Wandering Warrior: Judge - Chapter 32 (Patreon)

Chapter 32

Leaving the village wasn’t nearly as dramatic as my entrance.  Despite the hour, most of the village was busy cleaning up the stables, so only Lilly and Granny Crow were there to see me off.  They had agreed to keep under quarantine for at least another fifteen days before opening up their gates to the city, which would keep anything from spreading if I had missed someone.  It rained enough that those who normally used the well would be able to get by for a short time, while they drained and cleaned it to make their water safe again.

“Be careful, young man.  If’n you plan on challengin’ the guilds, you need ta watch yer back.”  Granny Crow gave me a wave, and I felt a miniscule pulse of magic come from her that washed over me.  “Blessin’s o’ the traveler will keep ya safe.”  Lilly only gave me a tiny nod, still unsure of herself given recent events.

“Thank you, Granny Crow.”  I turned and left, looking for Jess and the others.  A quick glance showed me the gates were already closing behind their retreating backs.  At least one village I had left in my wake didn’t hate my guts.  Not that they had asked me to stay the night.  They didn’t like me that much.

As I was beginning to realize was the norm, the stars were quickly being covered by clouds that threatened rain.  The increased darkness made it easier to find the flickering campfire through the trees, so I started getting closer before stopping on the edge of the trail.  Before I met with everyone else, I had to burn my clothes.

First, I drank the healing potion I had saved.  I might have been a little paranoid, but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t a carrier.  While it was tingling through my system, I stripped down to my birthday suit and flash-fried my clothes.  The cool air made my skin break out in goosebumps, forcing me to push away a shiver.  As I approached the fire I was surprised to see the camp was empty.  The only thing showing it belonged to my people was the several pots of water boiling away over the fire pit.

A twig cracked in the forest, snapping my attention off toward the darkness.  I was expecting to see Jess and the others, but instead I found a familiar and very unwanted sight.  “You again.  Didn’t get enough of me last time, huh?”

The last time I had seen the female vampire she had been dressed as a noble.  This time, she was wearing clothes that made her blend into the wilderness, with a heavy bow in her white-fingered grip, a thick rune-covered arrow already nocked on the string.  “I told you I’d find you again, sorcerer.  Although, I didn’t expect to find you so… vulnerable.”

I looked down at myself.  Being caught out completely naked with nothing but my shield bracelet and low on mana wasn’t exactly the best situation I could have asked for.  I mean, it was better than the time I had been tied up by the woman ‘training’ me to get my Soldier Class on world three.  I had been expecting a more fun training session, but after she had tied me spread-eagle to a bed frame, the crazy woman had let four men I had pissed off earlier that week into the room.  It was hard not to wince at the memory.  “You might be surprised to hear this, but I’ve been in more vulnerable situations before.”

She laughed, the sound grating on my ears.  “Oh, I do believe you.  Now, I’ve been ordered to bring you and your friends to see my boss.  They want answers, and you’re going to give them.”  She waved a hand, and Jess, Leedy, Murphy, and Cross were all yanked into the light.  All four of them had been stripped down to their underwear, and looked like they had lost a fight with a really angry weed-whacker.  They each had a vampire holding one arm, bringing the enemy count up to nine.  I suspected there was at least one more hiding out of sight, probably more.  “We’ve already captured your followers.  Come along quietly, and we won’t hurt them.  Much.”

I smiled and held up my hands as if waiting for them to be shackled.  “I can’t believe I get to say this, especially since I’m technically an alien to your world, but… take me to your leader.”

The female vampire didn’t know what to say, so she simply motioned for someone behind me to come forward.  Two more vampires came out of the woods, one of them holding a set of silver shackles that had more carvings than an elven princesses’ chastity belt.  I definitely didn’t want them to get those things on me.

I looked up at the others to gauge how capable they might be in a fight at the moment.  Both Leedy and Murphy looked like they had fought hard, and were in rough shape.  Surprisingly, Cross was in even worse condition.  I guess the constant worry of the vampires coming back for him had been weighing on his mind for a long time.  Jess only had a goose-egg lump on her forehead, meaning she had probably gone down fast.  The glazed look in her eyes worried me.  Head injuries were nothing to play around with, and she needed healing immediately.  Basically, I wasn’t going to get much help from the four of them.

“Be careful.  We still don’t know who his patron is.  There could be a curse on his flesh that destroys anyone who touches him without permission.”  The female vampire pulled up her bow and drew back the arrow, aiming it at my midsection.  “Tell me, sorcerer, will we die if we touch you?”

“Die if you touch me?”  The fire hissed as some of the water boiling bubbled over.  I looked at it, thinking about its intended purpose.  The reason I had told Jess and the others to boil so much water is because I was going to have them dump it on me while I was healing myself, ensuring I was completely disinfected.  It was an extremely painful way of doing things, but it worked, and I was no stranger to pain.  Now, it was going to serve a different purpose.  “You’re already dead.  You just don’t know it yet.”

My shield bracelet activated with a snap, and a flick of my wrist caused the boiling water to be thrown at the line of people and vampires across from me.  They all went down in a screaming tangle, vampires, humans, and shifter alike.  I felt a little bad hurting Jess, Leedy, and Murphy–not so much Cross–but I could heal them when this was over.  The female vampire let loose her heavy arrow, and I caught a lucky break.  It deflected off my shield and hit the undead dude holding the silver shackles in the throat.  He dropped like a sack of potatoes, and I spun and grabbed the other vampire standing next to me, who was too shocked at the sudden violence to have reacted yet.  I threw him at the female vampire hard enough that when they collided the sound of snapping bone was audible over her scream of outrage.  They tumbled into the fire, and the screams of outrage turned into screams of pain.

I grabbed the first weapon I could find, which was the arrow sticking out of the vampire’s throat.  I yanked it free and stabbed him again quickly in the heart.  He wouldn’t be getting up again.  Then I jumped over the pair still rolling around in the fire to take on the eight vampires the others were tangled with.  Two were already getting back to their feet, so I stabbed them each through the heart with two jabs before they even realized I was in front of them.  A third vampire grabbed me by the ankle, yanking me off my feet before I could pull myself free.

My shield blocked a stomping boot from crushing my head as another vampire made himself known.  The stupid horse ran past, with all of our gear and equipment on its back, meaning this guy had probably been holding it when the fight started.  He cocked his leg back to try again, which gave me a very odd angle to deal with.  So, I threw the arrow I was holding like it was a dart as hard as I could, straight up his poop-chute.  That definitely distracted him.

While that guy was screaming and hopping around, I kicked my leg free of the vampire holding onto me.  In the scrum, Leedy had found a big rock and was busy crushing the skull of a vampire that was face-first into the dirt.  Murphy had pulled Jess free, and was keeping two vampires at bay with a pointy stick.  Cross was either dead or unconscious, burned badly by the boiling water.  That left the one that had grabbed me, and two more that were unaccounted for.  They had already disappeared into the forest, the sound of their retreat crashing through the trees.

The vampire that had grabbed me was easily killed when I stomped his head into paste, and the one with an arrow up his honey-hole was even easier.  I grabbed him around the throat with one arm, the shoulders with the other, and ripped his head off.  Sometimes, extreme violence was cathartic.

Murphy used the distraction of my violent execution to stab one of the two he was facing in the chest, and the last one ran off when I took a step in his direction.  I checked on the two that had fallen in the fire, and I was pretty sure they were done.  The older a vampire became, the more flammable they were.  The female had been old enough that she might as well have been soaked in oil.  I deactivated my shield bracelet with a pop once I felt we were in the clear.

“Are you okay?”  I checked on Leedy first, since he was on his back gasping for breath.  “Did you break anything?”

“I was sure we were dead.”  He groaned as he sat up, the burns on his face and hands making me wince.  “They got us with their mind tricks.  We barely fought at all.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them for a bit.  Now tell me, did you break anything?”  I had the mana to heal his soft tissue injuries, but bone and organ damage would cut it close.  “It’s important.”

“No.  I don’t think so, anyway.”  Leedy winced as he looked at his boiled skin.  “Nice trick with the water, by the way.  I don’t think anyone could have expected it.”

“I learned it from a movie.  ‘If a bad guy has a hostage, just shoot the hostage.’  Or, something like that anyway.”  I drew a circle on his forehead, avoiding the worst of his burned skin, and healed the worst of the damage.  He had some torn ligaments in his left elbow that were going to have to wait until I had some time to recharge.  “Take it easy for now.  Let me check on the others.”

Murphy was the least burned, but made up for it with bruises.  He stayed silent while I healed him, only looking at Jess while I worked.  He finally found his voice when I knelt to check on her.  “Do you think you can save her?  The sound she made when they hit her… it wasn’t good.”

“I think so.  I can heal most injuries, as long as I get to them in time.”  I thumbed back her eyelids, checking for any response.  One pupil looked normal, but the other was blown wide open.  Shit.  Looking the rest of her over, most of her burns were on her torso, and they were bad enough she already had large blisters swelling across her abdomen the size of potatoes.  “Has she said anything since they hit her?”

“No.”  He swallowed hard, pushing down his emotions once again.  “They were going to kill us as soon as you surrendered.  All of them were laughing about it while we waited for you to show up.”

“We’re going to track down the ones that got away as soon as everyone can move, and show them the error of their ways.  Now, let me see how bad she is.”  I bit my cheek to get some blood in my saliva before spitting on her forehead.  Using both my index and middle fingers, I drew a large circle with ‘James H’ on the inside.  I wanted to use as much of a connection as I dared to check her brain.  It was dangerous to connect too deeply.  I didn’t want to lose myself, and spend the next day or two trying to find my way back into my own body.  Also, leaving myself undefended was a dangerous thing.  I looked back up at Murphy.  “Guard me while I do this.”  He gave me a serious nod, and I dove in.

Using only a trickle of mana to conserve energy, I ignored her burns and focused on her head.  Her shifter constitution was already working to heal the burns, so I gave it a small boost.  Removing the scars later would be easy.  The thread of mana that ran through her brain bumped into an area where pressure from blood leaking into her cranium was causing problems.  I found where the blood was leaking and healed it first, then I brought down the swelling.  By then, I was almost bone dry on mana.  It would have to be enough.

Pulling my consciousness out of her body, I came back to find both Leedy and Murphy watching over me.  “How long was I gone?”  The vampires were still crackling in the fire, so it couldn’t have been too long.

“Less than an hour.”  Leedy motioned to Cross.  “Do you have enough power left to save him?”

“Forget Cross, is Jess okay?”  Murphy missed the look Leedy gave him.  I don’t think he would have cared if he had seen it.  “Will she remember who she is?”

Looking between the two of them, I decided to answer Murphy first.  “I’ve done what I can for now.  The brain is the trickiest thing to heal.”  I pulled back her eyelids, and thankfully they looked more normal.  Still not perfect, but much better.  “Her shifter nature should cover any gaps I might have missed.”

Murphy let out a long sigh.  “I hope so.  I can’t lose her, not now.”  He looked up sharply at Leedy and I.  “I mean, the group can’t lose her.  She’s an important member of the team.”

“Whatever you say, Murphy.”  Leedy just shook his head.  “Now can we go check on Cross?”

I stood up, immediately feeling the lack of mana.  “I won’t be able to do much, but I can at least check on him.”  As I got closer to him, I could see the steady rise and fall of his chest.  “Well, he’s at least still alive.”  The skies chose that moment to open up, and a heavy downpour immediately soaked me before I could activate my shield bracelet again.  “Would you track down that horse and find me my clothes, please?  I would really like to not be naked anymore.”

“Sure.  It’s trained to not run far.”  Leedy walked off, keeping his sore arm tucked against his body.  As he walked past the fire, he tossed a few more logs on it to keep it going despite the rain.  It was near enough to a tree that it would keep burning as long as it stayed hot enough.

“Alright, Cross.  Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”  The moment I touched him, a spark jumped into my body, and I couldn’t move.  A voice spoke in my head, powerful enough to make my eyes rattle inside their sockets.

Hmmm… and what do we have here?