Stepping Wild, CH 64 (Patreon)

“All right!” the guard master yelled. “Pass the word. We’re stopping here.”

Tibs got off his horse, wincing as he used his burned hand to hold on to the saddle’s horn as he lowered himself. Even after all these weeks, he forgot about it unless he had to use that hand. He shouldn’t be able to forget. He should be in constant pain for what he’d done. But he needed to play his role as a caravan guard, and that meant he needed to be able to hold sword through the pain. Or carry pales of water or any of the other duties the guard master gave him.

“Tibar, you Crestin, Johane, Stanla, and Zax are on tent duties. Maltarium, Albalester, and Bronte, latrine.”

Tibs tuned the woman out and joined the others in taking the poles and tarps off the wagon and set them up. The others talked and laughed, and Tibs didn’t join in. He focused on the work he’d been assigned, on the pain in his hand, on hiding that he felt it. Zax was who helped him, and he tried to engage Tibs, but gave up.

Once they were done, Tibs took the farthest tent as his own. He ate with the others. As the Caravan leader required, and joined in conversation only as little as he had to not to come across as not wanting to be there.

He could have traveled along, but he knew it was a bad idea in his current state. This was his compromise. Among others, but not.

Once he was done eating, he sat by a tree at the far edge of the camp and moved fire essence through his gloved hand, causing himself as much pain as he could without leaving evidence for the others to notice. He could use air to disperse the smoke and smell, but he didn’t.

The only essence he allowed himself was fire, and only to use it on himself.

“What’s wrong with it?” the man asked, dropping himself on the ground a few paces away from Tibs. He drained the wooden tankard and placed it down next to him. He was burly, but that covered muscle. He fought with a mace that had caved in heads the last time bandits had attacked.

“With what?” Tibs asked, absorbing the essence.

The man nodded his right hand. “Noticed you favoring it a few times. You held your own during the attack, so I didn’t bring it up with Alicia, but I’ve been wondering. Is it a leftover from a fight?”

Tibs chuckled, the memory of plunging his fist in the brazier still clear. That burst of pain, the struggle not to scream. The anger as not being able to endure all the pain he deserved. “No. It isn’t.”

“You know there’s a healer traveling with us, right? I’m sure he’d be happy to look at it.”

The man in question was more an alchemist than a healer. Tibs had been drawn to the concentration of essence in the wagon’s crates and had watched him work one evening. Gathering plants, stones, water, and even horse dropping, then placing each in containers with a flame under it, and a liquid in it that was equal part water, and other elements.

“The heat that fire produces,” the man had said when he’d noticed Tibs watching, “turns the elixir into a liquid that pulls the essence from what I put in it.”

Tibs had walked away as the man continued talking. He didn’t want to know what he was doing, or how it worked. He didn’t want to know anything about the elements anymore. He was done with them.

“I’m fine,” Tibs told the other guard. I deserve this.

“You shouldn’t be in pain if you don’t have to. They don’t want that for us.”

“They who?” Tibs asked, nearly demanded.

“The elements. They want us to be happy. They made all this for us to enjoy. We should.”

Tibs snorted. The elements didn’t care about them. Curiosity, maybe, if there was one thing they felt when it came to people. Happiness? He didn’t think the element understood what that was. Or cared about people being happy, if they did.

“You think you deserve it?”

Tibs glared at the man, but kept his tone neutral. “How about you leave me in peace?”

With a shrug, the man stood. “Just trying to be friendly.”

“I don’t need friends,” Tibs muttered when the man was a few paces away. He didn’t deserve friends. All he brought on the people he allowed close was suffering.

They didn’t deserve that.

He pushed fire essence through his hand again.

He, on the other hand?

    *

“Listen up!” the guard master yelled once the caravan had come to a stop. “The scout came back with news of a bandit camp half a day’s ride from here. I want volunteers to go deal with it. Those of you who took the job because you like to bash in heads, now’s the time to step forward.”

Tibs walked away. She’d have enough volunteers he didn’t have to worry she’d start picking guards to send. Since they’d be here for the rest of the day, at least, he pulled poles and tarps from the wagon and set about putting up tents.

    *

The camp had been setup closer to the road than Tibs expected. He hadn’t known how the road twisted when he’d sensed the bandits. The fighting had been hard; he knew that because not even half of the guards that had gone to deal with them had returned, and now he could see the carnage. There didn’t seem to be enough bandits for how many of the guards they’d killed, but the survivors had talked about how vicious they were, how surprisingly strong.

Some whispered of magic and dungeon made people.

The idea was laughable. He’d have sensed if one of the bandits had an element. It would have stood out among the others, not that he would have warned them. As for dungeon made? Dungeons made monsters, not people.

The alchemist offered assistance, as did the family of herbalists. That guard who’d bothered him that one time had nodded significantly at them when he’d caught Tibs attention, and Tibs had walked away.

    *

Tibs parried the hammer, and the impact resounded through the sword and into his hand, causing it to spams. Before he worried about the being without a weapon, the woman raised the hammer over her head with a scream, and Tibs slammed his injured shoulder into her chest, staggering her back.

He avoided the punch from the other bandit, but she stepping out of the way of his swing with ease. Like the other women in this bandit group, she was dressed in furs, and look more like an animal than a person.

Tibs just knew stories of dungeon people were going to be told after this.

She came at him, fists raised. And he blocked with his arm, and the hit felt hard enough to wrench it out of his shoulder. He already had one broken shoulder. He wouldn’t survive a second one.

Not unless he used essence.

He ground his teeth, swinging wildly at her, and causing her to step back in surprise, but not connecting.

He wasn’t using essence ever again.

When she attacked, it was with quick jabs that staggered him. Then he was off his feet, head spinning from the punch in the face. His only thought as he pushed himself on his back was that he deserved the pain.

The mace crushed the side of her head as the impact forced her to step sideways before she fell.

“You okay?” the guard asked, hands on knees, panting.

Tibs didn’t answer. He pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his sword. The fight wasn’t done yet, and while he could stand the pain, he could keep protecting the merchants as best as he could.

    *

“I’m fine,” he told the approaching alchemist.

“I’m afraid that even I can see that you are not. Your friend asked that I see to you, now that the other injured have been tended.”

“I don’t have a—” he pushed through the pain to look around the thin man. The mace wielding guard was looking back at him with a raised eyebrow. Abyss. What was his problem?

The alchemist produced a small bottle from the satchel. Like everything in it, it was concentrated essence. Water, fever, fire, light, and more he couldn’t identify. He offered it to Tibs. “This will help with the pain.”

“I’m fine with it.”

“You understand that what I do isn’t magic. It will help your body heal, but you will feel it.”

“I said I’m fine with it. If I thought it’d do any good, I’d tell you to go f—to throw yourself in the abyss. But he’s going to make sure the guard master finds out and then I’m going to have to deal with you and them. So just get on with it.”

The man put the bottle away and took cloths and other bottles out of the satchel. “Do you need help removing your armor and shirt? This needs to be applied to your skin. It needs to be allowed to soak—”

“I don’t care.” He ground his teeth, and he leaned forward and undid the buckle with his working hand. Then he removed the armor and suffered through the act of pulling the undershirt over his hand, having to lift his broken shoulder to make that happen.

He fell back against the tree, utterly exhausted. The man watched him through the process without speaking. Then he poured drops from various bottles on a cotton cloth, before applying that to the broken shoulder.

“You didn’t fail them, you know?” he said, moving back.

“What are you talking about?” Tibs tried not to pay attention to what was happening, but he’d never had this kind of essence work used on him before.

“Those the bandits killed. It isn’t your fault. You don’t have to punish yourself. I’m sure you fought as best as you could. Everyone said how surprisingly strong they were. And with this being the third time we’ve been attacked, we already lost many guards.”

“It’s not why,” Tibs said, distracted by the essence soaking into his shoulder. Fever and water and corruption and fire again and— the pain was so sudden he couldn’t stop the scream. It was like someone had reached into his shoulder and was grinding the broken bones together.

He had fever as an element. Fever was the element of the body, so why was he feeling this pain?

Then he was panting as it ebbed away, taking more than what it had created. There was something…off with how his life essence felt. Like it still reflected the break that was no longer there.

“Don’t move it yet,” the alchemist warned. “It takes time for the body to realize it’s been healed and it doesn’t like being forced to do something it shouldn’t be able to.”

He prepared other pieces of cloths while Tibs studied his essence. He could feel the ‘break’ in it slowly mending to match the bone. The other applications went in a similar, but less intense, way as he applied the essence soaked cloths where Tibs told him he was hurt. Cracks in the bones and bruises, instead of breaks.

Then the man reached for Tibs’s right glove, and he moved it away.

“That’s fine.”

“You friend said—”

“He isn’t my friend, just a guard who can’t mind his own business.”

“I should be able to mix something that will help. If you let me see—”

“No. I didn’t get that defending you, so it’s not something you have to deal with.”

“My help isn’t limited to—”

“I said no.”

The man nodded and packed the bottles and cloths away. He stood, then hesitated. “Holding on to pain doesn’t help anyone. Whatever the reason is, as to why you feel you deserve it, you don’t. You’re a good person and—”

 “You know nothing about me.” Tibs wanted to snarl the response, but he was too tired.

The alchemist exchanged words with the mace wielding guards, ending with a shrug. Fortunately for him, the guard also walked away.

Tibs might have broken his promise and used air to send him away if he’d approached.

    *

The rain ended as suddenly as it had started, and the sky turned so blue Tibs had trouble understanding how it was possible. The smile that formed as the sun warmed him caught him by surprise. He couldn’t explain how, but the clouds had taken some of the darkness that had been in him with them.

He chuckled, then forced himself to remember what he’d done so he wouldn’t feel too happy. He didn’t want to go back to how he’d felt, but he didn’t want to forget how, again, his anger had destroyed more than had deserved. Too many of the townsfolk had died, when only those thugs had deserved it.

No, when only the thief’s guild master had deserved it.

He continued to keep to himself for the rest of the voyage to keep from drawing attention, and with one exception, none of the people in the caravan realized there had been a change.

That exception was the mace wielding guard. He gave Tibs a satisfied nod, then went on about his duties.

When Tibs decided to deal with his burned hand, he went to the alchemist. He could heal it himself with an etching of purity, but he was curious how the man’s method would work, and he had something to tell him.

“You’re wrong,” he said as he brought his horse next to the wagon. “I deserve this.” He showed him the gloved hand. “I let my anger take control and people how had no business paying for it did. But you’re right. I can’t hold on to the pain and just be angry at myself for what I did. If your over still stands, I’d like you to heal it.”

The man smiled. “It will be my pleasure.”