Bound: A Slice of Life Progression Fantasy (Millennial Mage Book 4), page 29
Tala took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. She wasn’t nervous to fight him; they’d been doing that, uncounted times each day.
No, what had her nervous was the anchor, sitting on the floor between them. She’d experimented with the paired devices. She’d even been using them to allow her to run in the mornings without having to find a route. Yet, she’d not fought with the anchor active, not yet.
Tala charged forward, past the anchor, and engaged Rane sword to sword.
She was getting better, both in her ability with Flow and in her understanding of her increased physical attributes. Rane still overshadowed her with talent, training, and experience, but she was narrowing the gap, if slowly.
Her minor errors finally built up to the point that Rane was able to hit her with a horizontal slash, her block just out of position.
She shot sideways, eyes locked on her opponent.
She stopped moving away from him, though the air still rushed by her for another instant. Dimensional energy warped around her, expanding the space before her and keeping her from getting farther from her anchor.
As she came to the ground, tumbling slightly before rolling to her feet, she found herself still close to Rane. Still within striking distance.
He didn’t let that go to waste.
Force struck her again, throwing her backwards and up this time.
Rane took off after her in a dead sprint.
When she reached the back edge of her tether’s range, it looked like she jerked to a stop midair, though she still felt air rushing past her, even as she began to drop.
Rane was there before her feet touched the ground, but Tala got Flow up to block this time.
The concussion of Force against Flow radiated out, even as her feet returned to the springy wood of their training room. Rane was grinning wildly. “Oh, this is going to be amazing.”
A range of twenty feet was hardly an expansive battlefield, and Tala would need to figure out how to move her anchor tactically, but it had worked.
She grinned in return. Not perfect, but it is a wonderful improvement.
Rane usually launched her into the walls, ceiling, or floor with ease, causing extra damage and often dazing her, even if just momentarily. Now, his only option was the floor, and she was becoming more proficient at blocking overhead strikes from his massive sword. After all, she deeply disliked being slammed against the ground.
They spent most of the remainder of the day, and the two following, sparring with her tether active, only taking breaks to recover their strength and mentally process the previous bouts.
***
Dawn broke early, though marginally later than the day before, and Tala shot out of bed with special alacrity. Today is Terry adventure day!
Rane was going to go visit the Constructionists and finally bond Force, and Tala and Terry were going to take a daytrip into the surrounding forests to hunt and shake off the building feeling of claustrophobia.
“Good morning, Terry!”
Terry flickered to her side, even as she climbed out of Kit.
She tossed him a bit of jerky before picking up the pouch and hanging it on her belt. She gave him a bit more as she moved through her morning routine.
Terry was patient enough, snatching up the occasional bit of jerky she tossed out in a random direction.
Soon enough, she was done, and they headed out of the training facility.
She’d arranged with Mistress Odera to miss their breakfast that morning, so the Mage wouldn’t have to wonder where Tala had gotten to.
“Let’s go!”
They walked out to the city spiral, exiting the training complex, and Terry immediately grew to a rideable size.
Tala thought for a moment, then clipped her anchor to his collar. She then climbed up, holding the collar and tucking her feet under his wings. One of her hands on Terry’s collar also held the anchor. If he flickers away, he’ll leave it behind, but this way, I’ll keep a hold of it.
As soon as she was situated, Terry took off down the inside of the tree.
They’d discussed it in the previous days and decided to leave through the southern gate.
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. Tala had proposed various things, and Terry had squawked and trilled until she’d said things that he was Okay with.
That was fine. A large part of this was to let the terror bird have some unrestrained time, so his input held a lot of weight.
They shot out of the tree’s southern gate. Entering the power-heavy air there at ground-level felt like running into a wet blanket, at least to her spiritual self.
Something about beginning the fusing process seemed to have sharpened her magical senses, at least slightly, and she could now tell that all this power, this ocean of magical might, was already bound to and controlled by someone.
The sense of their influence felt… familiar, but she couldn’t place it. I’ll figure it out eventually, or I won’t.
She grinned. Today wasn’t for contemplation; it was for adventure. It was for battle.
Terry hadn’t slowed, and they were out from under Makinaven’s tree with surprising speed.
In less than an hour, they were past the reach of its magical drain, into the wild forest in truth.
Terry gave a soft trill of warning before flickering away.
Tala dropped to her feet, clipping her anchor to her belt as she dropped.
Terry regarded her from around ten yards away.
“Go, hunt, have fun. I’ll call you by name if I need help.”
He waited a moment longer, then trilled happily and vanished.
Tala pulled out one of the large jars of pig’s blood that she’d purchased from a butcher. One silver per gallon. Not cheap, but effectively much less expensive than bleeding a gallon from herself.
She uncapped the jar and poured it out on various rocks around the center of the clearing in which she stood.
The clearing was just over a two hundred feet across, surrounded by trees in a rough ring.
She then let out a call of challenge, careful to keep any fear from the sound. She didn’t want another human hearing it and coming to assist her.
Her powerful lungs, and reinforced vocal cords, allowed for a very loud challenge.
Wind moving through the forests rustled the canopy overhead, carrying the scent of blood through the woods.
Less than a minute later, she heard the first answering challenge.
The basso roar caused the ground to tremble and her bones to shake.
It’s Okay, Tala. You got this.
A creature, twice her height, came into view. It looked quite a lot like Terry, but with armored plates instead of feathers, and teeth instead of a beak, and instead of vestigial wings, it had front arms, baring vicious looking claws. So, not much like Terry at all.
It let out the too-low roar once again, its throat vibrating visibly as it generated the challenge.
Tala pulled out one of the tungsten balls, which had its gravity already reduced to near nothing, and pitched it at the massive, bipedal lizard with all her strength.
A five-foot crater blossomed at the impact site. Shrapnel shot out in all directions from the tree just beside and behind her target.
The beast jumped to the side, letting out a sound that evoked irritation and startlement in equal measures.
Tala grimaced at the hole in the middle of the crater in the tree. Well, rust. That’s going to be a pain to dig out.
She called Flow to her hand, pushing power to form it into a glaive, even as she moved through the motions to throw the weapon.
This attack flew true… at least mostly.
Flow ripped past her opponent, taking off one of its front arms and gouging a sizzling chunk from its side as it passed.
Tala called Flow back before it could go too far, and was about to charge in, when three smaller creatures leapt out onto her first opponent, tearing it apart and taking it to the ground in moments.
The fallen lizard let out a confused final cry before the three smaller attackers ended its struggles.
The scent of blood had only grown, and now the smell of cooked meat had been added.
Tala could hear sounds from various distances all around her as predators, large and small, moved to investigate.
Huh… This might not have been the most well thought out plan.
***
Tala rolled across blood-soaked carcasses, which coated the ground, striking out at any opponent that came close.
The little valley had devolved into a melee long ago, but the predators just kept coming.
At some point, Terry had returned, following the tide of incoming targets, and he was exuberantly flickering through the churning, primal gore-fest, trumpeting in glee.
To Tala’s best guess, the sound of fighting, combined with the smell of blood, and the already powerful draw of a human presence was driving the creatures into mad battle-lust. Most still retained enough cognizance to not attack those of their own kind, but that was it.
On the negative side, Tala had suffered numerous injuries—all healed now, of course—but they had pulled from her reserves, and that would pull from her budget. She had void-channels to her elk leathers and Kit, along with those to Flow, keeping them in top form and preventing the mounting damage from being too much.
If she’d had a goal to reach, or anyone else to protect, she’d have failed utterly. The only reason that she was still living at all, aside from Terry’s occasional intervention, was that her presence seemed only to increase the creatures’ ferocity, not cause them to target her, specifically.
Stars be praised.
On the positive side, she was practicing every skill and ability she had which had even a mild combat application.
She was throwing with a fair degree of accuracy.
She’d been able to pull out gravity-enhanced balls and arches, dropping them at opportune moments. The first few had done little, but she was working out the kinks.
She’d used her gravity manipulation on a full four creatures at the same time, increasing two and reducing the other two. That had come after many failures, but even still, she felt like it was a tremendous accomplishment.
Her sword and glaive work had taken on new shape and meaning to her as she battled for her life. The sharp, crisp movements of the weapons’ techniques had morphed into brutally efficient strikes, blocks, and deflections. Flow seemed to be thrumming with power alongside her, its shape shifting between the three forms as easily as water filled a cup.
And she felt alive.
Every movement was precise. Every mistake was punished, and every intuition tested.
It was glorious.
The ground couldn’t absorb any more blood, though that quagmire was covered with no small number of bodies. The depression between trees was beginning to resemble little more than a shallow pool of dark red liquid filled with islands of the dead.
Still, arcanous beasts came.
Still, Tala, Flow, and Terry reaped a crimson harvest.
Still, the sun moved up the sky, ever closer to noon.
Chapter: 27
Murder Dell
Tala lay, sprawled out atop the heaving back of a massive bear as its breathing slowed and finally stopped.
Last one.
She jerked Flow out of the carcass, letting it shift from its glaive form back to that of a knife.
Tala tried to ignore the wet slurping sounds as Terry flickered around the clearing, devouring the mangled, blood-marinated bodies of the fallen.
She groaned and started stretching on the tangled hair of the great beast below her.
As the bodies disappeared one by one, the thrashed, soaking ground was revealed more and more.
The noon-time sun shone down on the canopy above, filling the space with clear green light, interspersed with shafts of untinted sunlight.
In the green light, the ground looked mostly black, and only the smell indicated what it really was. The interspersed patches of white light highlighted the crimson color of what lay below, making the terrain resemble blood-stars in a dark sky.
Some fur and detritus still smoldered, though Terry seemed to have prioritized those beasts. Apparently, he liked a smoky flavor. That tracks with his love of jerky, I suppose.
The smell of cooked meat was almost as strong as that of blood and gore. A surprising number of beasts had been able to augment themselves with, or breathe out, fire. How a forest survives with so much fire magic within it, I’ve no idea.
Additionally, her every cut with Flow had left cooked meat in its wake.
“You know, Terry, I was planning on harvesting some of those.”
Terry looked her way, the tail of a massive lizard hanging from his mouth. He threw his head back and let the remainder of the creature slide down his gullet before returning his gaze to her. He trilled questioningly.
“I know you helped. I’m not asking you to starve. I just want to collect some things first.” She looked around. “Well, at least from the few that are left.”
Terry looked around at the few bodies remaining, then squawked and settled down to wait.
“Thank you.”
Tala looked down on the carnivore below her. The bear had stood three times her height and breathed fire. Probably called a Blaze Bear, or something silly like that.
If she were being honest, this bear had killed the majority of opponents there at the end. The arrival of it, and one other like it, had heralded the final phase of the skirmish.
Tala had only slain this one by coming at it from behind as it roasted a wolf pack, which had tried to challenge it for some food.
“How am I going to move this?” She looked at her bracers and anchor. “You know, if I could get you registered as the target, then simply walk away with the anchor…” She bit her lip in thought. “What if I asked Master Jevin to make some target darts, or something. I could then use those to tie enemies to the same anchor I’m linked to. That would be useful in all sorts of ways…” She nodded. It was worth asking. “Include the inner defenses for those? Keep them from grabbing the anchor and running?” She clicked her tongue.
While promising, the idea wasn’t particularly helpful to her current situation.
She gave the bear a weary sigh. “I don’t really want to skin you in a blood-puddle.” She glanced to Terry. “Are you willing to help me move these bodies?”
Terry let out a descending series of short trills, suddenly growing to twice the size of the bear.
With quick motions, he flickered to each body, picked it up in his beak and walked to a nearby rise before setting it down. Last of all, he came for the massive bear, and Tala had to hop off.
Her feet squelched in the thickening muck, the paste-like substance working its way between her toes. What happens when blood dries and hardens when mixed with dirt?
She scraped her tongue across her teeth, unconsciously trying to get an imagined taste off of it. “That’s gross…”
She took high, long steps, trying to get out of the muck as quickly as possible. By the time she got to the rise, all the animals were laid out and ready for her ministrations.
Now, Mistress Ingrit gave me a list of the best harvests in this area. Let’s see how many I can find. There were other things that would be of use to her, and even more that her magesight could guide her to. All told, there would be plenty for her to gather up.
She looked to Flow, in its knife form. Shouldn’t cook anything in this form.
That decided, she went to work, directed by Mistress Ingrit’s list and her own magesight and desires.
***
It was midafternoon by the time that Tala had finished harvesting, and Terry had eaten the last of the remains.
The bird didn’t really seem to care what he ate, as he ate the gut piles as readily as the other organs and the meat.
Tala didn’t really want to eat meat from carnivores, so she’d left that to Terry, but she had gotten two massive bear-hides. One from her final kill, and one that was barely smaller. The beast had been gutted, probably by Terry.
The hides were so heavy that she had a hard time moving them around, even with her enhanced strength. Not only did they have a heavy coat of thick fur that was far from clean, but the hide, itself, was nearly four inches thick.
They had been a pain to stuff into Kit. Though, she assumed that Kit would debride them for her, so that made it worth the effort.
This might cost more than I’m willing to pay to tan… She’d had that thought before, but she’d figured that she could probably pay a tanner one of the hides to tan the other for her.
In addition, she’d gotten a large number of bones and claws, which had drawn her attention due to the magic within them. She’d coated them in iron-salve and stored them within Kit. Some of those had been on Ingrit’s lists, some hadn’t.
Her list had contained other oddities, including the left eye of one of the creatures. Tala had looked closely and, indeed, the two eyes did have subtle differences to her magic sight. The more you know.
She’d collected everything she could and was quite satisfied with the haul. It would have been better if Terry and I had talked first. That was on her, though. She didn’t feel any ill will toward Terry.
“Well, Terry?”
He flickered to her shoulder and head-butted her cheek.
“I’m glad you had fun.” She almost turned to go, but her eyes passed over a tree with a large crater in it. “Oh… right.” She wasn’t used to having weaponry that needed to be retrieved after a battle. She’d not been one of those helping to get the guard’s bolts back on the caravan trip, and so, she wasn’t even used to retrieving others’ weaponry.
Tala sighed. “Let’s see how many we can find.”
It took another two hours to gather up her tungsten balls and metal arches. Blessedly, she’d been able to find all of her weaponry. That was probably only because each had their gravity altered. Because of that alteration, they practically blazed to that portion of her sight. Thus, while it wasn’t quick, nor easy, to scrape through the muck, as soon as the smallest portion was within her line of sight, she noticed the item instantly. She could even often catch a glimpse of the altered gravity through intervening barriers. I should practice that portion of my sight as well.
