the most important asset, and my only job was to stick close to you and make sure you didn’t do something stupid.”

“I view your job as mainly telling me I’m full of shit,” I said, looking around to make sure no one could hear me.

Elana snorted. “It hurts to laugh. You bruised all of my favorite organs.”

“How’s the leg?” I asked.

“Well, they removed the arrow, and it will recover, eventually,” she said. “The eyes they are less confident in.”

“You should make a potion. There is some nim root, blueberries, and carrots in that chest,” said Justice.

“Wait, you know how to do potions?” I asked. “I can do potions without the skill?”

“Yes, and yes. But you can only make mundane potions without the skill. They know how to make several healing potions here that are of middling utility, but if you want a classic healing potion that restores massive amounts of health you need the skill,” said Justice. “Likewise, there are potions that would clear up her eyes in a moment, though I can’t do those. I can make a potion that if applied topically will allow her eyes to recover faster and better than if there was no potion.”

“Because if you needed the skill to make armor, then there wouldn’t be any armorers,” I said, digging up the components from the chest. There was a mortar and pestle nearby, and I cut and mixed the ingredients together.

“Yes, take Bella. She is a swordsmith, a noble class, and she is skilled in the creation of swords. Yet she lacks the Sword Smithing skill. Her class grants her a general buff to sword making, but without a swordsmith trainer, she will never realize her potential.”

“And you can’t grant her that, because?” I asked.

“I am only at Trained in the few crafting skills I know. As a weapon, it is challenging for me to learn such things,” said Justice.

“Is there any way to learn the potions skill without a trainer?” I asked, mixing the potion.

“Not likely, if one could just learn the supernatural powers of a skill unlock without a trainer, then everyone would be trained in skills,” said Justice. “No, you must find a trainer who can impart their knowledge to you, or a skill book, but skill books for utility skills are exceedingly rare.”

“How do you become a skill trainer?” I asked.

“That’s challenging. First you must get up to the Expert rank,” said Justice.

“So, I just need to be rank 10 in Smithing?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound too complicated.”

“Then you must complete the quest to elevate your skill to the next tier. That requires you to finish a Masterwork object,” said Justice as I continued crushing the mixture.

“Which I’m assuming requires rare ingredients and a bunch of time,” I asked.

“A Master crafted hammer is the traditional project in Smithing, it usually takes several months to complete and costs a small fortune,” said Justice.

“Then you can become a skill trainer?” I asked.

“Don’t be hasty, Squire,” said Justice. “After that, you have to complete a new quest that allows you to train others. Those quests are set up individually but typically take a few years to complete.”

“And they are also very expensive,” I said.

“Far more expensive than achieving an Expert rank,” said Justice.

“I can see why there are so few skill trainers,” I said as I squished the last ingredients into paste.

“Excellent, the mixture is complete!” said Justice, changing the subject.

“Do I just dump it in her eyes?” I asked.

“Heavens no, there are carrots in there,” said Justice. “Find a piece of cheese cloth and strain out all non-liquid parts. Just drip the remaining goo onto her face drippily.”

“Drippily?” I asked.

“Yes, I believe it is the technical term of the Potion Making profession,” said Justice.

I took the cloth, had Elana pry open her eyes, and then started drippily dripping the drips dripfully into her eyes.

“This stings!” she said.

“There are carrots,” I said flatly. “Can I see the other eye now?”

“Why not, doc?” said Elana.

31

THE FIRST BATTLE

The rest of the day was spent waiting and preparing. Zahir had people digging pits, covering the pits so it didn’t look like there were any pits, and also making spots where it looked like we dug pits where there were no pits. It was pitiful.

We also had a few skirmishes with the other army’s scouts.

The skirmishes were inconclusive. The deployed scouts were operating in ten-man units, because the orcs operated in five-orc units, but each of our units had a skill user. Essentially, ten men with a skill user was approximately equal to five orcs without a skill user.

I rapidly figured out why the humans were so cautious around orcs. It was like a high school varsity team running up against a college team. There was such a quantifiable difference in ability that the orcs could operate with much lower numbers and make it work.

I was unsure of the whole process. Zahir seemed to know what she was doing, and the amount of skirmishing died off when it became dark. By late evening, everything was looking normal.

Normal-ish.

“They don’t have low light vision?” I asked.

“Orcs see better in low light than your average human, but not massively so. Their scouts will be among the best of them at that, but still, the human scouts are similar,” said Justice. “Further, both fight with bows. They are not eager to clash in the dark when your arrow is just as likely to strike an ally.”

The night passed mostly uneventfully. It really helped that I had Justice, and while the orcs couldn’t see in the dark, Justice used echolocation or something and could see them just fine. The one actual attempt by the orcs to strike at our camp ran into two dozen of our scouts who started the engagement by launching flaming arrows.

They withdrew, and by the next morning, everyone was ready.

We were at the head of our army, all one hundred of them, and the orcs clearly had seen them. There were over one hundred and fifty orcs, most were infantry but there were at least thirty scouts. Orcs didn’t have archers, they had scouts who doubled as archers. We had capable scouts who could double as archers, as well as archers that were useless as scouts.

I gestured to Mitch, and he lowered the thatch he was hiding under.

“Why are they standing there?” I asked after Zahir exhaled noisily once too often.

“They are debating what to do. They don’t want to fight us, but they don’t want to leave us alive either,” she said. “Orcs don’t like fighting human armies, they do like killing humans, but our armies were always tough nuts to crack.”

“But they outnumber us,’ I said.

“And we are sneaky, they hate that,” she said.

“Okay, now they are sending out three orcs on horse, do we parley?” I asked.

“We generally don’t parley with orcs, it is not wise,” said General Zahir as she considered her options. “Well, they have a flag up, that might give me safe passage. If it was just me, I wouldn’t risk it, but I suppose with a knight bodyguard?”

“Of course, I shall ensure your safety,” I said. “The terms of parley are absolute, both sides guarantee the safety of the other one. It would besmirch everyone’s honor if that were to be broken.”

Zahir gave a long, exhausted groan, the one she always deployed at times like this. I didn’t know why, I just repeated what Justice said to me every moment I was free.

Three of us rode up, General Zahir resplendent in her armor. I, Sir Yorick, Magical Sword Knight accompanied her. Also, some guy named Frank who had a flag. It was a good flag. It stood for something, probably non-violence. A flag that promised no violence seemed like a silly flag for an army to have laying around, but General Zahir was in command.

I was just there to look pretty.

We stopped in the middle, between both armies. I looked at the three elite orcs, measuring them. They all seemed capable enough.

“Ahoy, piss off, human,” said the first one in a human tongue. “We have no business with you. Just run off to your villages and we’ll pretend we never saw you.”

“I am General Zahir, and who might you be?”

“What is she prattling on about? Just kill them,” said the second in Orcish. He clearly did not speak human, or at least did not care for the tongue.

“We are under the flag of parley, such vile words speak ill of your character,” I said. This caused all three orcs to pause as they attempted to figure out what the hell I just said. Zahir realized this and snorted.

“I am not parleying with you,” said the second orc in choppy human as he rode forward. “You will move your mob off my road or I’ll scuttle it.”

“So, you’re not in parley?” I asked.

Zahir backed her horse up a pace.

“That is a human term, for weakness,” said the orc. “We do not parley with humans.”

I had Justice out and the orc decapitated before he even realized what happened. I looked at the other two orcs. “Are either of you under the flag of parley?”

One of the orcs screamed and urged their horse forward, his own weapon at the ready. That was a good move, technically. At least it wasn’t a foolish one, but it also wasn’t anything I was worried about.

He clearly had the Power skill, and while that was useful it was significantly less so on a horse because you couldn’t throw your entire body into it. Dexterity plus Power, on the other hand, worked much better.

I struck twice, the first slash taking off his hand, and the second smashing his face in.

“Are you under parley?” I asked as the faceless orc fell off his horse and onto the ground.

“Yes!” shrieked the orc. “I am under parley.”

“Good, what were we discussing?” I asked Zahir.

“Their surrender,” she said coldly.

“Ahoy, there is no way I’m going to surrender to a human,” he said.

“Then this parley is over,” stated Zahir and rode back while the orc yelled obscenities at us.

“They are very uncultured,” I stated loud enough for the last surviving orc to hear.

“You realize you killed the leader of the army and his backup,” said Zahir.

“Yes, and I would have done the other one if he hadn’t shown a modicum of civility,” I stated. “Not there for parley?”

“Probably for the best, there is a limited chance the whole unit would run back if they lost all three, now the remaining officer is going to have to try to avenge them,” said Zahir.

We didn’t even make it back to our troops before the orcs started to charge. To be clear, they should have at least walked to a somewhat closer distance. Our armies started nearly a mile apart, so they were just running unnecessarily. Of course, the problem was that the orcs didn’t really care.

Their only concession to tactics was slowing down slightly as they got closer so they could get back into a wrecking ball sized mass.

“Standard orc tactic, called a fist,” said the general as she waited. I spotted a series of stakes in the ground, and they were just beyond a purple one. I felt that was going to be important in a few seconds. “Remember, you are my tactical deputy here. When the orcs turn, you need to charge into their flank with everything you got.”

“Yes, General. I will smash them when they turn,” I said, and Zahir actually smiled.

“Do I hear doubt? They will absolutely turn before they attack your army,” said the general with impressive confidence.

“Who am I to doubt a general?” I replied, feeling strangely more confident now that she had spoken.

“Elana will also be with the archers, apparently your potion did wonders,” she said.

“She is of good stock,” I replied and started trotting toward the side of the army. That wasn’t suspicious, it was also the closest spot to the fake hill. I hopped down much to Gringer’s regret. He wanted to go murdering but I had no armor for him. A ferrier took the horse away and he looked so disappointed I felt it was my duty to get him some armor.

“A knight and his noble steed, is like a Magical Sword and his noble knight,” said Justice.

“I’m just serving to carry you around?” I said.

“Not true, a knight’s steed is also a vicious fighter,” said Justice. Gringer did look like he wanted to bite the orcs. That was a shame, because I absolutely wasn’t riding him into combat. He might get food poisoning.

My armor was already on, so I didn’t have to summon it, and the orcs were done getting ready. They sped back up from a jog to full-murdering speed. It was horrifying. They could run much faster than a group of humans could manage. I was standing in front of one hundred guys with spears. Mind you, a spear formation looked a lot deadlier than you’d think, and the orcs weren’t wearing as much armor as I thought.

I expected them all to be head to toe in full armor. The reality was you had to carry that weight with you for every mile you marched. Further, most of the time, the inherent toughness of orcs was sufficient that what would be a serious wound on a human was something they could shake off.

They wore breastplates and leg armor, while their shoulders and in some cases their heads were bare. The humans behind me were all armored in the best kind of armor we could muster. It wouldn’t have been enough normally, but then the orcs crossed the blue poles.

The thatch got pulled back, revealing the second hundred infantry, and more importantly, it revealed the archers. Zahir yelled and the arrows flew. She had placed about six poles, the closest to us was red and purple the farthest away, there was no indigo in case you were interested.

The blue pole was what the archers were aiming for, and also so happened to be where the orcs were arriving just as the storm of arrows washed over them. A few orcs stumbled as arrows hammered into them, but most of the fist simply ignored it and continued toward our spears.

The next volley was at the green post, and it was also almost perfectly timed. There was a trick to the timing that I wouldn’t have caught. The general clearly knew the speed the orcs traveled in a fist and anticipated that as their formation. Zahir had obviously done this before and her volleys were perfectly timed even if her army’s accuracy wasn’t as good as she would have liked.

Still, more orcs stumbled.

At yellow, they switched to straight fire, this required a different timing and was the kind of archery our people were most used to. Instead of a somewhat accurate volley that was dispersed over a too-broad space, this volley hammered right into the side of the formation. Orcs died, lots of them.

That’s when her next prediction came through. The orcs wheeled their entire formation in one go and redirected it to the archers and their spears. Meanwhile, our scouts were acting like skirmishers and trying desperately to keep the orc scouts away from our archers. Still, a half dozen enemy arrows fired from extreme range and landed among the archers, dropping several.

It wasn’t fair. Most of the humans went down after a single hit but there were a great number of orcs with two or three arrows sticking out of them still running on unbothered.

“Charge, for Justice!” I yelled and started running forward as the infantry behind me followed. They were hesitant at first, but rapidly picked up speed. Zahir was already with the archers, having moved over as soon as the volleys started so I had to make sure she was alright.

The orcs had no clue what was going on, but killing a human was always fun, and even when they changed formation radically they were moving faster than our spears could keep up. But I could. I activated Magical Strike while burning Dexterity and Power. Justice gave me one use of the flame stone. I hit the side of the orc formation like Miley.

In the three seconds where everything was active, I made a total of four sword swings, and killed over sixteen orcs outright. More were on fire or wounded. Or wounded while being on fire, which is what I preferred.

I did that right as the orcs were slamming into the infantry defending the archers, but our infantry were behind hidden spiked pits. That was important, because spike pits weren’t any fun, generally. Orcs expecting to find shields and spears, instead found pits of spikes. Meanwhile, the infantry on top of the bluff that held the archers were busy thrusting away with their spears at the faces of the orcs.

Still, the orcs would have won if it was just that force. The orcs were battered, they were bloodied, and nearly a third of their number was dead, but the one hundred that remained was enough to push through those spears right into the archers. More than enough.

Except that’s when my unit smashed into the side. We knew to stay off the hill, which wasn’t complicated. It was covered in pits. We ground into the side of the formation and started spearing the crap out of the orcs from the flank. With the giant hole I smashed into the formation they weren’t even in a good position to defend themselves.

Dozens of orcs died for a handful of human casualties, but we weren’t done. The archers, being too close to shoot at the orcs without possibly hitting friends, were concentrating on the orc scouts who had drawn closer. They weren’t good at volleying, but there were still eighty of them firing in a group, and the orc scouts were not doing very well.

Finally, I saw the orc commander break through the spear line charging straight for Zahir. He swung a powerful two handed strike at her, and she parried while she controlled her mount. She began circling her opponent as they both used skills to attack each other.

I started tearing through orcs, trying to assist her, but I was too late. Elana and Eldron were not so concerned about shooting close to allies because they both had the Dexterity skill. They started pumping the orc commander full of arrows. His massive weapon flew from his hands as Zahir disarmed him and then relieved him of his head.

It didn’t matter though, the orcs were invincible, implacable foes who didn’t stop no matter what. An orc didn’t know fear…

They did, however, know when they were screwed, and where Zahir’s next tactic became apparent. She gave them a way to run, and they took it. Unfortunately, for them, she placed spikes liberally through the grass, and while you could easily avoid them if you were walking, probably, the orcs were sprinting away until they vanished into the grass screaming, or not.

Those were some sharp spikes.

And since the orc scouts realized this whole thing was over a while ago the archers were all out of other targets.

In total, maybe thirty orcs left the field alive. Not one of them was unwounded.

32

NORTHWARD HO

After the battle, it was different than I expected. Initially everyone cheered as the broken orc force ran off to the hills. People congratulated the general for her plan, and me for my part leading the second unit in the charge. Mitch led a cheer to my name.

Then came the wounded and the dying. We got off light, but we didn’t get off clean. Jon suffered a graze that required several stitches. Elana had been knocked on her ass and would have been killed if the orc commander had not been focused on her mother. They were the lucky ones.

Edwin looked small. He was leading a unit of scouts to skirmish with the orc scouts trying to keep them away from our archers. In the last moments of the battle, he caught an arrow in the throat and that was it for him.

“We did good,” said Jon, patting me on the shoulder as he walked down the line of the dead and dying.

I think the dying bothered me the most because I was used to modern medicine. There were men here who would have lived in an American hospital, but in the field, they were just going to die.

A lot of it was the luck of the draw. Some of the orcs had minor healing potions on them, nothing capable of miracles, but if you suffered a punctured bowel or a shattered bone it could repair them well enough. There were not very many of those though, and most of the wounds were more serious than that.

Orc weapons hit hard, and often they would totally gut a man when they did.

“We won,” I said.

“Of course, you had Justice with you!” said Justice.

“I just didn’t realize how bad this would be,” I said, looking over the line of bodies.

“What did you expect? A friendly party where everyone gave each other high fives and left the field,” said Justice.

“No, I just wanted to be a hero…” The victory was ash in my mouth.

“A hero does what is necessary to win despite all odds,” said Justice. “In reality, that is seldom as polite or fun as it is made to be in the stories.”

I could say nothing. The reality wasn’t what I expected. I looked around and summoned up my helmet so people couldn’t see how horrified I was. This was my fault. I led them into this, and despite that, they were congratulating me.

It took longer for an army to start moving after a battle than I anticipated. There were scores of minor wounds to tend, and then soldiers to bury. Meanwhile, Bella was working on repairing and replacing equipment to the point that the general ordered her to rest.

I knocked on the wagon frame.

A hand waved from the roof, and I climbed top. Bella was lying there, holding a cigarette by a metal stem. She was filthy except for the clean pattern where her apron covered her. She yawned mightily.

“You did good, very good,” she said, offering me a drag.

“Weren’t you fighting?” I asked.

“No, me and the medics were safely tucked in the back with the horses unhitched. If you guys lost, we were to bolt south to Nordrim,” said Bella before looking over at me side-eyed. “Of course, I knew you’d win it for us.”

I looked behind her, over at the line of bodies. “Doesn’t feel like a win.”

Bella looked back as well and shrugged. “Where did you come from? We lost fewer than twenty and killed over eighty orcs. That’s a goddamn miracle. We’d lose a half dozen in a bad week in Himdal from orcs just getting upset with us. If we could trade like this every time, we’d have our lives back. You’re a goddamn hero for the way you charged into combat.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” I said, watching the remaining men police the field.

Bella snorted. “I love the false humility you have going on there, but did you see everyone behind you when the orcs turned. They were ready to bolt, run away screaming. They didn’t though, because Sir Yorick was there, ready to lead the charge, and they didn’t want to look bad in front of you.”

“Really?” I asked. People could see me up here, and they were either saluting or waving depending on their attitude.

Bella stretched, leaning back and recovering some of her privacy. “Yeah, the reason everyone took so long to catch up is because they didn’t think charging orcs would work. You bolt on ahead and slam into the line and suddenly they needed to have your back or you would have died. So, they came, because they didn’t want to let the knight down.”

“I didn’t realize I’d pushed in that far,” I said. The dead orcs were still in the field, and it did not paint a good picture for my tactical acumen. I’d broken way inside the orc formation, far too deep to easily extract myself without backup.

“It was the general’s plan,” said Bella as she lifted a flap on the top of the wagon, exposing a hammock underneath. “You won us this battle. You, Sir Knight, deserve a reward.”

“A reward, what kind?” I chuckled.

“Get in the hammock and I’ll show you,” said Bella lazily as she plopped into it. The wagon and the hammock were both orc-sized, so technically I’d fit if we were both friendly, and Bella looked very friendly.

“You need to rest,” I said.

“I need lots of things,” she mumbled, yawning, and I considered it. But it would have been really obvious. Then again, I didn’t mind being obvious. Unfortunately, by the time I made up my mind she was already out.

“You have got to work on your hesitation, Squire. When an opportunity presents itself, you need to pounce,” said Justice.

“So you’re saying I should have bedded her?” I asked, hopping off the wagon.

“A knight should enjoy all of his opportunities,” said Justice as I looked over the line of the dead. “You don’t know when your card will get punched.”

“Good point.” I found Elana, riding on her horse. One thing to be said for having a lame leg, if only until it healed, was that it really made your horse riding skills improve.

Then I noticed her gripping the horse with both legs and raised an eyebrow.

“If you must know, mother found a minor healing potion on the orc general and used it on my leg,” said Elana. “It was a total waste of resources, but apparently there were no better candidates. That coupled with your eyeball fixing potion means I’m right as rain.”

I thought about that, then nodded. “Excellent, hopefully you can keep up now.”

She didn’t quite glower at me, but it was a close thing. I hopped up on Gringer and we kept on moving.

“You are going to give knights a bad reputation,” said Elana as we rode.

I waved at several of the soldiers as they thumped their fists to their chest. “I doubt that.”

Elana sighed as we continued up to her mother, who looked at me appraisingly. “We will arrive at a defensible location by the end of the day. What are your thoughts on Nordrim?”

“Nice town, bit of a spider problem,” I replied.

“The people, will they fight?” Zahir continued.

That only took a brief consideration. “Yes, they fought with me against orcs before, I see no reason they would suddenly stop. Would you like me to ask them?”

“No, I sent Eldron back to the crossroads, he knows the princess as well as several people in town. He should be able to talk them into joining up if anyone can,” said Zahir. “My plan for you is more ambitious, good Sir Knight.”

She dismissed everyone but me and Elana.

“Color me intrigued,” I said.

“Before this battle, I didn’t know what to think of you. From stories I heard about the fort, I thought your actions there might have been a fluke,” said the general. “I was apparently wrong. You do seem to be able to handle yourself extremely well, so I’d like to see how much of a hero you really are.”

“I try,” I said cautiously. Zahir was a planner, she talked to everyone before coming back to me. She would have picked out the word hero from their conversations. Probably.

“As you know, Kenin has tunnels underneath it that can be invaded through. However, that vast network of caves is difficult to navigate and there are many dead end passages that do not turn up in the city,” stated Zahir in a hushed tone, gesturing to a map.

I nodded, so she continued. “What I want you to do is break into the city and find a tunnel there and follow it back to the river here.”

“So the tunnels from the river might go anywhere, but all the tunnels down from the city end up at the river?” I asked.

“Correct, that is how the fortress fell initially, a spy entered the town and found a passage to the river,” said Zahir.

“Isn’t the city fortified?”

“A fortification is to keep armies out, it does little to stop individuals, especially when the fortress is not preparing for siege,” said Zahir. “The walls are broad enough that a small town exists inside and the humans there travel in and out of the fortress constantly.”

“And we aren’t placing the fortress under siege, are we?” I asked.

“No, it would take thousands and more siege equipment than we could build in two years,” said Zahir. “You will mark a path through the tunnels, we will follow it up and start in the middle of the fortress when they aren’t expecting us. With the element of surprise and a knight on our side, we should be able to win, assuming we can slay Corgo, if he’s there.”

“Corgo, one of the sons of Grimdar?” I asked.

“Yes, Grimdar has many sons, so claiming him as a parent is not overly unique. Though only members of his bloodline are in contention for the orc Whomak at the moment.”

“At the moment?” I asked.

“Grimdar was an abnormality. Humans fought orcs ever since they appeared on our shores,” said Zahir. “Hundreds of years of fighting, and we’d never lost more than a few cities, and only temporarily. Grimdar and the red-eyed orcs showed up and broke the back of the king’s army in under five years.”

“Your army?” I asked, with curiosity not hostility.

“I was a general in the king’s armies in the beginning, the Grand General of all the armies in the end, but yes, he broke my army, and every other army the king possessed. We had skill users, wizards, and in one case a person who claimed to have come from outer space. The red-eyed orcs were simply too powerful.”

“How can we challenge them now?” I asked.

“Because we did,” said Zahir. “The orcs we fought were tough, but not nearly on the scale of the warbands that destroyed the king’s armies. Had we fought one of the fists from the collapse, we would have been utterly destroyed, with the possible exception of yourself.”

Elana’s eyebrows raised.

“Why do you think I was so worried about my daughter fighting them?” said her mother. “I expected Elana to be marching to her death.”

“And you didn’t try to talk me out of it,” said Elana.

“No, I very specifically did, my headstrong child,” said the general. “You snuck out and took all the young fools who agreed with you.”

“We won,” said Elana sourly.

“Yes, so I agreed to do this one last time,” said Zahir. “But first we need the fortress. So, good Sir Knight, can I count on you to go forth and find us the secret passage to the heart of the enemy, or should I call this whole thing off?”

“I will find you this passage, on my honor, for Justice,” I said.

“May the stars guide you,” she replied formally, then shook her head. “I’d say you sound ridiculous, but if I have trouble understanding you at points, it utterly confounds the orcs, and I’d put up with a lot to annoy those green bastards just a little.”

With our secret mission planning over, I was dismissed. Elana followed me, so we went to the healer cart. The healer took one look at Elana and forced her off her horse. She was hammocked and a poultice was placed over her mostly healed wound.

“Sneaky,” I said, looking at her bare leg. She frowned.

“You are sneakier than I am,” said my attaché.

“Rest up, when we get to the crossroads, we will have several days of riding together and I’d like a moment of privacy where we are still in a military camp where I might have a touch of alone time,” I replied.

Elana tried to work up a glare, she really did. She was exhausted though and before she could work up to it, she relaxed. It could have been her agreeing with me, or the fact that the poultice had chemicals on it designed to knock her right out. In either case, she was cute when she was sleeping.

I rode off on Gringer and looked over the empty fields of grass.

“Can we Scan through walls?” I asked.

“By myself, no,” said Justice cautiously. “But there is a way, if you are willing to develop your Mana as well as your swordsmanship.”

“I could be like a spellblade?” I asked.

“Not exactly. Each magical caster has their own kind of magic,” said Justice. “A wizard can use magical stones and their Mana to blast objects. Warlocks use dark bonds with their dark powers to cause their spells to impact the living. As a knight, your spells can only increase the effectiveness of your equipment.”

“That makes as much sense as anything,” I said, regretting that I’d never be able to cast a fireball spell.

“Somehow you will survive. You could spend your quest points if you are bored,” said Justice.

“I have two quest points now, anything useful to spend them on?” I asked.

“You can spend two to augment a skill, if you’d like,” said Justice. “But they mainly go for expansions to your base class.”

“What would be the most useful one right now?” I asked.

“Probably Knight’s Steed,” said Justice. “It would improve your riding significantly and bond your horse to you. You could summon him at need, and it would significantly help your horsemanship.”

“But I have this ring,” I said.

“Which you would no longer have any need for,” said Justice, and I noticed a pulse on the minimap indicating a friendly. A specific friendly. Elana. Who I was about to go on a long trip with. Who still sucked at riding horses.

“So yeah, let’s do that,” I said, and felt the quest points lock into the new ability. I was instantly aware of a pressure in the back of my mind, and as I concentrated on it, I found Gringer tied up and eating oats. I turned to face him and noticed he was looking right at me.

“If you concentrate on him, he will come here, I suggest you put him out of mind,” said Justice. I did so, which was more difficult to do than it sounded, and Gringer’s head went back down.

“What’s the range on that?” I asked.

“Not great, but it improves over time,” said Justice. “In general terms, you will be aware of where he is over a few miles distance.”

“Handy. So about seeing through walls?”

“The gemstones on my blade are part of your equipment, so you can use your Mana to enhance them, if you know the spell,” said Justice.

“Do you know the spell?” I asked.

“Yes, unfortunately there are a few minor quibbles,” said Justice.

“Such as?” I groaned.

“You only can learn two spells given your mental defects,” said Justice.

“What mental defects?”

“I’m saying you are dumb, and if you understood what mental defects meant you would have understood that,” said Justice.

“Okay, sword, what do I need to do to increase the number of spells I have?” I asked, trying to keep calm.

“Well, obviously you need to fix your mental faculties, however in the short-term you can learn one magical skill,” said Justice.

“And you know these skills?” I asked.

“Of course not, I’m a sword, but I did find two skill books. You can read them and absorb the power,” said Justice.

“Which one gives me more spells?” I asked.

“Improved Spell Capacity, or just Capacity if one wants to use the shorthand,” said Justice. “And I happen to have that book.”

The girthy book appeared in my hand. It was hundreds of pages long. I flipped it open. No point in arguing, I would just absorb the power and learn this new skill. Nothing happened.

“Do I have to focus on it or something?” I asked.

“No, you daft fool, you need to read it,” said Justice.

“So, absorb…” I began staring at the tiny print.

“With your eyes,” said Justice.

“I hate you,” I grumbled. All the glyphs got fuzzy for a moment, and then I could read them. Each page was packed with technical knowledge of how the skill worked. This was going to take hours, or days.

“I shall be quiet so you can focus,” said Justice.

Part of me wanted to toss the book down and yell screw this. Part of me expected that once I started reading it, the knowledge would fly off the page. Neither happened, but I did learn how magical skills worked.

Half of the process was in the reading, the other half was in mental exercises designed to manipulate my Mana into doing strange things it wasn’t designed to do.

Your Mana is like a river, and you must control the flow of that river while at the same time understanding that you cannot control the flow of the river.

With careful concentration, I could feel my Mana flowing around my body. Not inside my body, around it. My Mana actually orbited my head entirely too much like a halo for me to really feel comfortable about it. My halo was strong, as in two points of Mana strong. As you developed your Mana, there were apparently energy levels and two points was the strongest you could get in your first halo.

After that you had to form a second halo, and it could control eight points on top of the two you already had. Apparently, the third layer was even deeper, with the ability to hold eighteen points of Mana, but only wizards who were really trying to hold Mana got there.

What I had to do was cultivate my Mana from a solid disk into a thinner disk so there was more room in my Mana for more spells. This would also allow me to open my second halo when I developed the skill sufficiently.

So, I started doing the endlessly complex mental exercises that were going to cause my Mana to balance and purify correctly. The first trick I tried was separating my single, easy, functional disk of Mana into two separate rings.

I had to keep the rings separated, but close enough together to interact. What that meant was anyone’s guess, but I figured it meant keeping it at low level headache points until the headache went away.

“You are doing it,” said Justice. “I can already see the refinement of your Mana.”

“I feel funny,” I said. Justice cast Heal on me. I wobbled slightly. “My head still hurts.”

“That was for the bloody nose, but keep trying,” said Justice.

I wiped my hand on my face and then summoned my armor. People were starting to stare, and I needed to practice this apparently. Justice healed me four more times, and I had to wipe my face twice from all the blood. I didn’t pick up a skill. I also had no idea how successful I’d been.

But my Mana was in two disks now and the constant grinding had worn both edges clean on my Mana rings. I felt uniquely terrible by the time I decided to stop.

Late in the evening, Zahir summoned me to her tent. I arrived fully armored, including the helmet. She raised an eyebrow at my armor as well as the lack of Elana. I sent the armor back into storage and she whistled.

“You look terrible,” she said. “Either you are sick, or you are cultivating Mana.”

“I’m cultivating Mana,” I said.

“You are going to wish you were just sick,” she said. “Never saw much use for Mana myself, but you are a Magical Sword Knight. Are you going to be able to travel?”

I nodded. Since the disks had ground themselves smooth, the pain was much less intense. I probably could get used to the low level twitch it was causing.

“Good, I wondered if you reversed the outer disk yet,” said the general. “That’s usually when people have the worst week.”

I slumped slightly. The next exercise was spinning the inner disk faster than the outer disk, and that must be the lead up to what the general suggested. I said, “It is of no concern, as a Magical Sword Knight, it is my pleasure to pay this cost, for humanity.”

“Good, then you can leave tomorrow morning. I will ensure you have sufficient supplies, also this.”

She carefully handed me a small stone token. It was about the size of a cell phone tracker. Bluntly, it looked like a rock unless you looked at it very closely. As I held it in my hand Justice vibrated.

“A Mana crystal fragment! Where did she find this?” asked the sword, so I asked Zahir.

“I’ve had it for a long time. In your case, the stone can attune to any other magical object. If you have a skilled user or an intelligent weapon, you can pass simple messages with it over any distance.”

“Excellent, I will attune it and give it to your daughter so I can tell her when I’m inside,” I said. I sat the crystal on the blade, and it clicked in place, after a moment, it vanished into storage.

“This mission is to be conducted with the utmost security, you are to go on patrol tomorrow and simply not return. I will move the army to the river and catch up with you in three days,” said Zahir. “And, Sir Knight, please bring my daughter back to me safely.”

“On my honor,” I said.

I ended up crawling under Bella’s wagon, where the strong smell of charcoal drove away the insects, and went to sleep.

33

THE SCOUTING MISSION

Someone kicked my foot, and I realized Justice was missing. I rolled out from under the cart and Elana was watching me critically. “It’s after sunrise, we should be on patrol.”

“I seem to be unprepared,” I said, and Elana jerked her head toward Bella. She was carefully polishing Justice. I hadn’t put any Mana into him recently so I couldn’t hear.

Thank god.

“You seem to trust her,” said Elana, looking down on me as I put on my boots. I had the one on and was working on my second.

“She is very good with my equipment,” I replied, adjusting myself onto one knee to check my boot.

“I’ll get the horses, get your sword and your armor,” stated Elana.

“Oh, I have this for you,” I said, handing her my horsemanship ring.

“Good Sir Knight, are you proposing to me?” said Elana, who smiled happily at the ring before she tossed it into the grass.

“No. That was a magical ring of horsemanship, it would make our ride easier,” I replied as it vanished under a bush. Her annoyed expression shifted to one of horror. She stiffly ran over to the bush and started looking for it.

I went to Bella.

My armor was out on a dummy, and from what I could see, the damaged parts were already repaired. Looked like she did that first, then got to the polishing. I walked over and coughed.

“Oh, you are awake,” said Bella, running a leathery cloth over the tip of the blade. “I was just about finished.”

“Don’t stop early on my account,” I said, glancing over at Elana who was digging out chunks of grass from where the ring landed.

“You need to leave,” Bella said, rapidly buffing the edge and holding up the sword on the backs of her hands for me to take. Justice sparkled.

“Cannot think, must nap,” said the sword and then he got really quiet.

“My armor?” I asked.

“I was saying that I was going to polish him really quick and then wake you up to get at your armor when it just appeared there, I tried to polish him first, but he started shaking. I assumed that meant he thought fixing your armor first was more important, so I did that. Afterward, I started polishing him, and frankly since I had more time, I really went to town on him,” said Bella.

“He is fond of being polished,” I said.

Bella smiled. “I’m glad to be of help.”

I nodded supportively at that statement, which was true, and I did so in an entirely non-suspicious manner. Bella gave me an odd look anyway, so I summoned my armor back onto myself and said, “Patrol, leaving now. Must go.”

“I’ll have some time tonight,” said Bella.

“When I get back,” I replied. That was a true statement that also happened to be a total lie. I wasn’t going to be back for days.

I went over to the horses and easily found Gringer, he was ready to go. He seemed eager for his secret mission, even if he didn’t know he was going on one. I got both horses saddled and supplied before Elana hobble-stepped over, the ring on her finger.

“Good, care to mount up?” I asked.

Elana grumbled, then hobbled over to her horse. She was adjusting the saddle and checking her blanket, like you were supposed to. She actually looked like she knew what she was doing for once.

Justice could handle that for me, sort of. “The saddle is on correctly, though it needs to be tightened before you start riding. I have enough feed for the horses, and I even brought some water.”

“How much can you hold?” I asked, hopping up onto Gringer. It was about the same as it had always been, which I took as a good sign. The Knight’s Steed ability gave me a light telepathic bond to the horse, which made things easier than before because Gringer knew what I wanted and worked with me.

“More than you’d think, less than you’d like,” said Justice. “A lot of what I can carry has to do with what it is made of. I can carry more metal than anything else due to the fact that I’m metal. I have several water gems which expand my storage for water from almost nothing to a few gallons, at most, and that is at the expense of other things.”

“Other things?” I asked.

“I gave almost all of the armor and weapons to Bella,” said Justice.

I started to count to ten. “Why did you give away all of our loot?”

“Because you couldn’t use it and she can, to salvage for parts as well as to produce new and improved weapons for the army. Besides, you are going where there is better loot to be found,” said Justice.

“You didn’t give away my bow?” I asked.

“No, I only gave away the stuff you would not want,” said Justice. “I also retained that heavy suit of armor that was enchanted with actual magic.”

“Which I can’t do anything with,” I said.

“Nope, so it seemed stupid, but I figured you wouldn’t whine as long as I kept that,” said Justice.

“You do know me,” I muttered, and we started off on our routine patrol. Elana followed after me, and we both rode quietly off into the distance. After we got out of sight, we promptly went back over to the road and headed north.

The road was better here than it was down south. The path to Drek from the east was at least somewhat maintained, so instead of mud and wagon ruts, we had mud covered cobble stones, and wagon ruts. Still, the cobbles made the road firmer and there were actually a few scattered signs.

“There are more villages up this way?” I asked.

“Yes, the orcs are pretty straightforward for the most part. If you do your work, they kind of just ignore you,” said Elana. “I’ve only been up this far once or twice, there should be more orcs around if we look.”

“Hmm,” I said.

“No, if you kill them, other orcs will start watching out for us. We should be doing as much as possible to not be noticed until we get to the river,” said Elana.

“In two days,” I said.

“Yes, after we get there and scout, you can head over to the fort,” she said, flustered. I handed her the Mana shard.

“That is attuned to Justice. I will be able to find you easily using that rock,” I said.

“That’s so much better, I thought I was waiting uselessly at the entrance of the caves while you did the important work. I didn’t realize I would be holding a rock,” she said.

“To each according to their ability,” I said.

She hit me with her bow.

We continued on, mostly using the road. When Justice saw anyone, something he was presently able to do up to two miles away, we got off the road and kept going that way for a time. Two miles on horse was far different than two miles by car, especially when we weren’t trying to go overly fast.

Still, we were faster than the army. This, coupled with Justice’s ability to see distantly, allowed us to push more effectively than otherwise. We were nearly to the midway point in our journey when we ran into the first significant issue.

“So, we’ve been riding all day,” I said as I shivered on Gringer.

“Yes!” yelled Elana, swaying in the saddle as the wind picked up.

“Want to set up camp?” I offered.

“What?” she yelled as a massive thunderclap blasted across the grass.

“It’s raining,” I said, as water poured down everywhere. The storm had come suddenly, and Justice’s Scan spell did not include a weather forecast. I mean, it was kind of obvious from the clouds, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that, so I didn’t worry about them. I should have.

The problems were that we were still in a grassland, which was similar to a plain, but with more grass and even fewer trees. There was nothing around that we could use for shelter, except a small village. The village was well lit, and close enough that I’d started trotting over when the rain went from bad to ‘looking up was a potential source of drowning.’

Elana yelled something I couldn’t hear over the rain. I brought Gringer over to her, she screamed something that sounded like shelter.

I gestured to the town.

“Stay there!” she said. There were some more words, but the rain was ice cold and that was impacting my hearing. I gave her the thumbs up and started toward the village, and hopefully an inn or someplace warm.

There were no guards, though there was a post for them, and I found a large building with warm lighting inside. It sounded like it wasn’t raining inside there, and I was a hopeful chap.

I left Elana with the horses because she apparently thought being out there was preferable. I was honestly more concerned about the horses than either of us. There was a stable in the back, so that might not be a problem for long.

Walking in, I surveyed the room and was disappointed. It was only mostly dry, the roof had several leaks. Hopefully that was what was making the locals upset, because they all glared at me as soon as I entered.

“I don’t recognize you,” said a man behind the counter.

“I’m a trader, and I have silver,” I said, which is the line Justice fed me.

One of the men chuckled at that and I turned my head to face him. Whatever the joke was, he must not have liked it, because he stopped smiling when he looked at me. There were several other people with him, and all five looked between each other.

“Squire, I feel they are up to no good,” said Justice. I felt that too.

The largest one stood, he was nearly my size, and then so did the rest. They walked over to me in unison.

“I think you have a problem,” said the large one, popping his neck.

“Friend, you are mistaken, I don’t have any problems, only solutions. My traveling companion will be coming into this building shortly, and I assured her this was a safe tavern where we could get out of the rain,” I said, then lowered my tone, “I assure you that it will be by the time she steps in here.”

He pulled out a dagger and prepared to say something, so I rabbit-punched him in the face. He stood there while his brain rattled, then collapsed, knocking a tray off the table.

“Are there any more problems in here that need solving?” I asked.

A minute later, Elana stepped into the bar, and I was discussing things with the local farmers. She pushed back her cloak, looked around, then sat next to me. “A ferrier just came out for the horses.”

“Yes, this is Old Thomas’ place, he runs a tight ship,” I said. Thomas nodded fiercely.

“Ma’am,” said the innkeeper as he set two bowls of porridge in front of us. “Your room is being prepared. I have some mulled wine warming up.”

“Thank you,” said Elana.

“So, these gentlemen were talking about the river,” I said.

“Yes, the river,” said the first one, nodding fiercely.

“What happened to your face?” asked Elana.

“He tripped in the rain,” I said.

“Yup, very tough times, I’m clumsy,” said the man.

“Me too,” said the second through missing teeth.

“Yup,” said the third. Elana glanced at him and flinched. Poor guy looked like someone had shoved his face on the table and pushed. I patted the blanket that was being used as a tablecloth as I smiled pleasantly at them.

“What about those two in the corner?” asked Elana.

“Drunks,” I said. “Old Thomas is nice to allow them to stay.”

“Yes, I am,” said Old Thomas as he poured two warm glasses of wine.

“Anyway, they were telling me about an old trail to the river,” I said conversationally.

“Yes, sir, um, the trail, it is hard to spot, but if you go west from here past the signposts…” began the farmer. People could be good or bad, and sometimes they were only bad because no one had punched out all of their friends’ teeth so fast they couldn’t even see it. As soon as something like that happened, they realized the error of their ways and straightened up.

Or they took naps in the corner.

The remaining three men got into a nice explanation of how to find the trail. They were polite until I hinted that we wanted some sleep. By then one of the drunks was semi-conscious and the other one got dragged out. Elana was concerned, but I warned her not to question the local’s strange ways.

The next morning was great. Our room had been of amazing quality, in that it wasn’t raining on us, and our horses were both fine. Which was to be expected, because three men watched out for them all night.

“Those two drunks didn’t smell like they were very drunk,” said Elana.

“Yup, lightweights, both of them. Sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am,” said Old Thomas, whose name I’d never actually heard.

“Why thank you,” said Elana, accepting her food and wine.

I ate as well, the fare was better than last night, and left enough silver to cover everything, including the damages. Chairs weren’t free after all.

Old Thomas tried to refuse until he saw one of the coins and whistled. “Old Imperial silver?”

I didn’t say anything and walked outside. Elana brought Gringer around, and the stallion was angrily looking around. In the light, this place might not have been a farming village, or if it was, it was a bad one. The fields were utterly untended. We trotted out and went toward the signposts and the river.

“So… bandits,” said Elana.

“Yup,” I replied.

“Think you corrected them long-term,” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Think they’ll follow us?” she asked.

“Nah,” I said, and flicked Justice.

I liked Elana. She was observant enough to realize what was going on as well as intelligent enough to play along as needed. I suspected she was ready to back me up in the inn when she abruptly flung open her cloak as soon as she walked inside, but then realized no stabbings were required.

She reminded me of Hope. She was always clever like that.

Justice watched the village for a mile, then two. They didn’t follow. The two most likely to chase after us weren’t in the walking mood today. They should recover in a few days, but I didn’t really care. Who tries to attack a knight with a chair? It’s just bad manners.

We found the river before noon and the path that went up it. You couldn’t call that path a road, but it was at least a solid direction that we would never have come up with on our own. Upriver just seemed such a washed out idea.

“How’s the headache?” asked Elana.

“Much better now,” I replied. “I think I’m close to a breakthrough!”

“Really,” she asked.

“No. I haven’t reversed the disks yet, but I’m getting close,” I said.

“I could tell,” said Elana. “You look like you’re having a seizure whenever you try.”

“Well, that is what it feels like.”

Elana snorted and continued riding. This was fairly pretty countryside. We were by a river, and there were birds just about everywhere. The grass was green, with wildflowers spread around.

The local bandits tended to stay hidden in the flowers when you glared at them like you were having a seizure.

“Seriously, how many has that been?” asked Elana.

“At least four, and they aren’t from the town. I think they’re just local toughs.”

“We should shoot them,” said Elana.

I considered that and shrugged. “They don’t seem interested in actually doing anything, so we’d be killing people who only might be bad guys.”

“When you put it like that…” Elana spotted another person hiding by the road, surely in a non-suspicious manner.

“I guess we could ask,” I offered, stopping under a sort of tree and looking up. The local supply of trees was limited, and this almost-tree was really a bush with delusions of grandeur.

Elana glanced up and pulled her bow out of her saddle.

“So, why are there so many people hiding out around this road?” I said to the depressing tree.

“I’m not hiding,” replied the bush.

“I wood like to believe you, I’m a big fan of sappy stories, but you guys won’t leaf us alone,” I said.

“If I show myself, will you stop?” asked the sad tree.

I nodded and a young man stepped out from behind a hidden spot in the oversized bush and sat on a branch. “How did you see me?”

“She did, I’m just minding my own business with these seizures,” I said. “What’s your name? I’m Sir Yorick, the knight.”

“I’m Freddy,” said the blond man who was looking at me curiously.

“Why are there so many bandits, Freddy?”

“I’m not a bandit, I’m a farmer,” replied the bandit.

“Are you growing crops in a bush, some sort of bush corn?” I asked.

“Look, the orcs aren’t patrolling like they used to, and they aren’t buying feed for their pigs, so you have to make do,” he said.

“Ah, that’s interesting, and if the guy hiding behind that other bush moves one more step I will have to put a dagger in his eye,” I said, holding up the neat dagger Old Thomas gave me, right before I had punched him in the gut twice. “The left eye, he’s got a patch on the right.”

Patchy stopped.

“So, the orcs are leaving you to your own devices out here, and their patrols have diminished significantly,” I said. “Is something happening around Kenin?”

The bandit considered that. “Torblan? They got attacked a few weeks back. Some other orcs came. They got let in and there was a huge fight. By the time old Corgo kicked them out, the northern part of the city—the bit outside the walls—had burned down. He’s pissed off now and won’t deal with any of the rural settlements.”

“And then you became bandits?” asked Elana.

“It isn’t like we have much of a choice, scary girl,” said the bandit. “I have two kids and a wife, and no money coming in because I don’t own my own land.”

“Well, I’m going to have to check that out,” I said as I kicked Gringer back to moving.

“Hey, aren’t you going to give me anything for my help?” asked Freddy.

“We didn’t kill you, but hey, I have a job for you if you want it,” I said. “Just wait here and tell the angry woman Yorick sent you.”

We kept on riding and that band of bandits didn’t do anything. They weren’t the best bandits, probably because they really weren’t desperate enough to actually start killing anyone for goods, yet. Give them enough time and they would be.

“How do you know Mom will be angry?” asked Elana.

“Your mother is always angry around me,” I replied. “Maybe she can use them.”

34

THE CAVE OF WONDERS

“The orcs aren’t morons,” I said grumpily as Justice began highlighting at least ten orcs at the entrance to the caves we were looking for.

“Did they figure out the caves lead to here,” asked Elana. “That might mean they sealed everything up in the fort.”

“Well if they did, we’ll have to come up with something else to try,” I said, sighing. “I guess we’ll go ‘talk’ to them. Maybe we can find something useful.”

The cave entrance was interesting, if nothing else. The river had carved into the side of the canyon wall exposing a lot of red rock. Then the river kept on going, digging deeper into the rock until it was almost entirely underneath an overhang. On a geological timescale something like that couldn’t last very long, but not very long on a geological timescale was still millennia.

“The path goes under that overhang, presumably that is where all the caves are,” I said, letting Justice Scan.

“That seems to be the case. All we have to do is get down there and we will be able to find the cave system,” said Justice.

I glanced over at Elana. “You got this, or want me to help you out?”

“I can’t take on ten orcs myself,” she growled.

“The leg?” I asked knowingly.

“Of course. It isn’t that there are ten ferocious orcs over there, it’s my stiff leg stopping me from slaughtering all of them,” said Elana.

“Well, this is your part of the job as my bodyguard, isn’t it?” I said, hopping off Gringer.

“We both know you like killing orcs, so just go do it,” she said. “I’ll find a spot and cover you, for all the good that will do.”

“Excellent, I will feel safer knowing that you have my back,” I said, gauging where all the orcs were. More correctly, I let Justice figure out where all of them were while I crept closer at my best speed.

My best speed was quick.

“There are ten, none of them appear to be elites, they are held up in two caves with several out and about doing orc things,” said Justice.

I didn’t know what orc things were, but they sounded silly. I crossed the red clay until I got close enough and spotted the two ‘guards’—they were just sleeping outside the cave. The smell hit me. Those caves needed to be fumigated.

“Do you see any heraldry on them?” I asked as I got within throwing range. One grunted and turned over, giving me a good view of everything.

“No, and they are not wearing pants either,” said Justice.

“Yeah, that’s enough for me,” I said, burning Dexterity. I drew Justice and closed the remaining distance, shoving the sword into both of the guard’s hearts. Video games made sneaking up on people seem a lot harder than it was. If you got in quickly enough while they were tired, it was remarkably easy.

There were three more in that cave.

I waited thirteen seconds, recovering my used point of Stamina, and stepped in. The first orc saw me right when I crossed the threshold, already burning Dexterity. I threw the dagger at his throat before he even opened his mouth. The dagger buried itself to the hilt and I moved onto his two companions.

The cave was disgusting, with filth piled in one corner. The orcs only had a moment to understand they were doomed. I executed both and walked back to the door, stopping only to pull my dagger from the corpse’s throat.

“Squire, let me analyze this one,” said Justice.

“No, do one of the ones outside, this place is putrid,” I said, stepping out just as another orc walked up to the cave. He looked at me in shock.

“A human,” were his last words as an arrow slammed into his back. The orc crumpled forward, dead. I threw a salute to Elana, my peerless bodyguard, and checked to see a fishing orc with an arrow in his chest.

That only left the other cave, and it was at least marginally cleaner. I crept up to the edge of the room and listened in.

“We cannot stay here much longer,” said an orc. “A hunter will be after us!”

“It doesn’t matter. If this continues for much longer everyone will perish,” said a second.

“The sickness is consuming more of us each year,” said a third. “You said we would be safe if we left the fort.”

“We die from the sickness, or we die from Corgo, both are just as dead.”

There was a pause as the orcs finished yelling at each other, then one said, “Where is Skul? He should have been back by now.”

“I don’t know, has Corgo found us?”

Then came the sound of multiple orcs grabbing weapons. It was my least favorite sound, and all three rushed to the door.

“So,” I said in Orcish. “Wanna talk about Corgo?”

They did not. The first screamed and charged me. He was slow, for an orc, which meant I easily struck him in the skull before he took two steps. The other two orcs attempted to split up and attack me from the sides, but all that accomplished was to allow me easier targets.

Elana stepped up as I flung the last one into the foul smelling cave. “They’re sick, on top of everything else.”

“First I’ve heard of that. Orcs aren’t supposed to even be able to get sick,” said Elana looking up at the walls. There were dozens of cave entrances here, each going to God knew where, and not all of them on ground level. “I’ll find a place to hold up. If you keep going, the fort is just a few miles east.”

I handed her a fishing rod. “This place should be empty for a few days, if there were human bandits here, the orcs ran them out first. They mentioned a hunter?”

“There might be another one,” said Elana.

“I guess. Keep your eyes open and your head down. You should have enough supplies to last for several days,” I said. I didn’t have to be Sir Yorick with Elana, she rather hated him. Elana preferred it when I acted normally, which ultimately was a relief. Plus, she was good at following instructions.

“I’ll try to do an adequate job of holding the rock,” said Elana, staring at said rock then slipping it into her pocket.

And calling me out on my pretentious bullshit as needed.

Nodding, I left Gringer there and continued north. He was not happy, but I left several apples and that should keep him satisfied for the next few days. Maybe he’d even learn to tolerate Elana.

He snapped at her, and she glared at the horse.

I left the overhang. From this side it was more obvious that the river had eroded the massive, porous mass of rock, and then kept right on flowing. It reminded me of a few points in the Grand Canyon, where a single flow of water had kept on digging, but on less of a grand scale.

The overhang was nice though, but as a fantasy element it was lacking. Give me the Grand Canyon any day.

As I moved away from Elana and Gringer, the effects of the items and quest abilities became obvious. Gringer rapidly became difficult to pinpoint, and by the time I was a few miles away, I was only vaguely aware that he was behind me somewhere. Elana I could point out as easily as if I could see her.

I turned north, following the rock face just as the sun began to set and spotted the fortress in the distance. A few more miles wasn’t anything I really cared about anymore, so I jogged the entire way. As I got closer, the scale of what I was seeing finally dawned on me. Kenin or Torblan, take your pick, was a huge fortress.

Fort Kenin wasn’t much taller than what I’d seen before, and the towers looked to be about the same height. There was even a keep on the wall facing the north, but the big difference was the number of walls. The curtain walls literally went all the way across the gap, leaving no spot to sneak past.

The entire fortress was surrounded by a city, though the air carried the stench of recent burnings. I could just see over the northern wall at points, and everything north of the fortress had been burned. The southern portion of the town seemed more intact and was vastly larger than Himdal. There was an obvious walled compound constructed behind the keep that was effectively Kenin’s downtown.

There was a small, densely packed city inside those walls. The orcs were quite content that no one was going to attack from the south, because they’d let the city on the southern side of the fort grow large enough that it was a serious defensive threat to the fortress if an enemy could seize it.

There was a lot of wood in that construction though, so maybe the plan was to set that part of the town ablaze if there was a serious siege. That had certainly worked on the northern town which was a burnt-out ruin.

“It is a poor strategy,” complained Justice. “At minimum they should be paying specific attention to the height of the buildings. At least one of those is tall enough to block the tower’s field of fire.”

“Do they not fight in sieges?” I asked.

“Possibly. Orcs are not fond of hiding behind walls, though they will do a siege if pushed,” said Justice.

“Those battlements were more for elevation than protection,” I said. The slave camp’s wall wasn’t broad enough to even cover the entire side and could have been flanked, though it did offer an excellent position for archers.

“They may be lazy because they do not feel the fortress is necessary,” said Justice. “Do remember that in the previous war they were right.”

“Point,” I said as we continued to the fortress. With the darkness and Justice’s Scan ability, it wasn’t hard to get close to the town where I ran into the first barrier. A short fence designed to keep pigs inside a field. I hopped over, looking for swine.

“There are none,” said Justice.

“Stranger and stranger,” I said as I continued toward the outskirts of the town. When we got close, I finally spotted my first orc. There was a wooden watch tower at the edge of town and an orc stood guard up there. He was carefully looking around the area, searching for possible threats like I would expect a sentry to.

Likewise, from here, I could see the fortress was well manned and there were multiple orcs patrolling the well lit walls. The switch from bleak destitution to a well-run military was stark.

The small town outside the wall was a human town, but there were no humans milling about after dark. That made sneaking in harder. I had to carefully move in to avoid the sentry. He was more diligent than most guards would have been, but he wasn’t perfect, and eventually he turned and yelled something to one of the wall guards.

I snuck into the human town while he was asking about relief.

Once inside the town that abutted the fortress wall, sneaking around was simple. The buildings were too tall and provided a lot of different spots to hide from the walls and tower. There was a two-man orc patrol, but they weren’t superhuman, or at least not superhuman enough to pose any issue with Justice’s Scan ability.

Of course, getting inside the fortress was a different problem.

“The gate is closed,” I said.

“Forcing it would get us caught,” said Justice.

“Climb up the building and jump in?” I suggested, tapping at the wood and stucco structure that looked like an office building of sorts. All the buildings around here were. While this was the tallest, the two buildings next to it were both two stories tall and just as stupidly placed close to the wall.

Checking everyone’s position, I started up the building. With Power and the ring of jumping, I was able to scale the wall quickly enough. By using the wall facing away from the fort, the enemy couldn’t even see me. That would be the best position to sneak over. Everything was going well when someone yelled.

“Ahoy there.” It was the sentry with a clear view of me from the tower I’d totally forgotten about. I scurried to the side of the building like a chipmunk trying to hide from a hawk. It was dark, but not as dark as I’d like.

“Did you see something?” yelled another orc from the fort wall.

“The stupidly tall building,” said the sentry. “Maybe something climbing it?”

“Maybe something climbing?” said the guard. “That building is three stories tall!”

“It was going up like a chipmunk. Whatever it was, it didn’t look natural,” said the sentry, second guessing himself. “I dunno, maybe it was a cloud?”

“And what does Corgo say about clouds?” asked the guard.

“Clouds can die, pretentious fluffy white assholes,” said the sentry, who started loudly ringing a bell.

The two guards on patrol spent the next few minutes opening the door and then climbing up each floor in search of intruders, while the wall guards formed a perimeter to ensure that no one got past them.

Which was fine by me. I jumped across and landed safely inside the walls before the sentry even started to ring the stupid bell and anyone started looking for anything.

35

IMPACT CRATER

“You are a big baby,” said Justice as I looked at the stars, through the hole in the roof that I made when I jumped over the wall. I attempted to land on the wall, but realizing the guard would see me, I continued with my momentum and hopped over to the other side and fell two stories into a roof.

I hoped the ringing bell would mask my landing, but at this point I didn’t care if the orcs found me. I flicked my finger into the large chunk of wood shoved straight through my midsection.

Cracking it off wasn’t working, so I shoved Justice under my body and used my elbow like a fulcrum with Power to lift my torso off the spike. That unfortunately didn’t give me enough reach to pull myself off of the bloody thing.

“I believe you are going to impale yourself again,” said Justice.

Unwilling to do that, I burned two points of Stamina, and a point of Mana. I used Dexterity and Power combined with Magical Strike to cut off the wooden stake and then rolled onto my front. With my last dregs of Power and Dexterity, I found the part still sticking out of my back and pulled it free.

Now I was bleeding out with a massive wound that was far in excess of my body’s capacity to survive, for about three seconds. Then I was… bleeding out less.

“What happened to Heal?” I moaned.

“There are limits to the spell, and you are way over them,” said Justice cautiously.

“What are my options?” I groaned, and then felt the spell cast a second time. That time it finished the work from the first spell. In either case, the wound was gone and I felt like I had sufficient blood to function.

Looking around, aside from the roof damage, the amount of blood made this place look like a murder scene. I must have bled out gallons and splashed blood everywhere when I pulled out the spike.

“They’re going to have a bad day tomorrow,” I said, picking up a small red doll that had just a bit of white still showing. The orc on it read, ‘baby’s naming day.’

“Yes, I believe that the pile of silk stopped your fall,” said Justice. They were in an exquisite wooden crate that screamed special order.

“Or the teddy bears,” I continued, standing and checking to see where everything was. I was tempted to cast Magical Armor to fix my shirt, but I was down one point of Mana and decided not to risk it.

I grabbed a silk garment to replace my doomed shirt. It was obviously a woman’s shirt, but the orcs men’s department was way too large for me. “You realize that shirt says Mommy knows best.”

“Yeah, I caught that,” I said.

“What are the clips on the chest for?” asked Justice.

“Making me regret life,” I replied, ensuring the nursing snaps were all snapped. I’d have grabbed another shirt, but they were even worse. Orcs were direct, bordering on vulgar, and shirts with messages sewn into them were apparently the vogue thing.

“Why would a mommy be for rent?” asked Justice. “Is she renting out her services for childcare?”

“No,” I said, walking to the outside door and opening it, leaving the strange maternity shop behind.

Once I was on the streets of Kenin, everything was easier. The inside of the town had many of the same problems as outside, except appeared to be less patrolled. It took me a moment to figure out why, but it was obvious when I saw several of the doors.

“Orcs live here,” I said as I cut down an alleyway. “There are no humans living here, so they don’t expect any trouble.” These orcs were arrogant and overconfident. Not a good combination in a green skinned humanoid or a sword.

“I see movement,” said Justice and I stuck fast to the side of a wall as two orcs walked by talking about boats. Both looked older, and slightly out of shape compared to the orcs I was used to seeing.

“Orc non-combatants,” I said, shaking my head. Somehow, I always pictured them as being warriors until the end, instead of seeing old orcs. Or women and children. “Oh, this is going to be bad.”

“What do you see?” asked Justice.

“An atrocity waiting to happen.” Being a hero was more challenging than I thought it should be. After all, in the stories, there weren’t hordes of babies that your allies were going to brain the second they could.

I was going to have to be very careful in my explanations to Zahir.

In the meantime, I needed to find these caves. Which of course, was what I was doing and not focusing on killing a nursery full of baby orcs.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“None at all,” said Justice. “Presumably, some of these buildings have basements, we could start there,” said Justice.

I spotted the nicest-looking building nearby and crept over to it. The orcs obviously followed the good locks made for good neighbors’ philosophy of living, and the locks here were quite effective. Not that I knew how to pick a lock or had any tools to do that with.

Quietly, at any rate.

“There is a window open on the second story,” said Justice. It was a draft window, designed to vent hot air while a second window on the first floor took in air, except the one on the first floor had a metal grate on it. The one on the second floor was only about a foot tall so squeezing in was going to be a challenge.

Fortunately, I loved challenges, and getting out of the street. With the ring and Power, I could make the height of that jump. The problem is that I couldn’t make the finicky level of technical maneuvering to actually get in the window from there, that’s why I added Dexterity to the menu.

I leapt up and onto the adjacent building, before kicking off and wall jumping to the draft window. It went perfectly, except I totally gouged out a chunk of the wall on the first house and cracked the window. Also, the draft window was at the top of the stairs, and I ended up rolling down about halfway as silent as a bowling ball. Perfect.

The inside of the orc house was surprisingly nice. I was at the landing in the middle of the stairs, carefully assessing what was going on and what my next steps should be.

“Are you conscious?” asked Justice.

“Just checking to see if this wood paneling is cherry. Tastes like it is,” I said, feeling my teeth to make sure they were all there. They were, though there was an obvious imprint of my face on the smooth wood.

“I don’t see why that’s important, but you do you, Squire. Also, there is an orc coming this way, he sounds angry,” said Justice.

I drew my sword in one quick pull and waited as a burly orc elite stomped around the corner. He saw me and raised his short blade to attack, but I was ready. I lashed out, and he sidestepped, showing that he too had Dexterity. He swung and I burned Dexterity to avoid the strike.

“Who are you?” hissed the orc.

“Your worst nightmare,” I replied.

The orc sighed. “Human, you have no idea what I fear. Let’s just finish this.”

We both slashed using Dexterity. He was bigger, and his normal strikes were more powerful than mine, even augmented with Power, but I had a sword. He had an oversized knife, it wasn’t even enchanted. I ended up using Magical Strike and cutting through it, him, and part of the banister.

“Do you think anyone heard that?” I asked as the orcs’ head thudded down the stairs.

We waited several seconds. I listened over the wet sloshing of blood waterfalling.

“I think we are clean. There is someone else in the house though,” said Justice.

“Great,” I muttered. I’d just killed an orc in a home invasion. They were racist assholes, but there was still something wrong about that, but ‘in for a penny.’ “Let’s go murder the other resident.”

I didn’t like this. Maybe I could knock them out and tie them up? That was a better option. I could kidnap them and take them with me down the tunnels, except Elana would certainly kill them as soon as she saw them. Meaning I might as well do it and save myself the trouble.

This was the part they didn’t talk about in stories. Sure, the evil minion signed his heart over to the evil organization, but the hero just dropped them all without even caring about any of them. Those minions had families, big unknown families that you couldn’t even put a face to.

I opened the door and was greeted by the sight of a tied-up, naked orc woman’s backside. “Thank you, mighty warrior, for dealing with that noise. I, a meek and servile female, shall reward you with that you most dearly seek.”

The lady orc was tall, lean, and green. Anatomically it was interesting, she had a posterior that was extremely well muscled. Every part of her was so toned that a body builder would kill for, but enough curves up top that they were about the perfect shape if you were into a muscle mommy.

When I stood there for a moment too long, she looked at me over her shoulder. For like a tenth of a second, she was even being seductive.

“YOU!” she growled.

“Kilva, I lived,” I said, pointing Justice at her.

Her well muscled arms flexed, and she was indeed tied to the bed. A look of abject horror crossed her face. “Oh no, I’ve heard stories like this. Where is my husband?”

“Um,” I began, and smiled uncomfortably.

“You killed my husband, again?” she groaned. “I don’t know what I ever did to you that required you to kill all of my husbands, but it’s getting annoying. Do you realize there is only one more eligible orc male of prime breeding age in the whole town?”

“You knocked me out!”

“I had you knocked out because you were trespassing in my bedchamber, again,” she said looking around and drawing her legs up to hide her nakedness. I threw a blanket over her, and she relaxed somewhat.

“Don’t play innocent, I know what you’re doing. You and the female orcs are really running orcish society, and this is just some sort of play so you can establish matriarchal dominance over the orcs,” I said.

“What are you on about?”

“The books, you stole them because you knew about the ritual!” I retorted.

“I stole them? They were my dead husbands and I needed something out of that match, I sure didn’t get any children. Could you untie me?”

“Not until you answer my questions,” I said, and she started struggling against one bond. The dead orc tied her up good. “If there isn’t some conspiracy, why did you get remarried so quickly? You couldn’t have met that orc more than a few days ago.”

“What? I’m an orc woman in prime breeding age,” she said. “He had all the qualifications of a good mate. He had a nice house and working equipment.”

“I understand the equipment, but the house?”

“I’m trying to give birth to little baby orcs, it is much easier in a house. I even set up a new nursery. I have a load of silks and teddy bears coming from a nearby port that should be here any time now,” she said.

“At the shop at the end of the road?” I asked.

She stopped struggling, her eyes widening in horror. “You can’t be serious? That’s why I sold the books, to pay for the nursery!”

“But they contained parts of a ritual to empower your species,” I said.

“I don’t care, I don’t read spell books anymore. I primarily studied Potion Making in finishing school! The books were valuable and Corgo was buying them,” she said. “I’m going to have to tell my father that a stupid human is slaying all of my husbands. You realize that I’m going to be living in an apartment, a studio one, instead of this small mansion.”

“So, the females aren’t secretly in control over everything?” I asked.

“No, that sounds like so much work when we could just be having babies. They’re cute, and funny, and you can nibble on their toesies,” said Kilva.

“I have misjudged this situation badly,” I said as the orc went back to trying to get her wrist free.

“Do you want me to untie you?” I asked.

“No, now that I’ve thought about it, that would be like asking the dog to crawl all over you while you’re naked and I don’t partake of that particular kink. I just like making my husband happy like a normal wife.”

“Then, you aren’t into this?” I said.

“Role play? Eh, I mean, I’ll play along, whatever puts babies in here, but seriously why go through so much work in the bedroom? Captured princess? So complicated. The orc position works,” said Kilva before finally giving up. “Great, this is my worst nightmare.”

“That you’re tied up at my mercy?” I asked.

“Let me put this in human, I’m naked and there is a dog in the room,” she said, baring her teeth at me.

“That’s kind of insulting.”

“I know, that’s what I was going for, you grok,” she said. She glared at me with fire in her eyes. Daring me to do something. I did. I closed the door.

“Can she get out of those knots?” I asked.

“Probably not. I mean if she screams hard enough eventually someone will hear her,” said Justice. “But the room is really well insulated for sound.”

“I figured as much. Let’s check the basement,” I said and walked to the stairs. I hopped over her former husband and easily found the path to the basement. “One second.”

I stepped my heel into the blood and walked over to the front door and unlocked it. I opened it enough to sneak out and took a few steps outside into the dirt before unsummoning my boot and sneaking back in.

“Why did you grip the door handle on the outside if you weren’t going to close the door?” asked Justice.

“In case they have fingerprinting,” I said and checked to make sure I wasn’t leaving any tracks before heading into the basement. If there wasn’t anything down there, I’d have to go to another building and try again.

The basement was more of a wine cellar and food pantry. There was enough in here to feed a family of four for a month. I didn’t touch any of it. “Can you detect anything?”

“Not right now, have you managed to reverse the disks yet?” asked Justice.

“Not yet, but I’m close,” I said.

“Do so, and I’ll be able to help,” said the sword.

I concentrated on my Mana halo. I had the rings spinning at different speeds now, with the inner disk spinning faster than the outer disk. That was supposed to balance the Mana load, but the next step was reversing the outer disk so that it was going at the same speed it was now but in the opposite direction.

So far all I’d managed to do was to slow it. Slowing it was horrible and felt like you were going to die. However, I needed this and desperation was a great motivator. I focused again, my power pressing up against the outer ring, and as it slowed, a great welling of power built behind my eyes as I finally stopped the flow of Mana in my body. I continued pushing and pushing. I needed this or I would have stopped. I needed this or I wouldn’t have done it.

Finally, when I thought I was at my limit and it felt like my eyes were going to explode, the ring skipped, and then started spinning backward. I collapsed to the floor, and Justice healed me.

The healing took away most, but not all, of the blinding headache. I shook my head and got back to my feet. I wiped my eyes, and my hand came back bloody. Then Justice cast Cleanse.

“You have managed it, I can now teach you a new spell, Amplify!” said Justice.

I stood up shakily. “How does that work?”

“You can cast Amplify when I am using another spell and it will increase the spell’s power in unusual ways,” said Justice.

I concentrated and found that when I started casting Amplify, it tried to latch onto Justice, but not the whole sword. The gems in the pommel attracted the effect. One glowed slightly as I felt it out and I cast Amplify on that one.

The walls briefly flickered such that I could almost see through them, for about a tenth of a second. “Shit, that almost worked.”

“What do you mean, Squire?” asked Justice.

“I could see through the walls, briefly. I think there might be a cave down there somewhere,” I said pointing.

“Oh, we could do that, but there is a much closer cave on the wall behind you to the left,” said Justice, who had a perfect recall of every moment of his life.

“Or that, that works too.” I walked over and found a wine rack sitting next to a carpeted wall. The rack was mostly empty, so I grabbed a few bottles and tossed them into my storage before pulling the rack aside. It was lightweight enough without the wine on it. “Right here?”

I drew Justice and lifted the wall hanging, which revealed a porous red, almost claylike stone. Pressing Justice into it, the sword only got about two feet into the wall when he chuckled.

“I am in a cave,” said Justice.

36

IN A CAVE

“Will I fit?” I asked, checking the minimap.

“That depends on your definition of fit,” said Justice.

The answer was yes, but I better not be claustrophobic. Justice claimed it didn’t take very long for the cave to open up significantly, so I set about carving my way in.

It took nearly thirty minutes to cut open a starter passage. I used Justice to carve out long bricks which I carefully set on another wall hanging. After I was done, I had a hole large enough for me to fit through, and I crawled into the beyond.

The passage was cramped, but I could easily fit through it until I got to a thicker passage. I opened it up slightly in several passes as I brought the bricks with me, and finally I set the wine rack back in place and covered the hole with the hanging. I left enough brick chucks there to stop airflow and hoped that no one went to the back corner of the pantry for some time.

“What was our reach on the pulse?” I asked.

“Only about fifty meters at high resolution,” said Justice.

“See anything else interesting?” I said as I crawled through the hole. The fact that I couldn’t stand was not comforting. As bits of stone plinked off my skull, I summoned my armor.

“Chin up, Squire! There is a passage that is much larger just ahead,” said Justice. “However, it does seem to contain water. Foul stuff.”

For twenty meters I crawled on my hands and knees through a dark and unused passage until I got to the end, where it was a blank wall.

“The chamber is a bit farther in, you might have to dig,” said Justice. That took an hour, mainly because the dirt didn’t really have anywhere to go, and each time I struck the red dust it threatened to blind me. After nearly six feet of digging, I managed to shove Justice into another cave.

“We are good to go, the cave is thankfully empty,” said Justice.

“Wait, what?” I asked, as I pulled Justice back and started thrusting him through the wall several more times.

“There are no monsters, which are a problem underground,” said Justice.

“Of course,” I replied. As the hole widened, it expanded faster. That was mainly because I could just push the dirt into the much larger cave, and partially because I was getting frantic from being in a tightly enclosed space for too long.

I’ll define ‘fit,’ stupid sword.

One big Power assisted push broke a me-sized hole through the cavern wall and I fell into a large tunnel with a small stream of water running down it. I didn’t know where the water was coming from, but I had a pretty good idea of where it was going.

I spent a moment unsummoning my armor and washing off in the cool water. It was chilly, but not freezing by any stretch.

“Water underground is of a consistent temperature,” said Justice. The water now had a reddish tinge from all the clay that I’d disturbed and that wasn’t going away anytime soon. We followed the stream, and I was using Justice as a torch while he gave me a rundown of what to expect during his Justice podcast. In short, if he’d mentioned any of it earlier, I wouldn’t be down here.

“So, kobolds are real,” I said, sliding the sword against the side of the cave as we walked.

“Yes, little dog-men,” said Justice.

“I thought they were little dragons,” I said.

“This is reality, not fantasy,” said Justice. “There are also goblins, those tidy little creatures who like to set traps.”

“Are any of those here?” I asked.

“Nah, if there were goblins here it would be cleaner,” said Justice. “Powerful individuals summon a personal valet goblin to take care of things while they are gone.”

“Seriously,” I said as we continued down the pipe. “How did that one get in the basement?”

“There was a lot of residual magical energy there from the portal,” said Justice.

Did that answer the question?

“But they are not the only monsters one might encounter,” continued the sword. “The most dangerous place in the underground is a large body of water.

“Define that,” I said. Goblins were weak and not worth my time anyway. I’d ask Justice about the one in the basement again later, when we weren’t in so much danger.

“Anything larger than an American swimming pool,” said Justice.

“Why did you bring that up all of a sudden?” I asked as I turned the corner, and there was a small lake.

“Because you should be prepared, Squire,” said Justice.

I looked at the map. The stream I was following was healthy-sized and at least one more tunnel ended in this lake. All of the water was being poured out of a relatively small exit tunnel at the end.

“Can you see in the water?” I asked.

“No, there is a difference in the medium so I cannot see into the water without touching the vile icky stuff,” said Justice.

“What?” I asked.

“It causes rust,” said Justice.

“You’re rustproof,” I grumbled, dipping the tip of the sword into the water. It instantly illuminated any significant amount of water from here to the full range of Justice’s Scan. I was having trouble parsing the 3D map, but they all looked like they were going the same general direction, and I could see almost back to the fort from here. That meant I was somewhere around the two mile mark. Only six more to go. I could even sense the stone from here, and it looked like we were on the right track.

I pulled Justice out and he growled, “No one should put a blade into water. That is bad manners. You have bad manners!”

“Fine, I’m sorry. Is there a terrible monster under the water who will kill me?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t see one,” grumbled Justice. “Also, the water is shallow, only a few feet deep at the deepest point.”

“Phew, then we were worried about nothing,” I said as I stepped into the water and a massive tentacle shot down from the ceiling, grabbing me around the waist. “Oh, you dick.”

And then, I was airborne, heading toward a squid-like beak that looked hungry. I burned Dexterity and slashed off the tentacle, which caused me to abruptly start falling.

I landed in the puddle, which was far too shallow to really do anything to slow me. Thankfully I landed on my face and used that to break my fall. I stood up almost instantly, but by then the first mass of tentacles dropped from the ceiling and snarled at me.

Fight or flight mode hit, but I was confident I could take one of these bastards. Then the other two landed, blocking all the exits. With no way out, I charged the one in the middle, slashing at it with Justice in an effort to slay it before it was ready. I failed, because masses of tentacles were always ready against knights and Japanese schoolgirls.

Several rocketed toward me and I began swinging Justice in short, quick arcs, slashing through many of them. Unfortunately, cutting off the ends didn’t actually stop them. They just sealed up and tried again. Worse as I was advancing, another tentacle hit me from behind.

It would have been a glancing blow, but instead of suction cups it had sharp barbs, and those shredded my skin while searching for a grip.

“Armor!” I yelled and felt my armor magically encase me as the three tentacle beasts waved their limbs hypnotically.

“Hold fast, friend. We will manage,” said Justice.

“Damn straight, I refuse to die to a tentacle porn monster,” I said, burning Dexterity and closing with the one by the door. My first two slashes were ineffective. Sure, I hacked off tentacles, but I didn’t score a lethal blow. The third slash caused the creature to scream and stumble back as both other monsters shot tentacles at me.

They wrapped around my chest and leg and started pulling. The barbs found small gaps in the armor and latched on, giving them a terrific surface to pull with. They used other tentacles to latch onto the wall and other surfaces to enhance their staying power.

My armor groaned, as it was taking most of the load. I wasn’t having too much fun either. I made several half-hearted slashes with Justice, each slicing apart a tentacle only to have another tentacle replace it.

My leg armor started to go and the tentacle monster wrapped around my leg even tighter as the armor buckled, so I cast Magical Armor. All the rents, gaps, and stretched straps instantly righted themselves, with the tentacle in between them.

The creatures screamed, trying to pull themselves free. No longer focusing on pulling as hard as they could, I was able to get my arm into position and I slashed off both tentacles holding me, then burned Dexterity and charged at the first one. I hacked three times, each slash cutting deeper until I found whatever the core mass of the creature was and slashed Justice through the creature’s guts.

Turning, I spotted the remaining two. One was badly wounded, blood pouring into the pool and coloring the water purple. The other one snarled and advanced, tentacles at the ready.

With only one, and no distractions, I was able to start cutting until it started running out of tentacles. Then it was just a matter of closing and striking at the creature’s core. One slash on the smaller creature, and it perished, leaving me all alone with its dying friend. I finished that poor creature off and wiped off Justice on another tentacle.

“Were those goblins or kobolds?” I asked.

“Neither, weren’t you paying attention? Those were cruel tentacle creatures of the deep, I have heard them called… keep those things away from me,” said Justice.

“Keep aways, gotcha,” I said, looking at the slot in the roof of the cave. They would just chill up there waiting for something to fall into the water and then snatch it. That did not seem very productive, but I hadn’t spent enough time here to find out if there were other creatures swimming in the water.

In my experience, being stuck in one of these caves was a bad idea.

“Any treasure up there?” I asked.

“I already looted them,” said Justice. With our enhanced connection, I could see a list of what Justice found in my UI.

I read through it. “Why does he have gloves?”

“He is a monster, no one has ever been able to understand what they have in their inventories,” said Justice.

I pulled the gloves out of storage and put them on, they fit automatically and seemed to tighten onto my hands. I expected that to be uncomfortable but as soon as I was acclimated to it, I could scarcely feel them.

“They are gloves of sure grip,” said Justice.

I squeezed my hands. Nothing happened, so I focused on holding Justice and felt something. As I opened my hand, small versions of the tentacles’ barbs were sticking out of the gloves. With them active, no one was taking my sword at least.

“I wonder,” I said, reaching up to the ceiling and extending the barbs. They latched on and I lifted myself up, for about two seconds before the small chunk of ceiling I gripped gave out. I landed on my feet, because why would I trust that the first time.

I had to pat the ceiling out of the glove for several seconds. “So not so good at spider climbing.”

“Probably not. The barbs don’t hurt me, but I imagine they would do horrible things to your typical hilt if given enough time,” said Justice.

Still, they were something and I looked at the pool. There was more than one tunnel out of here, it just so happened that the other one was smaller and totally underwater. I brought up the water map again without shoving Justice into the water, and that tiny passage went on for at least another hundred meters, so there was no way I could dig my way through. That left the other exit, and I started that way, armor on.

That lasted ten minutes. Armor was bulky and annoying if you didn’t have a reason to wear it, plus the tunnel was hardly uniform in dimension. There were several points that I had to batter my way through walls until the passage returned to human size.

“You are finally up to level 4,” said Justice. I didn’t feel any different, and wondered what new amazing powers I’d gained.

You are a level four Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 2* | Stamina: 4

Skills: Dexterity (rank 5), Power (rank 5), Conditioning (rank 4). Crafting skills: Smithing (rank 5), Salvaging (rank 3), 3 available. Magical skills: Capacity (rank 1)

“What’s with the asterisk next to my Mana, and what are we going to do with Power?” I asked.

“Well, you have two points of Mana, yet your Mana skills are not developed enough to support a second magical halo,” said Justice. “You will have to keep developing your magical skills. I will impart to you the skill Battery, which will allow you to use more Mana!”

“What does that entail?” I asked.

“Remember how your Capacity required you to spin your magical disks in opposing directions?”

“Yes, it was horrible,” I said.

“Now you must teach them to orbit your mind, like a planet around a star, made of rings, which are going in the opposite directions,” said Justice.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Just wait until you see how complicated this skill book is,” said Justice. “It will make the other one look like a primer.”

The book appeared in my hand, and it was literally twice as thick as the other one. I flipped into it a few pages and my brain seized up in rebellion against this atrocity.

“Fine, I’ll get to it. What about Power?” I asked.

“Well, there are two options if you choose to exhaust a point of Stamina. You can either do a tremendous burst of temporary Power, allowing you a singular mighty physical exertion, or you can instead choose to have a longer use of Power in a heightened manner.”

“So run super hard for one action or have generally extended Power for about fifteen seconds?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Justice. “I withhold recommendation, there are advantages to both, and you wished to choose one. I shall support your decision, like a good sword supports his knight!”

I had the Dexterity version of the quick action ability, I could dodge any attack which did seem useful, but generally when I burned Stamina I was able to dodge anything. It seemed to me that the longer Power would be more generally useful. Fifteen seconds of Power was the equivalent of burning five Stamina, so mathematically it made sense.

“I’ll go with the longer version,” I said.

“Excellent, let me unlock your skill,” said Justice as I waited. “Ahem.”

I held aloft my Magic Sword. “I have the Power?”

“Why did you say that? You didn’t say that when you chose Dexterity,” said Justice.

“I was doing a thing,” I said.

“Your things are silly,” said Justice. “And done.”

Power, Initiate rank 5: Your strikes will be 50% more powerful, additionally you can burn stamina to briefly increase your weapon strikes impact by 90%. You can exhaust one stamina to increase your strike’s damage by 140% for 15 seconds.

Dexterity, Initiate rank 5: You are 50% more mobile, you can burn one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 90%. You can exhaust one stamina to heighten your ability to move by 900% against one attack.

Conditioning, Initiate rank 4: You tire 30% less. You recover your first point of stamina in 12.5 seconds.

I flexed my hand and could feel the slight increase in strength that Power granted me. It was odd, considering the skill tip didn’t mention general strength, just weapon strikes. The effect was that my whole body just got more powerful. I didn’t write the tool tips, but whomever did was lazy.

Stepping out of the underground pool, I continued down the water dug tunnel, occasionally dipping Justice into the water. Every time he shrieked like I was torturing him, so I tried to do it as few times as possible. I was marginally successful.

We didn’t run into anything else too terrible. One more of the tentacle monsters, but we knew they were in the ceiling and Justice spotted it before we even entered the cave.

“Seriously, it’s hiding in the ceiling,” I said, sticking my head out just a bit and examining the roof. The damn thing blended in, to the point where if Justice wasn’t highlighting it on the minimap, I’d have ignored it.

“Jump in and attack?” asked Justice.

“I have a better idea,” I said, grabbing a rock, nature’s quarter. I flipped the rock into the water at the edge of the cave next to me and the keep away went for it instantly, sending a tentacle right at the spot the rock hit. I grabbed the tentacle, and then exhausted a point of Stamina.

Pulling with all of my newly increased strength, I yanked the tentacle monster out of the wall and into the hallway. I was mainly doing it because I was curious to see if I could, but the secondary reason was also funny.

By the ten second mark I had the tentacle stretched out as far as it could go and the keep away was totally squeezed into the cave, blocking the whole thing. No matter how hard I pulled, the tentacle would not pop free though. After another minute of tugging, I stopped and looked at the rapidly filling tunnel. The water was starting to pool where the keep away clogged the pipe.

I waded up and thrust the sword into his head several times. One of them worked and the creature stopped thrashing. Which led to the second problem.

“So, is he just stuck?” said Justice.

“I imagine that eventually the water pressure would force him out,” I said as I smacked the large now cork with my heel. It didn’t budge, or more specifically, it budged everywhere at once which only served to stick it deeper into the walls and block the passage more.

“It is not moving, and I don’t think there was another one in there,” said Justice.

“We can carve it to bits,” I said, slashing at the creature several times. It was coming apart in chunks, incredibly smelly chunks. “Wait, you are on low powered fire mode now, could you get hotter?”

“I am carefully managing my Mana so you can see, it is all I can do to keep up this low level of flame without draining anything, and the crystal is still damaged,” said Justice.

“This is about to get gross,” I muttered and stepped closer to the keep away. I knew how to butcher several kinds of animals, and this one was by far the strangest. A keep away was about the size of an angus bull, but that was just a guess because those things didn’t have twenty limbs and a beak. I removed the beak, figuring that was something I didn’t want lying around, and the water was already over my knees.

By the time it was up to my waist, I managed to stab through the monster’s anus, respectfully of course. I sawed around a bit and that split open the whole creature. The guts that had been piling around me shot out of the funnel into the room below.

Then I slipped on the guts and went headfirst into the creature’s innards.

“Justice, where am I?” I asked.

“You are nearly in the room with the pool, beyond the tunnel,” replied my sword. That was good. I didn’t want this to be embarrassing. “Wait, I remember this. It was just like Ace Ventura, When Nature Calls. Great movie! Have you ever seen the rhino scene?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I grumbled and started wiggling until I pooted out of there, splashing into the purple blood-filled water. Now that the keep away was hollowed out and bleeding everywhere, the tentacles were losing their grips on the wall and the whole creature basically turned itself inside out by pouring out its own destroyed rear end.

So heroic, all I was missing was a one liner.

“I didn’t just rectum, I destroyed ’em,” I said, dunking my head in the water to get some of the blood out of my eyes. I grabbed a tentacle and looked at the grippers. They were full of rocks from the cave wall. “Stupid thing was gripping everything.”

“Well, let’s not do that again,” said Justice. “Also, the water ends soon.”

“The water ends, it doesn’t get into a bigger pool?” I asked as we continued, then found the answer.

As I stepped back into natural light for the first time in hours, I looked around to the lovely river before me, and below me. Well below me. I was about forty feet in the air in a tunnel that ended in a small waterfall that was almost directly over the river. I looked around and spotted Elana fishing, patiently.

I got the rope out and drove several pitons into the wall of the cave to secure it. Then I used six more pitons just to be safe before she saw me and walked over.

“I see you caught dinner,” I stated, as she paused and stared. I apparently had not cleared off as many of the guts as I thought, because she looked really surprised to see me. It was only then I realized she was not Elana. “Who are you?”

“We just arrived, there was no one here. Isn’t this the place we were supposed to meet?” said the woman, uncomfortably.

37

THE DAMSEL

“What do you think happened?” I said, searching the area. It didn’t take long, there was a spot where someone obviously fought in a close range engagement.

“That is Elana’s bow,” said Justice. He was right, I was just used to seeing it in a single piece.

“Do you see horses?” I asked and looked over at Gringer.

“I see three horses, Gringer is over there,” said Justice.

I whistled loud, an old trick my father taught me. You could hear it over quite a range. Gringer ignored that. Then I thought ‘get over here’ to the horse and Gringer trotted over.

“We’ll have to follow her,” I said as I ran over to my steed. I quickly found his saddle and prepared him while the other scouts figured out something was very wrong.

“We thought that was part of the earlier fight.”

“No, Elana was taken,” I said. “I’m going to find her.”

“How are you going to find her?”

“A knight can always find a damsel in distress,” I said and blasted off on Gringer.

“Also, you have that tracking stone,” said Justice.

“Well, better to leave a bit of mystery,” I said as Gringer charged after the other horse, even without the stone he clearly knew which way they went. Given that the fort was only a few miles from here, the only chance we had was if the orc wasn’t moving too fast.

A good horse could run at over thirty miles an hour, but they weren’t that good over the long haul. After two or three miles, Gringer would get too tired to move at full speed anymore. Still, a trip of eight miles was still only an hour or so of movement at a normal pace.

Everything was going to depend on if the orc took Elana straight to the fortress or if she managed to delay him. Given that the tracker wasn’t on a straight line to the fort, I was hopeful.

After fifteen minutes of traveling at a brisk pace, Justice got something. “I see the horse, they have stopped.”

“That could be good or bad,” I said and realized that just because she had the tracker did not mean she was alive.

“Can I Amplify your Scan for more detail?” I asked.

“I do not believe it would help at this range,” said Justice. “They are stopped by some water.”

“Is he torturing her?” I asked, that terrible option taking purchase in my mind. The more I thought about it, there were lots of terrible options and only a few good ones. I wanted to race Gringer there, but if the orc heard me and Gringer was too tired to give chase I’d have a whole different problem.

I wasn’t in the mood for any more problems, so I moved Gringer there with steady purpose, but not so fast or loud that we would be detected. The red rocks around here drank up the sun and made everything too hot. There were a number of streams and other pools of water, but just as often as not, the streams would end or you’d see a pool that dried up too recently.

“The ground here is particularly holey,” said Justice.

“As there’s an important religious aspect or holes?” I asked.

“As in the ground is like Swiss cheese around here,” said Justice. “There are caves everywhere.”

“Good to know,” I said. I started trying to tune out the Justice podcast of useless geological facts.

“Let me be more clear, I lost him,” said Justice. “There are lots of places to hide.”

“Shit,” I replied.

“But she is still visible,” said the sword. “As is his horse.” Meaning the orc wasn’t on it.

“Oh, so it’s a trap,” I said as Gringer walked over a ridge, and I could see a small pool with Elana tied up. She was sitting on the edge of a shallow pool of water, and even at this range I could tell she was hurting.

I hopped off Gringer. The horse stared at me impatiently.

“I don’t know, go capture the other horse,” I said, and he snorted.

“We must rescue her,” said Justice as I surveyed the situation.

“I agree, but this screams trap.” I patted my horse on the side. He snickered and walked away, also obviously determining that we were walking into the lion’s den. The shallow pool was in a depression in the ground, which likely was why the pool was there. This wasn’t spring fed. The area saw enough rainfall that that pool could easily be filled.

The depression was steep enough that I needed to be careful. There were trees, rocks, and the overwhelming possibility that the orc was hiding somewhere I didn’t know.

“I don’t see any other enemies, and there is no obvious campsite here,” said Justice. “I think he stopped for the purpose of seeing if he was being followed.”

I checked the minimap and the area was surprisingly detailed. The pool of water linked into the network of underground streams we’d traveled through. There might even be a connecting passage somewhere, but I doubted that.

“Caves,” I said, the side of the depression was just tall enough that you could have a cave on it considering the local geography.

“I cannot Scan through this much rock, but yes I would be suspicious if the water flowing out of this pool didn’t go through a cave somewhere,” said Justice as some of the water suddenly flashed orange as he attempted to isolate the orcs location.

“That’s a pretty big area,” I said. “But thanks, I can probably manage that. Keep on the lookout.”

I considered my situation. I was absolutely walking into a trap. If I came in wearing my armor, I was going to be heard on the way in. If I snuck in, there was a greater chance that I’d be able to surprise the ambusher. The deciding factor was knowing where the ambush likely was.

Giving the possible caves the largest berth I could manage, I crept toward Elana, regretting my lack of stealth gear. The fact she was looking at me like I was an idiot pretty much confirmed that the orc was still around and planning on ambushing us. I was spending half my time watching the minimap and the other looking for danger.

“Movement,” said Justice. The dot highlighted just as an arrow rocketed toward me. At this range, I could sidestep it and did so. The arrow flew past, digging into the mud uncomfortably close to Elana.

There were only two caves, and the orc was hiding in one of them. He growled, stepping into the light, his bow still at the ready.

“You are fast, for a grok,” said the orc. He was one of the taller, lanky ones, but he was also the largest version of that type of orc I’d seen. If he straightened, I was sure he would have easily topped eight feet. As it was, he seemed kind of curled up almost as if he couldn’t straighten up. He wore lighter armor than mine, probably to compensate for his massive size. There were two overly heavy weapons on either of his hips that looked like someone couldn’t make up their mind between swords and axes.

Of course, he was holding a massive orc bow.

“I am. What is your name, for I am Sir Yorick,” I stated.

“A Yorick wants my name? How silly,” said the orc. “Humans call me Breaker.”

“Alright, Breaker, I am a knight. If you shall allow me to rescue this damsel, we can proceed with an epic battle,” I responded as Sir Yorick.

The orc snorted. “I am not interested in battling with a grok.”

“A grok, eh?” I asked, annoyed. “I assume you shall fight dishonorably then.” Grok meant something like an off-brand farm animal. Outside of the literal translation, it was a slur that orcs used against humans specifically, or particularly stupid pigs. While all orcs viewed humans as little more than livestock, some were far worse about it than others.

“No honor for grok,” said the orc as he adjusted his bow, which was no longer aiming at me. The second arrow went straight for Elana. I interposed myself and swung Justice in a quick arc. The arrow shattered.

It was still an aspect of range. The orc was about twenty paces from me and even with his superior orc strength, the arrow couldn’t do anything but obey physics once it was released and I was damn quick.

The orc blinked at that. “Another skill user? There are so few grok left who even know skills.”

“I am a knight,” I said, holding out Justice in a salute the orc did not deserve. “You shall treat me with more respect.”

“Grok wants respect,” chuckled the orc. “Yet grok pretends to be a knight.”

“I demand respect, honorless,” I replied, in orc.

“A grok thinks I care about it’s opinion of my honor,” chuckled Breaker.

“Orcs are fixated on their mothers,” said Justice.

“Fine, you motherless bastard,” I spat. Don’t think about what that means.

Grok was a bit insulting if you lobbed it back at an orc, but it would have been the equivalent of a small child saying a swear word. Honorless would most likely get laughter from the comment. Calling an orc motherless, now that was a fighting word.

The orc snarled, throwing down his bow on the bank and pulling out two very large sword-axes. I tossed a dagger to Elana while I summoned my armor.

Breaker watched that and chuckled. “An actual knight? Where did you find that sword?”

“My sword is as unbreakable as my vow,” I replied trying to think what else the sword would say. Oh. “I bring Justice to these lands. Yield, and I may let you live!”

Breaker chuckled. “I shall enjoy breaking you.”

He charged, his heavy boots splashing through the water. I blocked the first blow from the ax, then sidestepped the second slash. Spinning around, he brought the first ax straight at my face and I deflected it with Justice, but not sufficiently and it slammed into my pauldron.

The metal dented, but the impact wasn’t enough to do any lasting damage. Still, through a full parry, that was depressing. He was preparing a fourth strike when I drilled forward with a kendo slash at his head, this time he had to dodge. He frowned.

“You still stand?”

“Justice always stands,” I replied and surged forward in a series of cuts, forcing the orc onto the defensive as I drove him back first one pace, then two. The orc’s expression switched from mildly curious to annoyed when he attempted to counterattack, and I managed to get a firm chop into his upper arm, a metal ridge running down the arm was the only thing that saved him from serious damage.

Against a smaller orc, even the impact would have seriously injured him, possibly I could have broken the arm. Breaker just snarled and swung one of his axes, knocking Justice away and getting a clear shot to my chest. As he swung, I burned Dexterity, attempting to move out of the path of the strike.

He burned Dexterity as well, but not quite fast enough. I spun away as the ax impacted my plate armor and smashed powerfully into my chest. I managed to deflect the damage, somewhat, but he’d probably broken a rib or two. I stumbled back several paces, only able to stay on my feet due to Dexterity.

“Remember your position, keep your ally to the enemy’s back,” said Justice.

“She’s tied up,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

“A Dexterity user, like her,” said Breaker. “She thought that and her silly bow would be sufficient.”

“A skill user, like you,” I stated.

“Grok’s do not use skills like orcs, you use skills like animals, stupidly. I was giving you a chance, now you will see what it is like to fight and actual skill user,” said Grok.

“How many points of Stamina do you think he has?” I asked Justice.

“Unknown, but having more than five would be difficult,” said Justice.

“I only have four,” I replied.

“Yes, I meant if he has more than five you are going to die, Squire,” said Justice.

“Thanks for the confidence boost.”

“You have Mana to turn the tide,” said Justice. “Just be careful, his whole suit is not Magical Armor but there are ridges of hardened magical steel around the vital spots.”

“Great,” I said, glancing at the map where Elana still stayed motionless. Apparently, the dagger was not close enough or she was too tied up to use it.

I dropped back into my stance, ready for round two. Breaker was adjusting the grip on his right arm, the one I struck, telling me that at least some damage had occurred. I inhaled, wincing at the feel of the injury, but it wasn’t enough to merit healing.

In theory, I should have a reach advantage. Justice was slightly under four feet in length while the sword-axes were both barely two feet. In practice, the lanky orc’s arms were so damn long that they more than compensated for the difference.

He swung both sword-axes at my midsection and I danced back, reversed, and tried for another strike to the head. He jerked his head to the side and brought the rear side of his weapon against Justice where I noticed something disturbing. There was a weapon catch there designed to bind my blade.

I aborted the strike, preserving Justice. My sword might claim he couldn’t be damaged, but if the orc managed to bind my sword, he could use his long arms to attack me with his ax.

“Can we damage the weapons?” I asked.

“They are enchanted, at least the outer steel is,” said Justice.

“But not the insides?” I asked as I pulled back in a spiral, deflecting shot after shot. The orc hadn’t burned any more Stamina, and I was beginning to wonder if he would when his weapons began to speed up. I burned Dexterity and attempted to deflect the attacks only to find them overwhelming me. I was backpedaling as quickly as I could through the ankle deep water.

“A blade art!” yelled Justice.

“What is that?” I said as the attack finally subsided. My arms trembled from the exertion. I’d burned Power unconsciously to keep the attacks from killing me.

“A special skill that can be used through your weapon. They are even less common than general skills,” said Justice.

“Well, I exhausted one Stamina and burned two more, I think he is tapped out,” I wondered and then committed.

Holding one Stamina in reserve was silly, if the orc just tapped himself out then I could finish this in one strike. I swung down with my sword only to find the orc responding with similar speed. He still had Stamina in the can, enough to respond to me at any rate.

Still, now that I could see what was going on, I was a touch faster than him. It wasn’t much, but that was all I had. I attempted to make use of it, and executed four strikes, pushing him back. His deflections were slower than before, but still adequate, and while I tagged him twice, neither was enough to overcome his armor.

It wasn’t that I needed to hit him, even with Justice’s ability to dig into steel, I needed to get a solid blow and the two times I struck the orcs armor was simply not enough to do sufficient damage.

As Dexterity ended, I felt strange. The feeling was familiar—I’d overexerted myself. With Conditioning, it wasn’t enough to drop me to my knees, but I was going to be slower and the orc was smirking.

“Stupid knight, what are you without that sword?” yelled the orc as he activated a different sword art. I held Justice at the ready to defend myself but instead of attacking me, both sword-axes converged on Justice with a mighty sound like a bell ringing.

Both axes deflected, and the orc stumbled back as the blade entirely ignored the strike. Unfortunately for me, the strike sent so much energy down the blade that the only reason I was able to keep my grip was the gloves.

“I think my hands are broken,” I said after a moment.

“Oh boy, are they ever. I’m going to heal and hope it is enough,” said Justice. My hands went from feeling like goop to just hurting tremendously. I was barely able to grip Justice decently and the orc was shaking his head. He was built far more massively than I and his hands appeared fine.

“I shall break you,” said the orc.

“No humans call you Breaker, do they,” I said, holding up Justice. “You just named yourself that because you think it sounds cool.”

“I am Cho-tak, and I will be the last thing that you—” stated the orc, who stopped mid-sentence. He turned around and looked behind him where Elana was lying on the ground, with his bow pressed up against her feet. There was no way for Elana to shoot the weapon normally, so she’d turned it into a foot bow.

A thick arrow shaft stuck out of his back. He stumbled, dropping to his knees where he began fumbling for something in his pouch. Finding it, he dragged out a potion and reached for the cork.

That’s when I activated a Magical Strike and cut his arm off. The stoppered potion, and most of his arm, fell into the shallow water. Cho-tak grunted.

“You grok cheat,” he said.

“Honorless one, you set the rules for this engagement,” I said as I picked up the potion and sent it into storage.

“That is a full heal potion,” said Justice.

“Could I use it on Hope?” I asked.

“It would not cure her disease entirely, but it would reinvigorate her body,” said Justice. “One of those potions will restore someone from the brink of death. It would buy you weeks or months to find a better solution.” That was the best news I’ve heard since I got here. The longer I could buy her, the better her chances.

I felt a point of Stamina recover and activated it, slamming Justice down on the orcs helmet. It was minorly magical, and took two full strikes for the metal to cave in. The second hit caused his armor and weapons to vanish as the body slammed to the ground, and the head fell off.

I walked over to Elana. She was bruised but obviously still full of fight. She had also only cut herself somewhat free. Enough to worm over to the bow with the muddy arrow in her teeth.

“Need help?” I asked. Using Justice, I cut the remaining bonds before helping her back to her feet. She went straight to a nearby dry rock and promptly collapsed again. She had been beaten rather soundly.

“I thought I had him,” she said. “He was poking around the area but didn’t know I was there. My first shot nailed him in the back but didn’t do any real damage. Then it was on, and he was too much for me.”

“He was very powerful,” I said.

“Was he too much for you?” she asked.

I thought about that, “It was not going well, but I’m sure Sir Yorick could have pulled something out of his ass.”

Elana snort-laughed, then immediately looked embarrassed as girls did when they had terrible laughs. That was a doozie. I sat behind her and leaned my back against her. She protested for an instant, before realizing that meant she could sit up more comfortably.

“Thanks for saving me,” said Elana.

“Likewise,” I replied, then chuckled. “You make a terrible damsel in distress.”

38

THE SECRET INVASION

When we got back to the camp, I took Elana to the infirmary tent. While we were busy fighting the orc, my horse fought his own battle and emerged victorious. Gringer brought back his prisoner, the orc’s horse, and I went to visit Bella, who was annoyed.

“We ditched the wagons,” she said without preamble. “And just when I was getting ahead of everything.”

“Where?” I asked.

“One of the burned out villages a while back. We managed to camouflage them in the nearby ‘woods.’ Those large bushes will conceal them for a while, but I don’t think they will remain hidden for very long. In any case, this is going to work in a few days, or it won’t,” said Bella confidently.

“That’s one kind of confidence,” I said.

“But there is no hammock, and sleeping on the ground is uncomfortable,” she said, eyeing me.

“You are insatiable,” I replied.

“There’s nothing interesting to do,” said Bella looking at her portable equipment. It was a far cry from her support wagon. I handed her both sword-axes and she eyed them.

“These look fancy, but I can’t do much with them here,” she said.

“They’re magical. I was hoping you might be able to use them somehow.”

“Well, when we get back to my actual forge I will have a host of options,” she said grinning at me. “For a fee.”

“Silver?”

“Helping me move things in the back room,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about trading sex for equipment. On the one hand, Bella was pretty and adventurous. On the other, I was being used like a piece of meat, and I wasn’t quite a hundred percent on board with that.

“It is because you cannot impregnate her,” said Justice.

“What?” I asked, mentally, to the sword.

“Remember, knights can magically prevent themselves from impregnating a woman, with their sword’s help, so you are one of the few men that she can have relations with without worry,” said Justice proudly.

“Oh,” I said in a dramatic bit of understatement. It wasn’t that she liked me that way, it was that she wasn’t worried about any consequences because birth control didn’t exist on Exigin.

“The things we do for Justice!” said the sword.

“Yeah,” I replied, leaving Bella in her meager forge. She still had work to do, just nothing more elaborate than simple sharpenings or small armor patches. It was the equivalent of telling a certified mechanic that she was going to be changing washer fluid. It needed to be done, but it wasn’t going to hold her interest for long.

I passed by the rope ladder up to the cave. That was probably the easiest solution, it was pinned at the bottom and the top, and every thirty seconds a soldier went up the ladder. A single sergeant was at the bottom yelling for when the next person could go. They clearly only trusted it to hold two people at once.

Zahir was by the ladder, talking to several individuals. She spotted me and sent them away.

“An orc was here,” she asked without preamble.

“Dealt with. Your daughter will recover and is getting checked out by the infirmary,” I said.

“Good,” was all she said, and a slight amount of tension left her body.

We both stood for a moment while another person started climbing the forty foot tall ladder. Even with everything tied down, there was still some sway to the rope. It took a person nearly a full minute to climb the thing, and in most cases with the second person also climbing it, that didn’t help matters any.

“No wood?” I asked.

“I have a few scouts chopping the scrub trees, but the first wooden ladder we made didn’t hold up,” said the general. None of the trees around here were all that tall, maybe ten feet at most and none looked like hardwoods. Thinking back, I hadn’t seen an actual proper tree since the spider forest.

“The path is eightish miles underground,” I said. “There is only one real way to go, and I marked everything with Justice.”

“We figured that out. You’re lucky that sword doesn’t dull or what you did in the first few caves would have ruined it,” said Zahir.

“You treated me like some useless toy. I am a sword with thoughts, and feelings, and JUSTICE!”

“Yeah, but he’s invulnerable,” I said, thumbing Justice slightly out of the scabbard. He needed a good polishing, but I didn’t think we had time.

“We won’t be when we get into town. I am planning on launching the attack quickly once we get our bearings,” said Zahir, turning to me. “So my question is, can you take Corgo?”

Before fighting Cho-tak I would have assumed yes. Now, that wasn’t the case. Winning my last fight was far more listening to Justice about keeping Cho-tak in the proper position and far less about me actually winning. In order to beat Corgo, I’d need to be much smarter.

I needed to actually be a hero.

“Of course,” I responded anyway. That was what a knight did. That’s what Justice was screaming to do, and if I came in smarter, I’d be able to do it. How much tougher could Corgo possibly be anyway?

She dismissed me and I went to check on Elana. She may have been beaten, but she was in no way broken. After a dose of the low grade healing potion the camp could manage, she looked mostly intact. The massive bruises had receded into small bruises, and she could flex both hands enough to wield a bow normally.

I handed her mine.

“Seriously?” she said.

“Treat it as a gift,” I replied. “That bow has seen me through many battles.”

“No,” she said, holding the bow and trying to pull back the string. It barely moved. “I’m a human woman, not some mythical knight. I can’t use this thing.”

“You could restring it,” I said.

“Having to reduce the pull that much is so depressing,” she said sadly.

“What about this?” I said, offering her my light crossbow. It was a lighter weight and could be wielded one handed. Elana looked at it for a long moment and tested the action.

“Maybe. I’ll see what Bella can manage.” She waved Bella down, and the weaponsmith eyed the crossbow carefully. She pulled out several tools and started working on it, the crossbow being something interesting to work on.

After a few minutes, Elana walked back over with the improved crossbow. The arms were extended slightly and there was a pedal mounted to the front. Elana placed the crossbow on the ground and put her foot in the pedal, holding it there. Then she pulled up on a short lever—one I’d never bothered with because I had Power—and clicked the string in place.

She dropped a bolt into the mechanism and test shot the nearby cave wall. The heavy bolt buried itself entirely in the soft stone.

“I miss my old bow, but this will do nicely,” she said as I pulled out Cho-tak’s bow.

“Wait, I killed him!”

I pulled the bow back. It was strong for me, but I could manage it. I handed it to her. “When you can draw it, I’ll let you have it.”

She tugged on the string once and handed it back to me. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“You’re up for a trip through the dark evil underground, bodyguard?” Elana nodded and we headed for the rope ladder.

“Race you,” she said, cutting into the front of the line and charging up the ladder while burning Dexterity. Not to be outdone, I used Power and my ring of jumping and leapt above her. I started climbing while burning my own Dexterity.

“Not fair!”

“All is fair in love and rope climbing,” I yelled as I reached the mouth of the cave first despite one impressive attempt by her to climb around me. I stepped back into the cave and another sergeant looked at me sternly. I brushed past him and down the tunnel where nine other soldiers stood against one wall. The tunnels weren’t massive, but you could easily squeeze by them, so I did.

I drew Justice and lit him up. “Be prepared for a whole bunch of nothing.”

Elana whistled into the all-present darkness of the cave, causing an odd echo. “So, this is a place from my nightmares.”

“You should see the tentacle monsters.”

39

BACK IN KENIN

“Seriously, how many?” she asked.

“Maybe four,” I said as we continued up the last section of the passage. We’d already passed everyone. Most people were suitably worried about monsters in the dark as we traveled through the underground, not us though. I had the confidence of someone who’d been here before coupled with Justice’s ability to Scan things like a radar dish.

Mainly it was that, since he’d seen the ceiling without anything on it, he knew how deep it should be. We were extremely confident that the creatures hadn’t been replaced on our walk back. The pools were even less of a danger. One was as deep as your waist if you went all the way to a corner, but Justice could Scan the water better than he could Scan the walls.

Overall, while I was certain that monsters would eventually move back into these passages, it wouldn’t be soon. We would have plenty of time to move the army into position for Zahir’s plan, and hopefully that would allow them to hold the south for a time.

“He was more like the orcs I expected to fight,” said Elana.

“What do you mean?” I scratched the wall a few more times to make sure everyone knew to come this way.

“Kobla wasn’t that tough,” she said. “I know you drugged him, and that his men were borderline insane when we fought them, but none were what my mother described during the war. Breaker was.”

“I have fought skill using orcs before,” I said.

“But he had multiple skills and knew how to use them,” she said. “That was how they all fought during the war. All of the main orc forces were full of skill users, and you’d almost never see any of the grunt types. All of them were those huge guys that were his size.”

“So, wait, the orcs are smaller now?”

“No one knows why,” said Elana.

“I know someone who might,” I said as we continued toward the passage, but that was puzzling. I checked with Justice and got a great response.

“They do not follow the path of Justice, so of course they are becoming weaker!”

“Of course,” I replied as we got to the spot I’d crawled out of the wall from Kilva’s house. I spotted it because of the damage to the wall where I’d burst out. Even with me stacking rocks here to stop a breeze, it was painfully obvious that I’d come out here. However, Elana was looking down.

“A giant X,” she said.

Where I’d laid in the stream of water to wash off, I’d effectively made a mud angel, and the mud was red colored due to the clay in the soil.

“I didn’t want you guys to miss it,” I said. Elana snort-laughed and then blushed.

I pulled out several chunks of rock and started throwing them across the tunnel to block the way forward. I didn’t have nearly enough material to be successful at that, but I did have enough to make anyone walking here look at the big X and the open passage to their left. It was still only approximately my size, so we took a few minutes to cut out more of the wall.

“Not too much,” Elana said when we’d expanded it enough that you could crawl on hands and knees through it. “I don’t trust the roof of this cave.”

“I think we can get a bit more,” I offered.

“I hate you,” said Justice, the tool that I’d been using to expand the hole.

Elana looked at it and thumped it with her fist, then shook her head. I tested it as well and decided she might be right. There was something there when you struck it that wasn’t a stable feeling.

“You go first, you have a priceless Magical Sword,” said Elana.

The short crawl through the passage got me right back to where I’d started this whole ordeal. It looked like no one had discovered my exit, and of course Justice was super helpful.

“She is a wicked, evil thing,” said Justice as I stuck him behind the curtain and let him Scan the area. I got much less filthy this time, considering there was now enough space to actually crawl properly.

When the minimap came up empty, and mostly unchanged, I lifted the curtain with my sword and shimmied the rack out of the way. Someone had replaced the bottles that I’d moved.

I stepped out cautiously, examining everything, though that attention appeared unwarranted. There was no one else in here. Still, better safe than sorry. “Elana, please check all the wall hangings with your knives.”

Elana moved quickly and quietly, stabbing the wall hangings to verify that there was indeed nothing behind any of them. I did the same, until we were both satisfied that the cellar was in fact empty.

“Is she still upstairs?” I asked.

“I cannot see through walls unless you Amplify me,” said Justice.

I looked at the door and shrugged, saying, “I have a better idea.” I slid the tip of the blade just underneath it. Justice didn’t complain, he was good about conserving resources.

“No, she escaped Justice,” said the sword.

“The concept or you,” I groaned. Justice buzzed.

“The door to her room is open and the body is also missing. I think they may have cleaned up the blood as well.” I was about to ask how he knew, then realized the pool of liquid would show up in his Scan. It wasn’t quite enough time for that much blood to have dried naturally.

“It’s clear,” I said, opening the door and stepping out. The body was indeed gone, and a large carpet I remembered was missing as well.

“Do any of the rooms have good vantage points?” asked Elana, following me out. She had a sausage and was cutting off pieces of it with a small knife.

“Master bedroom had one, kind of curious to see what happened to the bed,” I said. Elana gave me a side eye. “I left an orc maiden tied up there.”

Elana shrugged. “I’d have killed her.”

“Yeah, but she’s a non-combatant,” I said, heading upstairs.

“The orcs kill our non-combatants,” said Elana carefully.

“Well, I’m not an orc,” I said as I opened the room. The bed was damaged. Apparently if you pulled on the wooden frame long enough chunks of it broke off. One of the corners Kilva had been tied to was no more.

I gestured to the window and Elana stepped closer. We were on a tall second story. Orcs were taller than humans, so their average ceiling height matched that. This was a human house design adapted for orcs, so instead of having a ten foot ceiling, it was closer to fourteen. The window had a commanding view of the keep.

Elana blew out the lamp in the room, keeping the interior dark enough that the glass should obscure us looking out. It was late in the day, but not quite dark yet. A number of orcs were busy walking around the area. The window offered us a view into a public square, with the keep beyond.

“Is every one of them male?” asked Elana as she pulled over a chair and sat down. Her feet didn’t touch the floor, so she lifted them up and sat on them.

I popped the question over to Justice.

“I cannot tell if any are female using my Scan spell,” said Justice. “I am working on that, but it will be a few more levels before I can differentiate with any certainty.”

Nodding to him, I responded to Elana. “I don’t see any females at the moment.” But that was a lie as soon as I said it. A single orc female with a single orc male trailing behind her looking daggers at everyone was storming away from the keep. She was heading straight for the house at breakneck speed.

“Is this her house?” asked Elana, hopping up.

“Yup,” I responded, lifting the chair and returning it to where she got it. “You better hide.”

Elana glanced around then hopped into the closet. “There is so much silk in here.”

“Yeah, she likes that.” I hid under the bed.

“Do. Not. Disturb. Me!” bellowed Kilva as she slammed the front door.

“Where is she?” I asked, considering my options. The other soldiers were not to come in until we notified them, so there was no danger there. That said, I had been concerned that Kilva was going to come in with another guard or two with her. She came in alone. I was about to start crawling out from under the bed when she started storming up the stairs.

I had recommitted to hiding when she stomped into the room and slammed something down on her dresser. “Dammit.”

From my position on the floor, I could see Elana through the slanted blinds that made up the closet door, those same blinds prevented the orc from noticing Elana from her more straightforward view. Elana was looking at me wondering what we should do. I considered for a few more moments when I heard a bottle come out and a cork pop. Then Kilva started chugging the bottle of rum.

A whole bottle of rum in one chug was a pretty impressive trick. Then she started muttering, “I am calm.”

“There is a hidden compartment next to the desk, it appears to contain bottles,” said Justice and I heard her pull out another one. She grunted and the bottle went flying, landed on the bed, then plunked onto the floor in the nice soft carpet she had around the bed.

Grumbling, Kilva went to grab it and her hand stopped when she grabbed my leg.

I rolled out from under the bed. She stared at me in shock.

“You’ve been hiding there the whole time!” she spat in shock.

“For a while, yeah,” I said, stepping between her and the door and shutting it. Her former husband was into role playing made sure the walls were thick. Kilva shook herself, realizing what my plans were. She stumbled toward the door, but I grabbed her by the bodice of her fancy dress and shoved her onto the chair. That’s where Elana threw a silk rope over her.

“Not again!” said Kilva frantically.

“There are many strange things back there,” said Elana as she started tying Kilva up. Kilva struggled, of course, so I had to help. It didn’t take much for us to tie her to the stout chair, and as a pro, she was dressed this time.

“I will kill you,” she half-sobbed.

“Is it safe to say that given your attitude no one is going to be coming to visit you for the rest of the night?” I asked.

Kilva’s eyes went wide, then she looked at the ground. “No, someone will. At minimum to ask me about my marriage prospects, because I’m not marrying Corgo.” She slurred all of that in human for my benefit. She hated hearing me speak in orc so much she was willing to talk in my tongue to avoid it.

“Hey, we were interested in Corgo, how is he?” asked Elana. “Know where he is, his vulnerabilities?”

“Like I would commit treason,” said Kilva, her lower lip trembling.

I picked up a letter she had tossed down and read it. “So, Corgo wants to marry you, isn’t that a step up?”

Kilva stared at me and then screamed a bit. It was loud, but we could see the square through the window, and no one noticed.

“No, it is not,” she said finally. “But I need time.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Time to get another marriage proposal,” said Kilva, glaring at me and then Elana. “Even she would understand my reasons.”

“I don’t know, I’m kind of stupid,” said Elana flatly. “Please explain.”

Kilva’s head slumped. “Corgo has the rights of a lord, meaning he can request any bride he so chooses. That is his right as the grandson to our great lord.”

“So?” I asked.

“He already has nineteen wives. He had twenty, the maximum allowable, but one of his wives recently died in childbirth and he wants the number back up to the largest legal amount,” said Kilva.

“And you don’t want to be one of twenty,” asked Elana, actually kind of feeling sorry for the orc.

“What, no! I don’t want to have stupid children, you daft cow,” spat Kilva looking at Elana as if she were particularly stupid. “My mother’s sire is one of the sons of the great lord, so Corgo is my cousin. I believe that children born in line with their sire are weaker. I don’t want weak babies.” She sniffled at that.

“She’s a bit baby crazy,” I said when Elana looked at me.

“I am not baby crazy, I just want to have twenty or so of my own like a normal woman,” sniffed Kilva. “But I don’t want them to be inbred.”

“That doesn’t seem to be a big problem for most of the orcs,” I said.

“That’s because they are inbred and stupid now. I like to read, and in our histories, it often mentions that our empires collapsed because of the rights of the lord. It must be because we have so many stupid babies. My babies are going to be ugly, stupid, and defective. There are only a few orcs in this whole town who aren’t my blood relatives, and this asshole keeps killing them.”

Kilva spat and tried to rock her chair at me in an attack pattern. That didn’t work and she fell face first onto the ground.

“Ouch!”

“We could kill Corgo,” I offered.

“I’m no traitor,” replied Kilva.

“He’s going to make you carry stupid, defective babies,” I offered.

“No, I won’t. Maybe you can kidnap me and hide me under the bed,” she sniffled. “I just need to wait until Cho-tak comes back.”

“Cho-tak?” I asked. “You mean Breaker?”

“Yes, he was banished from the heartlands because of his birth defect, but that’s probably not congenital, and I could just drown any babies that had it, unless they were huge like him. I could have big, healthy, non-inbred babies,” Kilva sniffled, then paused. “Wait, how do you know his name?”

I smiled real apologetically.

Didn’t help. Kilva started sobbing uncontrollably. I sat down on the bed and started reading the letter in more detail. Corgo wasn’t wasting any time. After her last husband died ‘mysteriously’ she had until tomorrow morning to get her stuff packed up so she could move into the keep.

She was assigned a small room, not even a third the size of this one. Her allowed luggage was basically enough for some traveling clothes and other necessities of a member of Corgo’s harem, where she would be the most junior member.

“You don’t even have the right to sit at the same table as him?” I asked.

“It’s too small, and he’s too cheap to expand it,” Kilva sniffled. “I spent my whole life learning how to seduce, conceive, and other important womanly arts and he doesn’t care about any of that. I don’t even get a separate nursery.”

“Are orc babies as loud as human babies?” Elana asked.

“Louder, and I might have four of them at the same time,” said Kilva.

“Hey, you’re expected to help the other mothers, but they aren’t expected to help you,” I said.

“What!” said Kilva, turning her head from the floor. I held the passage in front of her and she paled. “But then my stupid inbred children will be even stupider because I’ll have to watch other women’s stupid inbred kids.”

“And if you don’t show up tomorrow morning on time, he’ll bring you in as a ‘conquered prize.’ What does that mean?” I asked.

“It is an old custom,” Kilva hissed out. “I’d be treated as a grok.”

“Like a human, you poor girl,” said Elana with exactly zero sympathy.

“Man, you are super loyal to this guy who’s not loyal to you at all,” I said. “Well, we’re going to just leave. I mean we could untie you, but I don’t really see that as being too much better than what you’re going to get anyway. Enjoy your stupid inbred children.”

I waved Elana to the door, and she gave me the most sour look. I rolled my eyes.

She nodded before patting Kilva on the head. “There you go. For being a good human, you better get used to it.”

We hadn’t made it one step closer to the door before Kilva broke. “I’ll help you, just get me out of here.”

“I guess we could help, but first I’m going to need to know a few things,” I said, lifting the chair back up. “How many warriors does Corgo have here?”

40

THE BATTLEPLAN

“Kenin Keep is a massive fortification, but the orcs only occupy the part directly adjacent to the keep,” I said. We all knew this, but it was best to establish a baseline. “There were over nine hundred orcs here as early as last year.”

Several people hissed at that. Nine hundred orcs was not a number our forces could possibly deal with.

“We gathered intelligence from inside the town that there are less than two hundred orcs in the city at this time,” I said. “Including Corgo.”

“Where did they go?” asked Mitch.

“Most left to deal with attacks on Corgo’s other territories,” said Elana. “The orc solidarity is breaking, and they are killing each other in record numbers.”

“This is our best moment to strike,” said Zahir.

“Yes.” I pulled out the map and pointed north. “I don’t have the exact details of where the orc heartlands are, but the rumors of fighting are correct. The orcs are in the middle of a pre-civil war, if you will. When the old chief dies, there needs to be a new chief, or many new chiefs if one isn’t capable of ruling the same territory. There are at least nine sons who are well situated for a claim to the throne. Corgo is not one of those.”

“Isn’t Corgo a grandson?” asked Jon.

“Son is an honorific to the orcs, like brother,” I replied, thanks to Justice’s cultural database. “While Corgo is related to the Whomak Grimdar, his actual relationship to the old orc is less important than the fact that there is one. Son in this context simply means offspring that could replace the father. We might even run into sons of Grimdar that aren’t even related to the Whomak by blood, though that seems unlikely.”

Zahir nodded, she’d spoken to Kilva earlier and the discussion had been enlightening. Most of her intelligence about the orcs was close to correct, or as close as you could with that much of a cultural divide. Kilva had explained in a condescending manner, but she had gone into considerable detail about topics Zahir had never even considered.

Despite their interactions with orcs since the final conquest fifteen years ago, most orcs were pretty insular from humans. The average human didn’t speak orc, so there wasn’t much information crossing between the two groups.

“Why is he so far back?” asked Elana, feeding me a question. She was smart, everyone was navel gazing a bit too much.

“Corgo isn’t honorable enough in the eyes of the other orcs, so they will try to deal with him through assassination,” I said. “He was part of a faction that made a play for Whomak before Grimdar was too ill, and that faction suffered some extreme losses, meaning he’s hanging out here all on his own with what is left of his personal army trying to get into the good graces of another son.”

“What are we facing?” asked Zahir.

“The town garrison is among the weakest because this part of the orc kingdom is considered very low priority. Not many resources, not many humans live here so it would require significant investment which they never made. Worse, from their perspective, most of the orcs here are the rejects and defects from better areas,” I said. “Corgo already lost virtually all of his best troops.”

“I figured as much,” said Zahir. “Even they are going to be tough, but not nearly as bad as the regular orcs, and we currently have an advantage.”

“Numbers wise, there are maybe forty elite orcs, some of whom are skill users, and maybe two hundred normal orcs in total, though there is a large patrol on the north side of the wall at the moment,” I continued. “They aren’t expected to be back for at least three more days.”

“Plus Corgo,” said Zahir.

“Yes, he’s in the fort for the moment because he barely survived an assassination attempt. Corgo considers this place to be the ass end of nowhere and hates it, but it’s his best fortress,” I said.

“He’s not a total idiot,” said Zahir. “We are behind the walls, so how do we get into the keep?”

“That is going to depend on the patrols,” I said, pointing to another map of Kenin. “The keep is built directly into the northern wall, but the fortress was never designed to have this much town inside of it, especially not one built for orcs. The walls are three stories tall, but those are human stories, and many of the buildings are two orc stories tall, which are about thirty percent taller than human ones. In short, the main square leads directly to the keep and due to the size of the buildings there is only really good visibility from a few directions. If we’re careful, we should be able to get a reasonably large party to the keep without being seen.”

Zahir nodded at my assessment. When she first arrived, Zahir walked around the house looking out the second story windows. She’d been appalled at the build up in the courtyard. This courtyard was supposed to either be empty or have a few single story buildings in it to service troops. Instead, there was a town that spanned its entire scope.

“Can we count on any help from the other humans?” asked Mitch.

“They don’t know we’re here,” said Zahir, glancing over at me. I nodded.

“Not initially, and there is a strong curfew in place after the northern part of the town was burnt down,” I said. “I doubt we are going to see significant support from the people living here in any case.”

“Are there any people we should be rescuing?” asked Zahir, which caused Elana to look over at me as well.

“The skill trainers were sent up to Corgo as a bribe after the death of the warlock,” I said. “They are still kept as pets, for lack of a better word, by the head orc in the harem. She is apparently a real witch.”

“What are we going to do with the orcs?” asked Mitch.

Zahir cut in before I could answer. “We are going to eliminate any that oppose us, the ones who remain we will discuss, but if they are at all hostile towards you, feel free to gut anyone green.”

Everyone looked at me and I remained motionless, that was neither support nor denial of what was happening.

“You cannot let them kill prisoners,” said Justice.

“Those orcs have done terrible things to the humans,” I replied.

“Their honor is stained, not yours, Squire,” replied the sword.

I said nothing.

“The first objectives in the fort are going to be the armory and the lower ranked officers’ quarters,” I said, pointing to the ground layer. “Essentially every room there is a target. The officers keep their equipment with them, the rank and file are not permitted and keep their gear in the armory.”

“Where are the higher ranked officers?” asked Mitch.

“Houses like this one,” I said. “From my source, we know at least six more in town, but the officers may be in the keep. There is an argument that we could send strike teams to eliminate them before the attack begins, but…”

“Basically, only the knight is capable of handling an officer in a one on one situation, and if he screws up, the keep will be alerted,” said General Zahir. “Instead, after we have breached the fort, kill teams will be deployed from here to all known locations to attack them in overwhelming numbers.”

“Each of those units will have at least one skill user, preferably more, and I’m going to warn you that you are going to want to go all in right away,” I said. “The orc officers all mean business, but putting armor on takes a while, and if you catch them unprepared with significant numbers you should be able to deal with them.”

No one fancied that, and our skill users were limited, but we did have some. The orcs theoretically wouldn’t know what was going on until it was too late.

“Both sides will move to take the wall around the town after the initial fight,” said General Zahir. “The protection the wall grants is limited from the inside, so getting up there shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. If we can hold the walls and keep, we will win the day by sunrise.”

“What about Corgo?” asked another skill user.

“I’m going to engage him personally and take him out,” I said. “Mind you, if any of you Dexterity users can get a good shot in on him, I won’t complain.”

“I thought you knights were all about honorable battles,” said Mitch.

“If I can engage him in a one on one battle, then I would be honor bound to fight with him without assistance. If I engage him in general melee, feel free to assist,” I said. “Mind you, when we are victorious, and they have surrendered, I’m also honor bound to accept that.”

Mitch nodded. “I get it.”

“You don’t,” I replied, looking through the room. They were going to slaughter everyone, and we had to be better than this. A hero couldn’t allow the slaughter of a defeated foe. “I’m honor bound to accept any surrenders, unless they are obviously going to go against their oaths. That does not mean kill them before I see them, it means I will take their surrenders and honor them.”

Everyone glanced at each other and Zahir said, “He is a knight, that is his price for his assistance, and we will adhere to that. There will be no atrocities under my watch.”

That wasn’t popular, but it was also acceptable to most of the people in the room. I suspected highly that if I aggressively reviewed every fatality there would be issues, hopefully I wouldn’t have to.

“When do we go?” asked Mitch.

I looked out the window as the shadows started creeping over the town. “It won’t be much longer now. We will fight with Justice on our side.”

41

THE ASSAULT

“You sure this is a good idea?” asked Elana.

“I can survive on my own without a bodyguard for short spurts,” I said, checking my equipment one last time. I wasn’t doing that because I needed to, Justice told me everything was just right.

It just didn’t feel just right.

“I almost believe you, Sir Yorick,” said Elana. She sounded like she almost did.

“You are going to give me a big head,” I said.

“Don’t want that. I’ll meet you on the roof of the keep, don’t be late,” said Elana as she prepared to go sniper.

“I promise,” I replied, signaling my group to begin.

I started down the street quickly as Justice started updating where all the guards were. They were patrolling, and occasionally one would look inside the wall, but it was rare. Of course, there were over one hundred of us, so we had to be more than a bit careful.

The main road led directly to the back of the keep, and we started moving as soon as the lone orc patrolling that section walked out of sight. I could have snuck to the keep by myself, but Justice’s ability to see around corners made it possible to bring the group with me.

There was only one point where we had to hide everyone, and that sucked as much as anyone expected it would. The streets inside the wall were laid out in a grid pattern and you could look through the whole city from certain angles. A guard walking the other side of the wall peered down the road we were using. Everyone ducked into alleys and behind carts, and from his angle, there were not enough hiding spots for everyone.

I had my new bow at the ready and waited as he glanced down the road, then waited a bit longer. The orc continued walking.

“He did not see us,” said Justice.

I relaxed. I was looking at the orc while Justice was using a radar map. I didn’t fully understand how much detail he was getting, or what details he was looking for. I suspected it was a combination of the lack of obvious signs of notice combined with a steady walking pace. In any case, I signaled, and we continued on.

The next hurdle was the change over from the street to the back of the keep. While the orcs had been incompetent about their town building, they weren’t laughably so. There was a gap between the walls and the nearest building, and that meant there was no cover to be had. Further, everyone was in armor, and we were now close enough that just running across the space would alert someone.

The best scouts, in the quietest armor, followed me over to the back of the keep on my mark. We snuck across the open patch when Justice gave me the okay. The door was stout wood, with a small eye hole cut into it. The kind that flipped back to allow a guard to see out without giving any degree of access. The door, of course, was locked.

“Alright, what now?” whispered Joe when we got to the door. That was easy. I knocked.

The guard on the other side opened the eye slit. When he did that, I activated Magical Strike and jammed Justice all the way into the wood before dragging it across to the lock. Nothing there was magical, and the lock separated just like any other metal against a Magical Strike. Mind you, pulling through hard wood required me to burn Power and it was like pulling through clay.

I pushed the door open and stepped over the dismembered guard. Justice did about as much damage as you could have possibly expected, and the guard had fallen into three parts because one of his arms was hanging down when I started cutting.

The second squad came over, then the third.

I nodded, and Joe and the scouts moved toward the armory while Mitch and the armored troopers started for the officer rooms. I didn’t know what kind of security existed internally, but our hidden assault couldn’t last too much longer.

They spotted the fifth group of soldiers. Seven of them made it through the door when an arrow slammed into the shoulder of the eighth man. The heavy arrow shattered the bone and killed the man instantly.

The orc that shot him didn’t live long enough to do much though, because one of our archers got him, and they began hunting the other orcs on the wall—everything started all at once.

The part of the assault force that didn’t make it dispersed as there was no way to make it past the remaining orc archers. Running deeper into the keep and turning a corner, I spotted several confused orcs moving toward the armory, so I cut through them. They were unarmed and unarmored, and the attack was a slaughter. I looked down the hallway where door after door was being kicked open, exposing empty rooms.

“They aren’t here,” said Mitch looking around.

“Hit the barracks,” I said, and the soldiers responded by rushing past me into the barracks. The sound of battle filled my ears, but where were the elites? I started moving down the fortress looking for targets when I spotted three humans cowering in the corner of the kitchen.

“Where are the elites?” I asked, but none responded. I was about to get more forceful, when I noticed a tray piled with food and several flagons of ale. The door to the great hall opened as a large orc stepped out and spotted me.

I slashed at him, and he moved back with supernatural speed, so I burned Dexterity. Chasing after him, I lunged and quickly drove Justice into his chest, twisting the blade as I yanked it back. The orc tumbled back, dead, right in front of every officer in the fortress, and the gigantic orc that must certainly be Corgo.

There were cards everywhere and the orcs were all hastily gathering up their decks.

“What is the meaning of this!” yelled the massive orc. He was enormous, far larger than any of the other orcs I’d seen, both in height and in weight. Most orcs looked vaguely humanoid, he looked like his mother had sex with a gorilla. He was a gigantic, muscular thug of an orc who was easily pushing eight hundred pounds with unusual growths in his forearms and back.

“Your time is done, foul orc,” I declared. “Justice has come for you.”

The orcs started laughing. This lasted for several seconds until the main door to the hall opened up and a bloody orc stumbled in.

“Uprising.”

The orcs stopped laughing.

“Justice and friends.”

The officers started heading for three different doors, so I only happened to be in the way of a third of them. The first orc ran in and attempted to tackle me. I sidestepped and applied Justice to the back of his unarmored skull. His head went flying off. The orc behind him stepped aside as another orc barreled through.

He was large and holding a blazing fire poker like a sword. He swung at me, and I struck the rod dead on, cleaving through it and his arm. The orc screamed and I slammed Justice into his face.

“They are breaking out into the hallways, I suspect they are trying to get to their weapons,” said Justice.

“Are any of them armed?” I asked.

“There are many different definitions of that term, Squire,” said Justice. “They have their sidearms, but that appears to be about it.”

Just then, an orc ran into the room wielding two knives. The knives were virtually short swords by human standard, and I chopped Justice down hard at his head. I’d done that trick too many times, and he used both blades to deflect the attack, driving me back as he continued pushing forward.

He slashed, driving one of the short blades into my midsection where the armor plate grated against it. I brought Justice’s pommel down on his arm, then smashed him in the face with both of my armored fists. That earned me a gap, and I slashed only to have him dodge with supernatural speed directly into the orc behind him. He grunted as a long knife from his backup tore into his back, but not for long, because I brought Justice down in a brutal slash.

I cut his heart in half, and then pulled Justice back and burned Power before thrusting the sword through the dead orc and the orc behind him. I missed that orc’s heart though and he bellowed as I twisted the blade and yanked it free.

There were four more orcs outside the kitchen and two glanced at each other before running for another exit. The other two prepared for battle as I held my sword at the ready.

“There are three orcs cutting around the hallway toward the kitchen,” said Justice. I cut back into the hallway where the bedlam was happening.

The orc elites hadn’t known what to expect, or that there would be human skill users. When they started barreling into the halls, the first few had become pin cushions as the scouts protecting the armory opened up when the orcs exposed themselves. They got several before the orcs disengaged.

The group running down the hallway toward the officer’s quarters found themselves totally unhindered, but when they made it to their rooms, many found their weapons missing and their armor damaged.

Not all, unfortunately, and as I turned the corner, an elite wielding a massive greatsword spotted me.

“Situational awareness, Squire,” said Justice and I glanced around then stepped back one pace behind a door frame. The orc held his sword in front of him like a lance. I burned Power and deflected the strike into the doorframe, and as the orc tried to pull the long blade back for defense it stuck.

I cleaved him in two, causing the sword to vanish.

Then I sidestepped as an arrow just missed me. I slammed the door shut before a second arrow buried itself in the door. “They have bows!”

“We know!” yelled Joe from nearby. “We can’t hold here.” Everything went to hell so quick, all because orcs were playing cards.

“Get ready to pull back, Mitch is cut off,” I said.

“He’s still in the barracks, he’s not going to make it,” said Joe. He looked back at the six scouts still with him. “And if we don’t leave soon, neither will we.”

I got ready to pull back with him, but the look of admiration in his eyes was too much.

“A knight would obviously stay to try to pull the other men out,” said Justice. There was a fine line between heroic and stupid, and staying behind sure sounded heroic.

I prepared to say no, to run and escape with my life, but Sir Yorick started talking for me.

“Then pull back, if you go now there is a clear path to the back door. I’m a knight, I must try to save those men,” I said. Joe saluted, then gestured to the scouts to start pulling back to the rear door.

“We at least left them a surprise,” he said as he left.

“That was cryptically useless,” said Justice.

“Won’t matter,” I said, throwing open the door and burning Stamina to dodge the arrow that followed. I ran toward the orc, at one point running up a wall before getting close enough to strike, only for the orc to roll forward as he burned his own skill and loosed an arrow at me.

It smashed into my plate at close range, but the shot wasn’t square, and the arrow simply gouged the side of my armor.

I surged, swinging in sharp, powerful arcs in an effort to catch the orc as he dodged around. I didn’t hit him, but I caught his bow, snapping the string. The orc flung the ruined bow at me then drew two daggers. I stepped toward him, and three more armored orcs, one of which had a shield, turned the corner.

Emboldened, the dagger wielding orc charged, and I burned another Dexterity, dodging around him while slashing with my sword. We both hit each other, my armor deflecting the strike effortlessly while Justice carved a line across his shoulder.

The orc winced, one arm useless, and I ignored him to continue running down the hall away from the other three orcs. The barracks was close, and I turned the corner to see five orcs trying to push into one of the entrances.

“There are two doorways into the barracks,” said Justice. “Both are under attack by orcs.”

“Human!” bellowed Corgo, standing back by his lonesome. “I will destroy you!”

“Sir Yorick,” I responded. All the orcs were busy trying to get into the barracks, none were paying any attention to something as unimportant as me.

“Squire, this is not a great idea,” said Justice, but I wasn’t there. Sir Yorick was in charge, and he was a hero.

I charged toward Corgo, blade held high. I slashed while burning Power and he blocked it with his meaty forearm. Justice came back covered in a smudge of orange blood, having caused no serious damage. Corgo’s axe counterattacked at incredible speed, crashing into Justice hard enough to drive me several paces back. Then the massive beast of an orc launched himself at me, swinging the ax powerfully enough that it shattered the stone where it impacted.

I stared up from where the ax had narrowly missed me and rolled back to my feet. There was no way I was going to be able to take Corgo as I was now. He was a monster. My heart rate spiked, and I scrambled back to the barracks where the other humans were held up.

Burning two points of Stamina, activating Dexterity and Power, I slammed into the rear of the group of orcs attacking the door. One moment they were almost successful in pushing their way in, the next I killed two of them outright, wounded another, and actually ran over the orc in the lead, who was promptly stabbed in the back of the neck where he fell by one of the human infantry.

As the Stamina left my body, I staggered before getting control of myself. Even with Conditioning, I couldn’t spend Stamina in limitless quantities without penalty. I needed time to recover before I did anything stupid again.

Then I was sealed in as more orcs wielding more weapons came to the doorways.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“The regular orcs weren’t expecting us when we got here. It was a bloody slaughter,” said Mitch, but that was only half the story. Even catching the orcs totally by surprise left half the men wounded, including Mitch. Mitch continued, “Now, the elite orcs are stalling us while they get their armor on. When they get enough armored orcs to those doors we are going to fold almost instantly.”

We were successful so far based on the element of surprise. Now that the orcs were getting back on balance, we weren’t having nearly as much luck. We needed to get out of here or get reinforcements.

“Can you cut through the rock?” asked Mitch.

“No, even with Magical Strike solid rock is still beyond my skill,” I said, comparing the heavy stones to the boulder I practiced Magical Strike on. I could eventually chip through it, but it would be a process of hours for stones that thick.

“Old forts like these were frequently modified,” said Justice.

What did that mean? If you modified a wall in a castle would they make it differently? Wait, they would almost have to. This could be a Legend of Zelda situation.

“Justice, can you map the walls around here?” I asked.

“I’d have to make physical contact with the stone for that kind of detail,” said the sword. I waded through the bodies of orc grunts until I made it over to the fireplace. Then I drove Justice into the mortar twice, both strikes were solid thunks against stone. The door wasn’t here. More details emerged on the map as Justice impacted it.

“Anything?” I continued to drive the tip into the wall around the room. The fourth strike sounded wrong.

“This is thinner,” said Justice, showing me rocks covering a hole in the wall on the map. Instead of a series of natural rocks cut into blocks, they were only a double stacked layer of bricks over a hole of some sort.

“Stairs down?” I asked.

“If we are lucky,” said Justice.

I drove my shoulder into the wall twice, and it did not budge. “No half-measures,” I said, stepping back several paces and burning Power. I slammed into the wall as hard as I possibly could, causing a massive pattern of cracks to form that were vaguely shaped like a man. Justice healed me and I stood up, preparing for another charge.

Then several of the injured soldiers reached the wall and started striking it with hammers, maces, and whatever else they had. One smashed a spot with a hammer and a torso-sized chunk of brick vanished into the darkness.

That was our way out, and unfortunately, the orcs knew what we were up to instantly. They went from making some rather low level attacks against the defenders at the doorways to a full court press to get in the room.

I started helping to cover one door, and Mitch and three other men continued covering the other.

“Pulling out is going to be rough,” I yelled as the rest of the unit fled down the stairs into the darkness.”

“I’m not going to pull out, these bastards killed my wife. I’m covering the door so my men can get away,” replied Mitch. “It has been an honor.”

So that’s what a hero looks like.

I glanced at the four men with me guarding the other door and realized they weren’t trying to leave either. No one here was thinking about running, but me. Something in me quailed.

“You are the only one who can make it out, lead the survivors to safety,” yelled Mitch as he burned Power and dropped another orc.

I felt cold, and one of the soldiers with Mitch went down. Mitch burned Power again and killed that orc, but just then a fully armored orc stepped up to take his place. There was a symbol of a boar on his chest and Mitch tried to hold him back, but he was out of Stamina.

The orc brought a massive ax down, cleaving the soldier in two and that door fell.

They pushed through my door maybe a heartbeat later. I was going to get flanked and there was no way for me to hold. I wanted to stay, fight to the last, but when I saw orcs charging me from two directions I took to my heels. There was no one up here for me to save. I ran for the staircase down with the survivors.

One of the orcs followed me, tripping on the human sized stairs. He tumbled until he smashed to the bottom. I followed him down, my breath heaving, and drove Justice into his moaning body. Then it was dark, and quiet.

“I abandoned Mitch,” I said. It didn’t matter that he died. A hero didn’t do that. I should be holding at the top of the stairs, dying valiantly. Instead, I ran away, like a coward. Again. I couldn’t do this. I’d pretended to be a hero and I’d gotten everyone killed.

“Focus, you idiot!” yelled Justice as the sword shocked my hand. The pain brought me back from my panic. “Mitch told you to protect his men, you can do that from right here.”

“Get torches!” yelled an orc in perfect profile. He might have been the one that killed Mitch.

I summoned my bow.

One returned with a lamp taken from the barracks, so I shot him. The full Powered arrow slammed into his side, and he dropped the lamp where it shattered. I shot another orc as he tried to figure out what was going on.

A lanky orc with a bow drawn moved to the top of the stairs, but it was pitch-black down here. I shot him in the eye while burning Dexterity. Then I shot the guy next to him in the knee, causing him to fall down the stairs. Then the orcs pulled back.

A lantern exploded right next to me and the orc with an arrow in his knee started screaming as the fire leapt over him.

“The orcs are preparing to attack, you need to move,” ordered Justice. I wanted to stay. Justice continued, “Mitch ordered you to protect his men, move farther in.”

With the base of the stairs on fire, I was visible. The orcs at the top of the stairs were getting ready for another attack. I could hear a desperate scrabbling at the door in the next room where Mitch’s survivors were. I left the stairwell for the dark dungeon.

I found the remains of the assault force in the next room. Of the thirty-seven soldiers that began the attack in the barracks, only twenty-three were still alive, and all of them were wounded.

Joe’s scouts lost four, so we’d lost eighteen people so far just in the damn fort. Someone laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked as someone produced and lit a torch. All of the men were smiling.

“We must have killed fifty orcs. Any fight where they lose more than us is a good fight,” said one of the soldiers.

“Was this a good fight?” I thought, finding a door between us and the orcs. I slammed it closed. There was no bar, but there were shelves, so I threw several of those behind the door, jamming it shut.

“We killed more of them than they killed of us, and the bulk of our forces remain intact. This was a good battle indeed,” said Justice.

I looked at the wounded, recognizing more than a few of these bloody men from marching. It didn’t feel good.

42

THE DUNGEON

The underground dungeon motif was overstated. It was damp, it was dark, and it was cold down here. Also, there were a dozen or so orcs who had braved the trip down the stairs and were busily pounding on hastily braced doorways.

“Our options are limited,” stated Justice. “We can have a brave final battle where the enemy comes and slays us and our men! It would be a story for the ages, assuming the orcs tell it.”

“Or,” I began.

“Do what you said and get these men to safety,” stated the sword. I hadn’t quite said that. Mitch yelled at me to get his people to safety, like Justice had made me promise not to read the book. The assumption was that I was just so honorable that I’d do it even if I didn’t say I would.

But I had to.

“We should go,” I said, illuminating Justice. With the Scan I knew where we were approximately, it was just that the battle plan did not include a basement. It was frankly kind of odd this place did, but what the orcs were using as a barracks may not have been initially intended for that purpose.

In any case, we walked into another room and blocked and braced that door too. Except it was made of iron, and it appeared durable. I tapped it with Justice.

“The rust makes it strong,” I said.

“If you say so,” said one of the soldiers and we continued deeper into the dungeon. We weren’t into the bad part yet—you know, where the torture cells and all that nonsense was. We were in the long, shifty passages section which didn’t make a whole lot of sense but was still there.

“This could have been used for storage,” I offered as we passed another chamber. We were moving downhill at a slight angle and the ground was getting progressively more moist. The wounded soldiers were able to keep up, though a few were being carried along by their less injured friends.

The orcs were to the metal door now, beating upon it savagely. There must be another way down here, but the place was obviously several stages beyond underused. There were enough spider webs here to fill a Halloween store though, and at least they had that going for them.

We continued through two more doorways, shutting both behind us and blocking both doors with whatever I could find. Justice continued scanning and eventually we found something.

“That’s a huge door,” I said walking over to the reinforced iron monstrosity. I banged on it with Justice once.

“I don’t see anything behind it,” said the sword.

There were three, massive rusted bars holding the door in place, and I ended up borrowing a large orcish warhammer to strike at them, knocking them loose in a shower of rust. After that it was just a matter of practically pulling the door off the hinges.

“There is a passage out,” said Justice. I looked at it and spotted a tunnel that had been cut through the side with water. I dipped Justice in and found that it was a straight shot to a pond about two miles distant.

“Can I collapse this safely?” I asked, looking at the passage.

“Not from inside,” replied the sword.

“Alright, you have done enough. Get out of here and regroup back at the river. I’ll get back to the fight,” I said. A few of the men hesitated and I shook my head. “You’re all wounded, you fought enough, you will recover to fight again. The battle for Justice is eternal!”

They started down the passage. I didn’t see any pools where the keep aways liked to lurk, so hopefully they would be safe. That only left me trying to find a way back into the keep that didn’t involve running through dozens of orcs.

As soon as they were a suitable distance away, I used Justice and Power to collapse the entrance to the tunnel.

“Any structural damage?” I asked, hoping that something useful collapsed in the keep.

“Not enough,” replied Justice and I found the nearest wall and leaned up against it before sliding to the ground.

“That was close,” I said.

“Yes, but you were successful. The faster you get back to the army the better,” said Justice.

“Mitch died, they all died so that their people could escape,” I said.

“He was a hero. What did you think a hero was? Their people are oppressed under the heel of those orcs, they want freedom, but only a very few are willing to die for it,” said Justice. “That’s what being a hero is, being willing to sacrifice everything for your goal. Are you willing to sacrifice for your goal?”

Justice remained quiet, letting me gather my thoughts. I failed everyone. After a good minute of me saying nothing, he continued.

“You leveled up, that means you’ll be able to fight the orcs on even ground for once,” said Justice.

“Really?” The notion that I wouldn’t be at a disadvantage did salve my spirit a bit. After Breaker and Corgo, I knew I was going to die. Maybe now I could fight them on something approaching even terms. If I could fight them on close to even terms, I might be able to win.

“What can I do?”

“You have achieved level five as a squire, and you managed to upgrade your species,” said Justice.

You are a level five Magical Sword Squire

Mana: 2 | Stamina: 5

Skills: Dexterity (rank 6), Power (rank 5), Conditioning (rank 5). Crafting skills: Smithing (rank 5), Salvaging (rank 3). Magical skills: Capacity (rank 2), Battery (rank 0)

Species Upgrade!

“What can I do with an upgraded species?” I asked.

“You can upgrade your physical attributes,” said Justice. “If you spend the experience points, you will become stronger and more agile than a human can biologically manage.”

“Or my mental attributes,” I asked.

“Your class is squire, which is physically based. That reduces the cost for physical upgrades. There is an ability to upgrade your mental statistics, but you can only upgrade one of those at a time.”

“Fine, let’s start with the physical attributes,” I said, and Justice did his work.

Unlike the normal upgrades, I felt that one. There was no feeling quite like it. The closest I could come up with was like standing on a trampoline, just knowing I was able to jump higher.

I did a backflip, not because it was hard but because I couldn’t do one on Earth. The trick was simple, uncomplicated. No special practice required. In that moment, I’d become superhuman, it was just I was fighting against orcs, and they were stronger still. When everyone is superhuman, no one is. At least this might give me an advantage that I wouldn’t always be on the losing end of contests of strength.

“I have also purchased a skill slot,” said Justice.

“Swords,” I said for physical skill. I felt it unlock, and unconsciously realized I was holding my sword slightly wrong. That was going to be helpful.

Swords, Initiate rank 1: Your strikes will be 10% more powerful, you can parry 10% faster and against 10% stronger strikes. You can burn a point of stamina to double these effects for 15 seconds.

“What else?” I asked, and Justice brought up Conditioning.

“You have several choices, but I will show you the best two based on your fighting style,” said Justice. “You can choose to commit a point of Stamina to an ability that allows you to keep it active until you release the point, or you can take a second slot for quick recovering points.”

“Could I use that on Power or Dexterity?” I asked, considering the commitment.

“Just Power, your Dexterity ability is an instant reaction,” said Justice.

“Why would I need two points of fast recovery?” I asked. “The enhanced physicals allow me to recover Stamina faster?” Right now, my first point of Stamina recovered in nine seconds and all other points recovered in eighteen seconds.

“Yes, and Sword Arts usually require two Stamina, some require more,” said Justice. “If you use those, you will have to wait until both points recover until you can use either again, and since you are using more than one, you will have to wait until all points recover.”

“But I don’t know any sword arts,” I said.

“Yet,” replied Justice. “You will not earn those until your Swords skill reaches rank 5.”

That made the choice simple. I allowed myself to commit a point of Stamina and used that power on Swords. Nothing happened.

“Committed powers function as if they were two ranks lower,” said Justice.

“That was worthless,” I muttered.

“You will be treated as if you were using the skill constantly, this will allow it to level up more quickly, rapidly offsetting the penalty,” said Justice.

“Assuming I survive,” I said. “Alright, let’s talk about mental attributes.”

“Which would you like to increase?” asked Justice apprehensively.

Justice was saying I was still indecisive, and there was now a solution to that. “Let’s do Willpower,” I said, and Justice activated it.

“This will let you focus better, that applies to your personal goals as well as your Mana,” said Justice, before sighing. “It is also useful against magical compulsion.”

“What did you mean by…” I began and it hit me. “What happened to Grandpa?”

“I am not supposed to talk about it,” said Justice.

“Did he die? Were you there when he died?” I asked.

“If he died while holding me, I’d be stuck on a battlefield somewhere,” said Justice. “You are my sword bearer.”

“Current sword bearer, and maybe not for much longer,” I replied hotly. Grandpa just went missing a few years back. I’d gone camping with him one day and he vanished shortly after we got back. It was one of my fondest memories of Grandpa Henry, and I was about ready to bury Justice in the debris.

Justice warmed up briefly, and I was slightly concerned about getting zapped before he continued talking. “You aren’t going to like my answer.”

“Did the Magical Sword Knights betray him? Was he not knightly enough?” I asked. “Was there a secret conspiracy he became aware of where the knights are really the bad guys?”

“What? No, your seventy-year-old grandfather retired,” said Justice.

“They let you do that?” I asked.

“Of course they let you do that, it’s in the code,” said Justice.

“Then where is Grandpa Henry,” I asked.

“The code magnanimously lets any knight who feels they need to retire to do so. What they do not let you do is retire off-world,” said Justice. “Henry severed his bond from me, put me up in his basement for the corps to collect, and then I don’t know what he did,” said Justice. “It seems that part of my memory was overloaded.”

“Grandpa erased your memory?” I asked.

“Henry severed his connection to me, so he couldn’t order me to do anything, he wasn’t my knight anymore,” said Justice. “But he was my friend.”

“Your missing Mana crystals… You overloaded yourself,” I said.

“Perhaps, and I’m not agreeing that is the case, but if I did, your grandfather would have departed from the basement. We’d opened interplanetary portals down there so often that any old planar item could have been used, and an old knight tends to have a hell of a trophy room,” said Justice.

“But why didn’t he tell anyone?” I asked.

“Your seventy-year-old grandfather didn’t tell anyone that he was going to sever his magical bond to his talking sword and open a portal to a different planet to do something unknown, I don’t know why he didn’t tell anyone,” said Justice.

“When you put it like that…” I said. Grandpa Henry took me on a great camping trip right before he departed. He told me he was proud of me and that I was growing up just like he’d hoped. He was saying goodbye.

“The goblin was coming to get you,” I said.

“Coming to find me, I was hidden, remember?” said Justice. “They were gonna take me back to Knight’s Watch and get me assigned to a new knight.”

“And I killed him,” I groaned.

“Well, sending him back would be a better explanation,” said Justice. “He was summoned, you can’t really kill a summoned critter.”

That felt somewhat better. I played back that encounter in my mind. The poison made me feel extremely tired. I presumed that meant I was dying, but the cut was hardly bleeding before Justice cast the spell on me.

He was trying to knock me out.

“Why didn’t you want to go?” I asked.

“Because, you remind me a lot of Henry,” said Justice. “Henry always said that since you had a knight’s name, you would have been a good knight after you got your head on straight.”

“That’s nice,” I supposed.

“Well, he said that, or you were going to get hitched up to some young thing you got pregnant and be miserable forever wondering about what you could have been,” said Justice. “I figured I couldn’t do much harm.”

“Seriously,” I said.

“I did it for her, poor girl, never able to satisfy your soul because you didn’t go out questing with the magnificence that is Justice!” said the sword. “Imagine, you’d be a tired old man wondering what you could have done, but now you have a chance to be all that you can be.”

“That’s an old army slogan,” I groaned.

“It was the best army slogan,” said Justice.

“You nearly got me killed,” I said.

“Nearly. But you survived, and at least now you are figuring out what you are made of.”

“I guess so,” I said. That was a lot to take in, but knowing that Grandpa was alive somewhere was preferable to him just being missing. Justice wanted me to be a knight, and now I knew why. I wasn’t sure about his reasons, but at least I had an inkling.

I could work with this.

Feeling my Mana, I realized I had gone about rotating the disks all wrong. Now that I really thought about it, the entire process was relatively simple, I was just screwing it up badly.

“Holy crap,” I said, grabbing the second magical primer book. The Battery skill which had appeared to be impossible was incredibly simple, at least at the lower ranks. “Why didn’t I see this before?”

“It is like a backflip,” said Justice. “What would have required practice and effort at lower ranks is easy when your body is ready for them. The same applies to the mind.”

“So if I just waited, I wouldn’t have had mind blowing headaches for days?” I asked.

“You would have died,” said Justice.

No arguing that.

“You have now increased Battery to rank one,” said Justice.

“That was easier than I expected,” I said, checking out my Mana. The rings were now orbiting and rotating properly.

“With your heightened Willpower, the actual challenge in manipulating your Mana decreased significantly,” said Justice.

“Will I gain skill ranks faster?” I asked standing back up.

“Yes, your higher stats will allow your skill ranks in the relevant skills to increase more quickly. All of your physical skills will develop at the enhanced rate. Capacity is reason based, so that will still develop at the old rate, but Battery is Willpower based.”

“Okay, this is getting good,” I said, stretching out. I felt almost amazing, if I hadn’t been so badly beat up, I might even think I felt good. I checked my Mana pool. “Am I recovering faster?”

“You will now recover Mana every ten minutes instead of every fifteen minutes,” said Justice. I spent a point and cast Magical Armor, causing the dents and dings in my armor to buff out, that included several points where the metal was digging into my flesh.

“Do you think you screwed up?” asked Justice.

“Yes,” I replied. “But Grandpa would tell me the solution to screwing up was fixing it, so I aim to do that.”

“That’s why you were his favorite,” said Justice.

“There were other passages out of here?”

“Yes,” said the sword and I started following him. I felt like I might actually be able to do this. After all, a hero could do anything.

I was almost starting to believe it myself.

43

WHICH WITCH IS WHICH?

I returned to the dungeon and searched around for another path back to the courtyard. There had to be one, and clearly I had to find it. I brought up the map. The dungeon stopped just underneath the keep, which in turn was built into mostly solid rock, except for that single passage which must have been some sort of an escape route.

There probably weren’t any passages that led back up to the courtyard, but there might have been some passages that led up to points in the wall. Outside of the keep, the walls were mostly solid according to Zahir.

“I think I hear something,” said Justice as I turned a corner and then immediately went to the wall. There was a faint cackling in the distance.

“That sounds like orcs,” I said, banishing my armor back into storage. It was impossible to sneak around in my plate armor. I crept over to the side of a room and slid Justice around the corner. While he could see around corners, actually exposing the blade to the room gave a far more detailed map.

There were eight orcs around a massive cauldron. They were clearly trying to figure something out and failing miserably. I looked at the minimap, also trying to figure it out, and also failed miserably.

“If you have no idea what they are doing, it must be a magical ritual,” said Justice.

Seeing as there was a place to hide, I crept into the room and bunkered down. The orc females remained around the cauldron. Purple lights flowed out of the alchemical mixture contained therein, and the room became positively chilly. A half dozen orc females wearing hardly any clothing were dancing in the background next to several large fires, and three caged humans were next to them.

A lone orc walked to the top of the platform, wearing a wolf’s skull on her head with feathers adorned through it, as well as a black leather cape strewn with feathers on her back. The vile warlock orc held out her hands. In one she dropped a handful of leaves into the cauldron and in the other was a staff made up with skulls of various small animals. As the petals fell, she began chanting demonically.

“In the land of darkness, I call to you, to grant the recipient of this ritual your maniacal powers, so that they may be uplifted and granted the powers of darkness that they receive!”

She stood tall, arms outstretched, then glanced over her shoulder.

“I think you mispronounced it again,” said a second orc reading a book. “And I’m not sure that entire part isn’t just gibberish.”

“I’m certain I did it right,” she said, shifting to point at the book. “See right there, <maniacal>.”

“I’m pretty sure that is <magical>,” said the second orc. “You’ve got to stress the g.” The first orc looked at it for a long moment before exhaling.

“Seriously? Then we did the whole ritual wrong,” she said.

“Is that why Corgo got so weird?” asked a younger orc female who was dancing in the background.

“Yes, Klortny, I’m sure it was that I slightly mispronounced the demonic language and turned him into that monster, not that you were dancing a fertility ritual.”

“You said dance, I didn’t go to finishing school for demonic ritual dancing, I went to learn how to dance seductively,” said the orc, stomping her foot and pouting. “Why are we even doing this again, Cretta?”

Cretta was the ornately dressed orc, and she took off the headdress and glared distastefully at her ghastly staff. She left both on the table.

“Because if we complete the ritual, it will cleanse the blood of the curse, and we can have normal children again,” said Cretta.

“We can try harder,” said one of the orc dancers. “Kiladet, what does a demonic dance look like? We just got those new books from the warlock.”

“I’ve skimmed a dozen of them, I think Kilva might have kept the actually valuable ones,” said Kiladet from her position at the table. “I don’t see anything that fixes the ritual, just more ways to introduce errors.”

“This is insane, there has to be another way,” said one of the younger orcs, who was still shaking her hips seductively.

Cretta shook her head. “We’ve been trying to fix this for years now. We wouldn’t be doing demonic magic if there was another way.”

“My mother said it was because all of us are related to the chief,” said another.

“That’s just stupid,” said Kiladet. “Everyone knows the strongest blood comes from the chief’s own loins.”

“That’s not blood.”

“Shut it!” yelled Kiladet, returning to the cauldron and stirred it with a large wooden ladle. She lifted and tasted the brew before dipping the ladle back into the mess. “All of this talk of inbreeding and genetic diversity is just new age nonsense. We need to go back to traditional orc values—like demonic magic and blood sacrifice! Only those will fix this problem!”

“Summoning a demon just sounds so extreme,” said Klortny.

“Look, if you know a better way to get natural, healthy babies, I’m all ears,” said Cretta. “But if you knew, you should have mentioned that about a week ago before Corgo got transformed.”

“Was there a commotion upstairs?” asked one of the orcs.

“Probably. Someone came down, but I sent him away,” said Cretta. “Seriously, if it doesn’t have to do with baby making, I don’t see what the point of males even talking to us is?”

“Males are vexing but they do have a singular purpose,” said Kiladet.

“Speaking of the singular purpose, is Corgo’s purpose going to fix itself anytime soon? Because it kind of went all the way back inside his body when he swelled up,” said Klortny, making a shrinking sign with her hands.

“No amount of coaxing?” asked Cretta.

“There are five of us dressed in fertility dancing costumes, his favorite, as you know, and yet we are down here doing this stupid nonsense,” said Klortny.

Kiladet’s head fell forward into a book. “I regret every day that I learned to read.”

“What male finds reading an attractive quality in a mate?” said Cretta. “My mother convinced me it would be so I could manage lesson plans for my children.”

All the orcs fell quiet at that, gazes shifting around the room. The fire under the cauldron sputtered.

“Are we sure sacrificing the skill trainers is going to do anything?” asked Klortny. “Because otherwise, that one can make potions that really clears up your pores.”

“Obviously we were going to sacrifice her last, and also I don’t understand magical rituals, it was an optional class in my finishing school, I only took it because the instructor was this hulk of an orc,” groaned Cretta. “I spent most of my time staring at his pecks imagining our babies.”

“And he was gelded,” said Kiladet.

“So much quality orc male ruined by Grimdar,” sniffled Klortny.

Cretta shook her head. “That’s enough depressing thoughts for the day. I’ll go find out what the monster wants, you take the skill trainers to the nursery and see about getting those skin care potions made.”

I stepped out. “I think not, I am a knight and I bring Justice!”

“Eeeek, a grok!” screamed Cretta as she grabbed the ghastly staff and pointed it at me. A purple bubble appeared around me, and I was trapped.

44

SOMEONE’S VERY WRONG AND TERRIBLE DAY

“Seriously, you can’t just pop this?” I asked.

“It is a short-term bubble designed to hold a powerful demon, so no, not offhand,” said Justice as I continued idly poking the thing. I’d been stuck in here for the better part of five minutes now and was becoming concerned.

“Did you hear something?” I said, listening to the side of the barrier.

“Mother, you found an animal,” said an orc with a deep voice.

“Yes,” replied Cretta. “It jumped up and I bubbled it, Grodok”

“You spent a spell charge on an animal,” said Grodok.

“It scared me, you don’t want your mother to panic, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” said Godark diplomatically. “Mother, we are under siege by an infestation of humans. Corgo is fighting with them on the roof trying to preserve the keep at this moment.”

“Well, that’s the good news, this is a human,” said Creeta as the bubble popped and I landed on my feet.

Grodok looked over at her with wide eyes. “Seriously? This is the knight we told you to be worried about.”

Cretta looked indignant—tricky to do while still wearing the cape and the headdress reaffixed—and was about to yell something when I burned Dexterity and reached for the staff, only to have Grodok’s powerful hand shoot out and grab me around the wrist.

“I will murder all of you,” I said in orc.

“Can it speak Orcish, is it a girl?” asked Kiladet.

“No, maybe it’s just rabid!” yelled Cretta.

I swung Justice at the orc who hastily blocked it with his ax. He tried to fling me away but with my new strength all he managed to do was drag me slightly forward as I pulled back against him. I thrust Justice at his midsection and the orc released his grip.

“Kill the animal!” yelled Cretta.

“I’m trying, Mommy, he refuses to die,” yelled Grodok. “Use the staff!”

“It’s out of charge for the day,” said Cretta.

I leapt onto the table and slashed at Grodok. Kiladet grabbed her book and then looked at Cretta.

“We should go,” said the booky orc.

I leapt down striking with a powerful overhand slash, sending Grodok sprawling backward. At that moment, Cretta started inching toward the stairs.

“Maybe we should get the skill trainers from the nursery and leave for another city,” said Kiladet.

Cretta snorted. “And leave this keep? It’s not like Grodok cannot handle a single human, he’s such a well behaved young orc,” said Cretta confidently.

Grodok shook his head free of cobwebs and charged me again. I parried the first strike and then grabbed him by the shoulder before flinging him across the room. He bounced twice then stopped in front of the two orc women who glanced side-eyed at each other.

“Be good, my son, may the blessing of the great mother protect you,” said Cretta and she ran.

“You got this, we believe in you!” said Kiladet, as she too scurried up the stairs yelling for the skill trainers.

Grodok glared at them as they ran and then stared at me before saying in plain English, “You have made a poor choice, human.”

“You are going to be a tree,” I replied in perfect Orcish, leaning on Justice next to the still boiling cauldron.

The powerfully built orc stared at me for a long moment and then took a step back. “You learned a phrase in orc.”

“I learned many phrases in orc. Like you will be a tree, and you are going to die alone, without your brothers,” I said watching the words hit home. Grodok growled at me, so I continued. “It looks like your mother abandoned you, because you’re a failure.”

“You asshole!” bellowed the orc and he charged me. Mental note, orcs were sensitive about their mothers.

I swung the flat of my blade down on the ladle which shot out of the cauldron and blasted a bubbling mass of Alchemy at the orc. He burned Dexterity, attempting to dodge, but I anticipated his angle and met him with Justice.

He did not enjoy the exchange and the Magical Sword tore through his armor in a ghastly spray of blood and ichor. Then he slammed headfirst into the cauldron with a resounding gong, and sprawled to the ground.

“Any idea where those orcs went?” I asked, moving over to the staircase.

“It does not matter, Corgo is on the roof fighting with our allies,” said Justice as I checked the minimap. The orc women were so close, all I needed to do was run upstairs. Then I noticed the little tracker stone lit up on the map go flying across the roof. Elana had beat me up there.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I spotted a wagon being loaded. Cretta hopped into the driver’s seat and whipped the horses, sending the wagon racing forward. Kiladet barely made it on with the potion trainer in tow. They sped through the open gate and into the night air.

The wide open gate beckoned.

I glanced at Justice, who was still dripping the orcs blood onto the floor. I felt the bruises running up and down my side. Corgo roared. Something in me quailed again. If I went up there, I was going to have to fight him. I didn’t even know if it was possible for me to win, and everyone would expect me to.

I inched toward the gate and the skill trainer. Maybe I couldn’t do this, but I could save Hope. They were going to die no matter what I did, and it wouldn’t help them if I was also dead. Elana would have to forgive me.

Except she was waiting for me on the roof. She knew I wasn’t a hero, she knew I was just pretending to be Sir Yorick. She… almost believed.

They were counting on me to win this for them. I was afraid that I’d screw up, but the biggest screw up here would be abandoning them. They didn’t just need me pretending to be Sir Yorick, they needed me to be a knight up there fighting for them.

“Dammit!” I screamed, running for the stairs to the next floor up. I spotted several orcs on my way and charged. Both armored orcs readied their weapons. I slid under the first strike, cleaved one’s leg off at the knee, then jammed the tip of Justice under the other one’s chin and launched myself toward the second floor.

“Took you long enough, Squire. There are three more orcs between you and the stairs to the roof,” said Justice as I whipped around the corner.

“Good things come to those who wait,” I said, spotting a large orc with a boar emblazoned on his chest. I smiled.

“Vengeance isn’t a virtue of a knight,” said Justice. “But, just this once, wreck him.”

I burned Power and Dexterity, meeting the orc’s ax with Justice in a terrific spray of sparks. The ax shattered and my sword continued through the orc’s arm, severing it at the elbow.

As the orc screamed, I leapt and smashed him in the face with my armored knee. Something broke, and as I landed, the orc collapsed spurting blood from his missing nose and arm. I continued onward, content until I reached the stairs and made it to the roof.

There were a dozen dead humans on the roof. Corgo had donned multiple plates of armor that were stitched together so he was more or less armored. It would have been more, but his odd proportions made all of the existing armor worthless.

He still swung around his massive ax far faster than should have been possible, and two more humans died. Elana attempted to burn Dexterity and get in close for some knifework, she was somewhat successful, slashing the massively built orc on his side before he grabbed her and flung her again. She slammed into the roof in a shower of tiles and failed to rise.

Corgo smirked and walked toward her axe raised.

“Get away from my bodyguard,” I declared.

Corgo spotted me and laughed. “I thought you ran.”

“I was dealing with your ritual. Your women have left, they know you are going to die here, by my hand!. For I bring Justice, and it calls to you now. Surrender and die with honor.”

“I will never surrender to a human,” spat Corgo.

I smirked. “I would have been disappointed if you did.”

There were nine orcs up here that could fight, and I still had the better part of forty remaining humans. The elite orcs looked healthy, rested, and very tough. The humans had seen better times. Corgo was worth ten human skill users by himself, and each of the remaining orcs was worth at least four.

Zahir left her daughter and came to my side. Her resplendent armor was battered, but she confidently held her sword. I could see her doing the mental arithmetic for the upcoming clash and realizing that we would come up short.

“Just give the word,” she said with finality as all the remaining humans prepared to fight to the death. They were a battered and bruised mess. Still, they had hope. A knight was here. They could do the impossible.

“Sir Yorick, it is a shame you can’t get him into a duel,” said Zahir.

“Did we ask?” I replied.

“Orcs do not duel humans,” said Zahir. That sounded like a challenge.

“What do you say, Corgo, we could settle this like warriors,” I said, holding out my arm to keep my people back. Zahir tensed, ready to have my back.

“Fight me one on one?” laughed the massive orc. “You have to be kidding! Whatever could you possibly say that would make an orc fight an animal?”

“The age old question, what could you possibly say to an orc to make them fight you one on one?” said Justice.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” I said, clearing my voice and speaking in Orcish. “Yo mama’s so fat, when she goes camping the bears hide their food!”

“What?” said Corgo as several of the nearby orcs’ eyes shot open.

“Yo mama’s so fat, her belt size is equator,” I yelled directly at Corgo. The nearby orcs were utterly shocked.

“My mother is young and healthy,” said Corgo, growing agitated.

“Yo mama’s so stupid, when I told her she lost her damn mind, she put on her coat and went looking for it!”

Several of the orcs screamed in rage. Another was staring in open shock at me.

“You dare speak ill of my mother?” bellowed Corgo, stamping forward. The other orcs stepped back, letting him pass. “Fine, I’ll kill you myself!”

“Hold up!” I yelled causing Corgo to pause, “You treat your women like garbage, yet you revere your mothers?”

The orcs all looked at each other, shrugging before Corgo responded, “Yes, women are for breeding, which is a dirty act, but your mother birthed you, there is much respect there.”

The orcs all nodded strongly at that, looking at me like I was an idiot.

“Squire, you are making us look bad in front of the orcs,” said Justice as I shook my head.

“Your mother still probably had sex,” I said, causing Corgo to swell up as the orcs looked at me, horrified.

“You lying bastard, my mother is a saint,” screamed Corgo. “I’ll kill you for that!”

I was grateful the humans didn’t understand Orcish. I couldn’t imagine something worse than a climactic battle setting off the start of some tremendous fight, because it was led by a yo mama joke and orcs with mommy issues.

The other humans all stared at me in utter shock as Corgo neared the center of the rooftop by himself, obviously preparing for a duel.

“What did you say to him?” said Zahir.

“I challenged him, as only a knight could,” I replied.

“That should not have worked,” said Justice.

“I insulted his mother, that was a slight to his personal honor, so he has to personally respond even if he doesn’t want to, and no one else is going to help because I didn’t insult their mothers,” I said, stepping forward. I glanced over at the town, several buildings were burning, but the damage didn’t look that bad. We had done a good thing here, shoving our finger in the orc’s eye.

Now all I needed to do was win, and these people would have their freedom.

Rage simmered inside Corgo. He was massive, jacked, and angry. There were several veins I could see on his head that were bulging, and he was actually trying to calm himself down before the fight.

“Ready to go, tree?” I asked, ending the calming down phase of Corgo’s preparations. He roared and charged me, swinging his massive ax down in a single, impossibly fast strike. I exhausted Dexterity, flowing back before the weapon could impact.

With Corgo’s weapon out of position, my next move was child’s play. I pulled Justice back into a thrusting position, pointing at a gap in his armor, and lunged with all my strength behind the strike. He smashed Justice away with his thick forearm and tore the ax free of the ground, nearly taking off my leg.

I rolled away, coming to my feet as he snarled and launched again. This time he swung his ax horizontally in a massive cleaving strike. I attempted to dodge underneath it, but he adjusted the weapon mid-swing and the blade tagged my helmet, tearing off the top in a horrible clang of metal.

Armor did not just come off, and the impact sent me rolling away, barely able to see with the helmet so compromised. I activated Magical Armor, causing the helmet to snap back into shape right as the ax slammed down on my shoulder, cleaving into my body. Magic Armor made my armor much more durable, but it had limits, and those were clearly exceeded.

Corgo smirked, so I jammed Justice through his exposed forearm. The orc howled, flinging me away. I landed, stumbling to my feet as Justice healed me and the armor resealed itself as the spell ended.

The massive orc glanced at his ax and then back at me. “You’re cheating.”

“I have magic,” I said. Corgo nodded and opened a pouch, pulling out a potion and drinking it. His arm sealed up. That just seemed wrong, somehow.

The humans watched carefully, ready for orc treachery, but the orcs were far more interested in the contest. I had besmirched the honor of their leader, and worse, I wasn’t dead yet. That was an even bigger ding to his honor.

We closed again, and I used my newfound strength to leap, driving Justice at his helmet. Corgo misjudged the strike, bringing up his ax too late, and the impact drove him back a step. I landed and swung again, this time he had the ax ready and blocked using Power. I hadn’t considered that, and the force of the block knocked me off my feet.

I burned Dexterity, rolling back as the ax smashed the roof where I’d been knocked down. I got to my feet and burned Power, striking at the ax. Even with all of Corgo’s strength, Justice was still a more powerful weapon, and when they clashed there was a spray of sparks.

I swung down, driving the axehead back and then pivoted Justice to slash at his hand. The weapon was in a two handed grip, but he had to release one if he didn’t want to lose fingers. I slashed a third time, tearing into his side then deflecting off an armor plate. He slammed the pole of the ax into my chest, and I spun through the air, breaking at least one leg on impact.

Health flowed through me, and I stood. Corgo grabbed one of his armor plates and tugged it down over the wound. On any of the lesser orcs that would have been lethal. On him…

“What’s in there anyway?” I asked.

“Are you insinuating I did a Scan of his innards?” asked Justice.

“Not intentionally,” I said.

“Lots of stray fluid, blood, and not orc blood,” said Justice.

Corgo roared and his eyes glowed red. “Demon blood, that’s what he’s full of.”

“But his body cannot absorb demon blood, he’d bloat up and start mutating—” began Justice. “Oh, that explains the books. They are trying to get his body to process the demon blood, and he can’t do that very well.”

The orc slammed his foot to the ground and glared at me. The demon-infused body began to glow with energy as he prepared himself.

“He is activating an ax art,” said Justice as Corgo’s weapon began to glow. Justice started burning in response. “This will be it, go all in.”

I exhausted Dexterity and Power, and activated Magical Strike all in the same instant that Corgo came at me like a tornado. The ax swung around him so fast that I could barely even see it, but with my sword skill and using Dexterity to get into the exact position to attack, I managed one strike before the ax hit me.

Without Justice, I would have died. I landed hard well away from Corgo, with my arm only hanging on by a tatter of flesh. My armor broke on impact and even the healing spell only repaired some of the damage.

Corgo stared at me, his eyes filled with muted rage. His arm was gone, cut off at the elbow where the plump limb was too thick to fit into the armor properly. His ax was somewhere in town after I blocked it with my torso.

There was a geyser of blood shooting out from the orc. Orc blood was red, perhaps a deeper red than human blood, but you’d have to really look at it to see much of a difference. Corgo’s blood was orange, and when it sprayed over several of the orcs, they died screaming.

The orange blood didn’t stop though, and Corgo began to shrink to exaggerated yet normal proportions for an orc. Not even as the blood adopted a distinctly redder coloring. The blood only stopped when Corgo’s body finished emptying out, and the massive orc looked like too-little skin wrapped over a too-large skeleton.

A human screamed a battlecry, and the forty remaining humans charged the five remaining orcs. Both sides had tactics now, hard earned tactics that worked. The orcs killed several humans, but out in the open they were getting hit by arrows and spears. One by one the remaining orcs fell with Zahir decapitating the last one.

Then she dropped her helmet and ran over to her daughter.

I was broken, and Justice was almost out of Mana. I stood up slowly and limped over to where Elana was. Zahir searched through Corgo’s pouch and pulled out a minor healing potion. She poured it down Elana’s throat, nothing happened.

“She is dying,” said Justice. “None of the weaker healing potions here will save her.”

The general, on the eve of her greatest victory, clutched her daughter’s head in her lap. Tears stained Zahir’s face while she whispered something to Elana. The general smiled at me, her voice catching. “My daughter did so well. Just like she said she would.”

“She did,” I said, kneeling next to Elana. She was having trouble focusing.

“You’re going to need a new bodyguard,” she mumbled, breathing shallowly.

“I hate breaking in new people,” I said, pulling out the full heal potion and shoving it into Elana’s mouth.

The liquid vanished and she spit out the bottle, then sat up wide-eyed. “So this is the magical healing you keep getting.”

“Close enough,” I said, sitting down next to her. “I only had one potion though.”

Zahir grabbed her daughter. Elana’s chest seemed more pronounced than before. It wasn’t that she suddenly developed a figure, it had been crushed.

“I’m still pretty badly beat up,” said Elana, looking over her badly bruised limbs.

“I don’t think my other hand works at all,” I replied, holding up my limp arm.

“Okay, but we won, right?” asked Elana.

“Yup. I saved the day. Thanks for not killing him before I got here,” I said. “Makes the bard’s songs much harder.”

“Shut up you two,” said Zahir and she grabbed me for a hug as well. “This is the first step for a free humanity, and if I have to listen to either one of you banter anymore, I’m going to have you jailed.”

45

THE END OF A QUEST

I looked over the keep where the humans raised their flag, announcing loudly to the orcs that they were no longer oppressed. I’d saved them, or at least that’s what they were cheering about. The celebration had been fun, the orcs had enough food that we could have feasted for a month. We didn’t, but one full day of feasting had occurred.

Bella and I polished off several bottles of wine before morning and I woke up melancholy. She said goodbye to me and went about revamping the castle forge. With the party over, everyone was starting to clean up and interrogate the few remaining orc prisoners who were not the victims of any sort of atrocity.

That left me at loose ends. The quest was complete, and Justice had not yet assigned us a new one. I sat on top of the keep, trying to guess where the potion trainer had gone.

“Well, I guess we did good,” I said.

“You did great. You fought the enemy and won the day for everyone, just like a true hero,” said Justice.

“Like a knight,” I said uncomfortably.

“Henry would be proud.”

“Would he?” I said, slumping down. “I totally forgot about my sister. Not much we can do for her.”

“Well… I do have over one hundred pounds of silver and twelve pounds of gold in my storage. Henry used to use that for money.”

I didn’t know how much silver and gold was worth by the pound, but I imagined that many pounds was worth at least some time in the hospital. They might even accomplish something.

“That would help,” I said. If magic didn’t work, maybe the good old American medical system would suffice. It was supposed to be the best in the world, if you could afford it.

“Yes, I can also tell you who to sell it to,” said Justice.

“That’s great. We didn’t get the potion, but at least I can do something.”

“I was thinking about that,” said Justice, bringing up a room on the minimap. “The females departed in a hurry. Do you think the orcs managed to clear out everything?”

“Such as?” I asked.

“The potion trainer would have had a workshop,” said Justice.

I rushed down to where the orc females had kept their personal slaves, that included the potion skill trainer. Her room looked like a chemistry lab. I opened a few vials, and they smelled of flowers and other delightful fragrances.

“Do you really think there’s something useful here?” I asked, swinging Justice around. That would be a stupid thing to do if he were a regular sword. As a Magical Sword, any unattended vial he touched vanished into his storage where he could identify it.

It took a while, but eventually I managed to go through every nook and cranny and clear out every potion vial stored in the orc harem.

“Okay,” he said after I finished, and three vials appeared in my pockets. “These potions will help your sister out significantly. None of them will cure her outright, but they will greatly reduce the symptoms while extending her life. Unfortunately, you will have to come back here and find a skill trainer if you want to cure her permanently.”

“Back?” I asked. “I think they still need me.”

“Because we can’t do anything without you?” said Elana. She was leaning heavily in the doorframe, watching me. Elana was mobile now, she was just so badly bruised that it would take a few days to finish recovering. She examined me, her eyes lingering on Backbiter for a moment.

“My eyes are up here,” I said. “And I thought you were supposed to be resting?”

“Nope, tour guide for the moment, and I’ve already been reassigned,” she said with a wide grin.

I looked at my now former bodyguard. “To who?”

Princess Nadia stepped in the room, wearing the crown and a brilliant blue dress. “For me.”

“She has impeccable credentials,” said General Zahir.

“She is very good at her job, kind of mouthy though,” I said.

“I can work with that,” replied Nadia.

Elana snorted. “Already making my job harder.”

“So, what’s next?” I asked.

Nadia looked good, she had her confidence back, and now that they had a fortress, she had a chance. She pursed her lips, then shrugged. “I’m not sure, we are entering into a new stage of the war.”

“We found reports when we went through the fortress,” said Zahir.

“Yes, in Corgo’s room, but mainly in the chief concubine’s office,” said Nadia. Zahir nodded, allowing the princess to take charge. “The civil war is in full swing. Grimdar is missing, presumed dead, and his sons are in the process of selecting the new Whomak.”

“Which means violent civil war,” said Elana.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Right now, we’re waiting,” said Zahir. “We are going to plan and prepare. Build up the fortress, take in refugees, and anything else we can reasonably do to hamper the orcs. But they are doing so much damage to themselves, giving them a target is actually counterproductive.”

“I confirmed that with our source,” said Elana meaningfully. “It is really bad for the orcs right now. They were attempting to perfect that ritual you stopped in Himdal to make another Grimdar, but no one has been successful so far. Most of the orcs that tried failed spectacularly.”

“Then, what can a knight do?” I asked.

Nadia looked pained. “The concern is that having a knight gives the orcs a target, and we’d rather them kill each other than us.”

I ran through the list of the things I could do, but as a knight, most were running out and fighting people. If I wasn’t doing that, I could still help, but my options were limited.

“What we mean, is that it’s going to be months or years before the next stage of this war happens,” said Zahir.

I wasn’t going to be able to stay here for months or years doing nothing. I glanced to Nadia, who blushed. Well, I could think of something to do, but I doubted that was in the cards.

“I take it knights don’t stick around after we win the day?” I asked.

Elana shook her head. “I’m actually surprised we caught you before you knighted out.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Magical Sword Knights drop in, save the day, then leave,” said Elana, walking over to me. She brushed off my shirt. “If they come back, they are usually wearing silly clothes.”

“I could stay,” I offered.

“The orcs aren’t going to attack us anytime soon. They’re all busy killing each other,” said General Zahir. “We are safe for the moment, and I assure you, this civil war of theirs is likely to last years.”

“I suppose… you don’t need me anymore.”

Nadia looked at her general and slumped slightly. “No. Unfortunately, you’ve quested yourself right out of a job, good Sir Knight.”

“Alright then. I’ll come back,” I said, straightening. “When you need me most.”

“I’ll settle for ‘as soon as we need you,’” replied Nadia, heading for the door. “And thank you, for everything, Yorick.”

I glanced at my sheath and removed Backbiter. I held up the hilt to Elana. “Here, now you know I’ll come back.”

“Seriously?” she asked, reverently taking the hilt to the now defunct magical blade.

“Seriously,” said Justice, with enough contempt for a room full of mother-in-laws.

“Not like we can use it,” I said.

“I’d complain, but she’d make a good scout,” said Justice. He vibrated slightly and a glowing purple disk appeared on the wall next to me. I caught a whiff of a familiar smell—the lovely scent of Grandpa’s basement.

I nodded at Zahir, who nodded back.

Waving, I stepped back through the portal and into a wardrobe.

“Oh, thank god, I was afraid we were going to fall,” I said, stepping out into my perfectly tidy basement. I reached for my cell phone, which I’d placed next to the portal, only to find it missing. “Is that the television?”

I climbed the stairs, noting that the dodgy one had been repaired, before getting to the first floor. My furniture was here, at least, so I hadn’t been gone so long that my parents sold the house or anything. I spotted my phone on the kitchen counter, connected to a charging cable.

I grabbed it, there were no unread messages, and I’d been gone for over a week. I glanced at the history and found out the reason—because someone had been answering for me. I’d told my parents I was on a job out of state, and whomever was responding had kept that lie going.

Walking to the living room, someone was watching a reality tv show. A small child was sitting in my recliner with a bowl of popcorn. Grandpa’s favorite popcorn.

“He’s the new guy,” said the child, glancing over at me. He looked about eight, and strangely like the next door neighbor’s kid, from when I was twelve. Also, he had glowing yellow eyes.

“Are you a goblin, wait, are you that goblin?” I asked. “Wait, why do you look like the neighbor’s kid?” I considered that, and all of my memories of that boy had him looking exactly like the goblin’s disguise. He always conveniently showed up when Grandpa got busy doing stuff.

“The neighbors don’t have any children,” said Justice.

The goblin rolled his eyes and looked back to the television.

“I told you, being a Magical Sword Knight has perks,” said Justice. “That is Mac, your personal valet goblin. So far, you’ve worked at being a hero. Now that you’ve figured that out, let’s say you try working on being a proper knight.”

* * *

The series will continue in The Monster Army.

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The Adventures of Squire Yorick

Sword of Justice

The Monster Army

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