Of Fates And Fetters Ch 4

Oof, this was a rough week. Just...ugh.

But! I was able to finish writing this here chapter for y'all!

Not much to say. Here is chapter, drop me a comment letting me know your thoughts!

Or don't.

But it would make me happy if you did! 8D

Hope you enjoy.

=][=

I woke up without having fallen asleep and fell to my knees, gasping for breath.

“Fuck!” I gasped. “I hate doing that!”

“That.” Lavitz said, gasping and leaning on his spear. “Was absolutely, worth fighting that monster, for three minutes.”

I blinked. Then grimaced. “Shit man, sorry. I let my practice slip and—”

“No. You accomplished what you’d said you’d do.” Lavitz interrupted. “Though I am ashamed to say, I won’t be of much use in any further fighting. Not without some rest.”

I opened my mouth to reassure him before an unfortunately familiar bass roar interrupted me.

“Fuckers! Bastards! I’ll tear your cocks off and force you to eat them!” The fat monster shouted. He tried to climb to his feet and fell back to the ground, shaking it. “I’LL RAPE YOU TO DEATH AND FEAST ON YOUR CORPSES!”

He flailed back and forth with his huge cudgel, knocking chips of stone off every surface he struck.

“Holy tap-dancing fuck.” I muttered. “He’s still alive?”

“What.” Lavitz coughed, spat a wad of phlegm and bloody spittle, and continued. “What’ll it take to kill that monster?”

I drew my sword and muttered darkly. “We’re about to find out.”

Lavitz’s hand on my pauldron stopped me from stalking forward. “Even if he is wounded, he’s still dangerous. And we can’t be certain he doesn’t have reinforcements coming. We need to leave.”

I ground my teeth but nodded. I turned my back on the raving lunatic and jogged the surprisingly short distance to the stables. When I’d spilled blood to buy the ground, it had felt much longer.

As Lavitz and I reached the stables, Shana came out leading a pair of horses. She smiled when she saw me. “Dart! I got the horses ready!”

I froze and stared at the rabid beasts. In the heat of all the fighting, I’d completely forgotten we were buying time for Shana and Bart to saddle horses.

“Right, uhh, you’ll have a spare, I’ll run alongside you an-”

“Daaaaaart!” Shana pouted.

“A man is meant to fight with his feet on the ground, Shana!”

“We don’t have time for this!” Lavitz chastised from atop a third horse, Bart on a fourth behind him. “Get on! We must leave!”

I looked at the squirming, kicking monster. Then took a deep breath, held it, and jumped onto the creature’s back, holding tight to its neck, the saddle digging uncomfortably into my everything.

The horse proved me right by being difficult, whinnying infernally, and trying to shake me off.

“Ooooooh instant regret.” I said reasonably as Shana took hold of the reins and began pulling the animal along, I bounced up and down on the worst kind of transportation this side of commercial airliners. “Oooooh instant regret. Oh Jesus, Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus. Protect me Thor Odinson, and Odin. Amaterasu Omikami and Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto have pity upon your vaguely Asian subject. Help me Quetzalcoatl and Huītzilōpōchtli, Hunahpu and Xbalanque grant me your strength and wisdom and cleverness.”

I continued muttering prayers to a panoply of deities in case one of them was real and could be bothered to do their damn jobs. My grip on the horse tightened as Shana brought the animals up to a trot, then a canter, then a full gallop.

I was so preoccupied with holding onto the horse, I didn’t even hear the shouted orders from the prison, nor did I see the volley loosed into the night after us. One arrow of which was unfortunately lucky enough to claim Sir Bart’s life, moments before we reached safety.

=][=

“Where are they!?” Fruegel shouted. “Bring them to me! I’ll kill them slowly!”

He couldn’t get to his feet, his legs wouldn’t hold his weight, so, demeaning as it was, he crawled on the direction of the gate.

“S-Sir!” One of his men said, saluting next to him. “We weren’t able to bring the drawbridge up in time. It seems uhh, it seems they’ve escaped?”

Fruegel calmly looked at the man who reported these ill tidings. He then calmly reached out. Calmly took the man’s head in his hand. And calmly crushed it into pulp.

The headless body fell twitching to the floor.

“Find them! Bring them back! The girl will be unharmed!” Fruegel shouted.

If he didn’t recover the girl, Doel would take his head.

“Don’t try too hard.”

Fruegel barely managed not to shout in surprise.

Emperor Doel’s fucking Advisor. With his fancy black cloak and his fancy silver headdress. And that dashing jawline that would look great stretched around h—

“This, too, may be a sign.” The Advisor continued. “The Wheel of Fate may just have come unstuck. You may be lauded for that, if naught else.”

“S-Sir? We’re letting them go?” He asked, unable to believe his luck.

“No. Send out a pursuit party. The guardian of the Child does not have a right to weakness. If he is too weak to keep it safe, then it will be taken from him.” He turned his back on Fruegel. “If he successfully evades your men, then I’ll have some surety of his competence, at least.”

“R-Right.” Fruegel said.

“Worry not, warden. Your punishment in the case of failure shouldn’t be too severe.”

Fruegel snarled, but he did so silently as he watched the departing back of the man who had cut him the deepest out of all.

The moment he could walk, he would throw away his current toy, she didn’t make any noise or squirm anymore, and he’d find some blonde plaything from the cells to have his fun with.

But first. “WHY ARE YOU ALL SO INCOMPETENT! SEND OUT A SEARCH PARTY! I WANT THEIR HEADS!”

=][=

I finished digging the hole, stabbed several sharpened stakes so they stood upright on the dirt, put my trusty shovel away on my handy sack, covered the hole with a thin blanket kept in place by a few rocks, then piled a bit of dirt and a bunch of leaves over the trap. By the time I was finished, it looked like an animal had dug at the ground in search of food and disturbed some leaves.

“Awright! Trap finished, let’s keep moving!” I said and continued walking, Shana following in my wake and Lavitz bringing up the rear.

We were making our way back to Seles by the route I’d taken through the forest. As it turns out, a full gallop at night and getting shot with arrows is bad for horses.

Sir Bart’s horse took an arrow at the same time he took one in the throat, and Lavitz’s horse broke a leg while sprinting in the dead of night.

He was able to roll with the fall and had managed not to break anything.

We’d decided to use the horses as pack animals from then on, thankfully freeing me from having to stay on the monstrous beast that had thoroughly done away with my dignity.

Why anyone would choose to get on the infernal things, I have no idea. We didn’t even need the damn things while I had my handy sack!

I led for a while, before stopping and digging out another hole for a trap.

Shana took the opportunity to sit at the base of a tree, Lavitz stood next to me, keeping sentry.

“Dart, may I ask you a question?” Lavitz asked suddenly.

“Whoop! You just did! Looks like you’re down to one out of your questions three!” I shot back while happily shoveling dirt.

He blinked. “Wouldn’t I have two questions remaining then?”

“Yes! That is the answer to your second question!” I said with a shit-eating grin. “So the prophecy comes true!”

He started down at me, then snorted in amusement. “These traps, they won’t kill a man, if they have a supply of healing potions, it won’t even disable them. What is their purpose?”

I stopped shoveling dirt and started stabbing sharpened stakes into the dirt. “To delay and inconvenience! If they have supplies, then they’ll have to expend them keeping their men healthy. If they have them but choose not to use them, it’ll affect their morale! If they don’t have them, then they’ll be down two men, the one who fell in the trap, and the one needed to transport and take care of him! And if they only fell for the first one and are canvasing the ground for more traps, then they’re slowed in their pursuit.”

I finished planting stakes and covered the hole. “So, no matter what, these grant us an advantage!”

“Then why do you make a few of them easier to spot?” Shana asked from her seat by the tree, one of the horses nibbling at the grass near her.

“To make them paranoid about the ones they can’t see!” I said with a grin, looking down at the decidedly more amateurish trap when compared to the last one.

Lavitz nodded. “That all makes sense, but why are we bothering with traps in the first place? Why do you assume they’re following us? Wouldn’t we have lost them? We’ve been traveling through the forest for days.”

I blew a raspberry. “Lavitz, no offense, but a blind man could follow your trail. Frankly the horses are leaving less of a trail than you.”

He looked taken aback, so I explained as I moved us forward.

“Shana weighs the least out of all of us, her footprints are leaving the shallowest impressions and she’s being careful not to disturb the trees and shrubs as she walks. The horses are doing the same, but they’re eating as they go and they weigh a lot. I spent a lot of time in my childhood learning forestry from Old Johnathan so I know how to move and minimize traces of my passing even if I can’t do much about the depth of the prints I leave on the ground. I did it so much that, frankly, it’s my default state.

“You however.” I pointed at him. “You weigh at least as much as I do, likely more, and very little of it is fat, so you’re pretty physically dense. You stomp heel to ball as if you’re walking on cobblestone roads, and you push through tree branches and shrubbery rather than move around. Breaking and bending plenty of branches. Trying to teach you to move like Shana and I through the forest would be nice, but it would slow us down, so that’s a project for the future.”

Lavitz looked at the trail we left behind with new eyes, his face coloring as he looked crestfallen. “My apologies, my ignorance has made things harder for us.”

I blew another raspberry. “Don’t get yer panties in a bunch city-man. It is what it is, rather than lament the situation, I decided to take advantage of it. With traps!”

“How is Old Johnathan? I was going to deliver that tea he likes so much when…everything happened.” Shana said.

My spirits fell immediately, I had been avoiding talking about Seles. “He didn’t make it.”

Shana gasped.

“I got there too late. He helped me kill two of them, then I went into the village to kill whatever other Sandorans were still there. Killed two more soldiers and an asshole in full plate.” I spat to the side. “Most of everyone survived. But we lost a few people.”

Shana was quiet for a while before asking. “Who else?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. “Gregor, Rotwell, Steffenson, Marie, Annabelle, Jonathan…those were the names I was told before heading out.”

We walked in silence before Shana asked. “Is Auntie Claire…?”

I snorted. “Mom’s fine, some asshat in a fancy black cloak managed to break her arm and gave her a concussion. She took down like, twelve assholes before she ran into fancy cloak.” I turned around so she wouldn’t see my mouth twist into a hateful snarl at the memory of the three assholes I had killed before they could rape my mother.

Their deaths had been far too quick and easy. A necessity of the situation, but I wished I could have taken my time and get proper revenge for what they’d attempted.

“I’m glad…I’m glad not many died.” Shana said.

“Casualties were surprisingly light.” I agreed. “I inspected a couple of the projectiles launched at the village, someone had the explosive payload that comes standard in them removed, making them essentially into hollow clay balls.”

I halted, crouched to feel the ground in front of me, then gestured to walk around a trap hole spider’s sinkhole, the arachnid was cunning and venomous, and we didn’t have the time to deal with that.

“Why would they remove the payload?” Lavitz asked. “I’m glad they did, but it doesn’t make much sense.”

“As far as I was able to figure out, there were two, maybe three factions that attacked Seles.” I said. “The first were professional soldiers. They assaulted quickly, secured the location, and swiftly but relatively gently put down any resistance. Once they found Shana, they retreated in good order having caused the minimal damage necessary to achieve their objective. The second faction set fire to several buildings, killed a number of people, stole what they could, then followed after the more disciplined soldiers, a small number of those went AWOL and decided to stick around, brutalize the villagers, and steal what they could.”

And see who they could have their fun with. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

“AWOL?” Lavitz asked.

“Away Without Leave.” I said.

“Ah, deserters, I see.” He nodded.

I brought us to a halt and prepared another simple trap. “I got there a few minutes after the main force left, killed the assholes, and you know the rest.”

“To think they’d risk driving so deeply into Basil held territory.” Lavitz murmured. “That explains the activity all across the front. I’d thought we’d repelled some young general’s poor attempt at glory, but they were diversionary attacks.”

“The question being, why go through that trouble to secure Shana?” I asked and turned a forced smile on her. “You’re not secretly a princess, are you, boogers?”

With my luck, she was the last remnant of an ancient lineage of Magical Kings, and the Sandorans had learned of that through some ancient text and wanted her kidnapped so they could regain the actual divine right to rule or some shit.

“Don’t call me boogers.” Shana pouted.

“As thoust most august majesty desireth. Thine wisheth be this unworthy one’s most fervent command, oh thee of the mucus lineage.”

“Daaaaart!”

“You know, if she is a princess, you just committed Lèse-majesté.” Lavitz said with an admirably straight face.

“Not you too!” Shana gasped at the betrayal.

“Oof. Does that still carry the death penalty?”

“It does in Imperial Sandora.” Lavitz answered. “Though in Basil, King Albert managed to lower the sentence to five lashes and several hours of community service.”

I hummed. “Hey Lavitz, I need to buy your silence about the fact that I insulted nobility. I offer you…” I rummaged through my sack and pulled out some of my rations. “This bit of cheese and a whole two fingers width of jerky.”

“As captain of the First Knighthood I am above bribes.” He said as he eagerly took the food. “That said, I do have a history of memory issues.”

What was most impressive, was that he delivered that line with a completely straight face.

I took out the last of my dried fruit. “And here you go, madam boogerina.”

“Daaaart!”

I blew a raspberry at her, then popped a slice of dry peach into her mouth as she whined at me.

The sweet morsel had the intended effect and cheered her up.

“I have been meaning to ask.” Lavitz said as we walked and ate. “Where did you source a Hand Cache? The only ones I’ve seen are in the hands of traveling merchants, passed on as family heirlooms. There are only five that I know of in King Albert’s treasury.”

He’d caught me right after I bit off a piece of jerky, so I stared awkwardly at him while I chewed. I wasn’t about to talk with my mouth full, I’d paid good money for this jerky and I wasn’t about to waste any of it.

“Got it while traveling.” I said after swallowing, rummaging around in the sack for a piece of string, which I used to bend a sturdy branch back and set up an unnecessarily complex system of pulleys to release the branch and smack someone in the face. “Ran into a merchant, some bandits had stabbed him and taken his daughter. So I ran the bandits down, recovered his daughter, thankfully with her chastity intact. When I raided their supplies, it turned out the leader had a healing potion. So I fed it to the merchant when I reunited him with his daughter. He gave me the handy sack as payment, as he didn’t have anything else he considered a worthy reward.”

I rummaged around the handy sack and pulled out a jar of honey. “He also gave me this honey. I took too long and it crystalized, and I haven’t taken the time to heat it up and melt it into gooey goodness again.”

Lavitz’s eyebrows climbed up. “He must have really loved his daughter. Most merchants will die before parting with a Hand Cache.”

I shrugged. “He was a good man, and a better father. It’s saved my butt plenty of times since.”

“I imagine so. There is a reason they’re worth a King’s ransom.” Lavitz nodded.

I stopped, pulling out my trusty shovel and stabbed it into the ground, which groaned in protest.

“The fu—”

The animal that exploded out of the ground roared, slapping me aside as if I were a handkerchief, its foot-long razor-sharp claws missing me by inches. My back slammed hard enough into a tree that I sunk partially into it before falling to the floor, unable to breathe.

The horses whinnied in terror, but before they could bolt, the huge, armored mix of an armadillo and a pissed off bear moved with speed something of its size had no right to have, it swept its claws through the animals, decapitating the first and tearing the throat off the second.

Lavitz’s spear punched into its side, failing to pierce its thick hide. It made the animal flinch and swipe at the spearman, who deftly dodged it.

The creature took a deep breath and released a roar that vibrated my teeth painfully. A roar Shana interrupted by loosing an arrow into its gullet.

The monster literally choked on its rage. It hacked and coughed, trying to dislodge the arrow choking it. Thrashing back and forth with such force that it tore through the trunk of a few trees before losing strength and falling unmoving into the dirt.

Shana breathed hard, a white-knuckle grip on the bow, a second arrow ready to be nocked.

I forced myself to take a breath and coughed out. “See? What did I tell ya?” She turned to me, her eyes were dilated and she was starting to tremble with leftover adrenaline. “Second-line combat!”

She blinked, confused, then started giggling uncontrollably, falling on her butt as her giggles turned to gales of laughter.

I was fully planning to go comfort her…soon as I could feel my legs.