Wandering Warrior: Judge - Chapter 35 (Patreon)

Chapter 35

We decided to cut down on the chances of being reported by anyone, and swung south through the forest instead of following the trail.  Surprisingly, even Cross agreed that going straight to the city and turning south was too big of a risk.  Either he wanted to put off the confrontation we all knew was bound to happen, or crushing the undead threat was a priority to him as well.  The few farmhouses and cabins we could occasionally spot through the thinner sections of trees were far enough away that we didn’t see a single person, despite being so relatively close to the city.  Our only time spotting another living thing was when we crossed the main north-south road, and that was just a pack of feral dogs that ran the moment they saw us.

“Something’s wrong.”  Jess was sniffing as we threaded our way through the forest.  She had taken a break from spell practice to recharge, and was walking up front with Murphy again.  “I don’t smell woodsmoke.”

“It’s not exactly a cold day outside.”  Murphy shrugged, causing his cloak to shift and a bunch of water that had collected at the base of his hood splashed to the ground.  “Good thing, too.  Otherwise, we’d be even more miserable.”

I held up my hand, causing everyone to stop.  I took a moment to expand my senses and confirmed the same thing.  Not only was there no woodsmoke, but I couldn’t hear the sounds of any animals in the area.  We were close enough I should have at least heard a chicken or something.  Also, we all needed a bath, and Leedy might have athlete's foot.   “No, she’s right.  The farms and forest are empty around here.  They probably have been this whole time.”

“With the fighting to the north, the city might have evacuated the countryside.  Everyone could be inside the city walls.  If not, it’s too late for them already.”  Cross took a moment to look around at where we were.  “I’m pretty sure we’ve only got another mile or two until we run across the trail that will take us to the dairy farm.  It was paved a long time ago to allow the heavy wagons easy access when it rains, so we can’t miss it.”

Leedy nodded in agreement.  “If I remember right, there should be an old trapper cabin somewhere nearby.  We could rest for a little and prepare ourselves, and leave the horse there while we fought.”

“I was planning on riding my horse into battle, as is proper.”  Cross patted his horse’s neck with his stump.  “We’ve seen many battles against the undead together.”

“That’s great, Lancelot, but we’re going to be fighting indoors, remember?  I don’t see the need for a cavalry charge in the near future.  Besides, any jousting inside should be done without pants on.”  I motioned for Leedy to take us to the cabin.  “We’ll go with your plan.  It’s well past lunch time, so we should hurry.  Even with the clouds, I’d rather fight them during the day than after dark.”

We got to the cabin at what I would say was close to two in the afternoon.  The log shack was barely standing, but it was good enough for our purposes.  Instead of risking the chimney, I started a fire in front of the collapsing porch and quickly got some trail stew started.  I only used three of the prepared packets that had been given me instead of a full five.  In my experience, it was bad to fight on an empty stomach, and even worse to fight with a full one.  This would give us enough to get by without getting sluggish.  Leedy was poking around inside while the rest of us were eating around the fire.

“Are you ready for this?”  Murphy was leaning close to Jess, pitching his voice low so nobody else could hear.  I hadn’t turned down my senses yet, meaning I still could.  “It’s going to be a hard fight.  If it was a group of Wardens going after a nest like this, we would have at least twenty people to help.”

“Well, we don’t need twenty people.  We’re more than enough to handle this.”  Jess shifted to be a little closer to the heavily-muscled Warden.  “I don’t believe in the Trinity very much, but have you thought about what it really means that James is here?  There’s a god somewhere that wants our people to be safe.  They want things to be better than they are.  And I want to help make it that way.”

Murphy made sure not to look directly at me, but he slowly shifted so I was in his peripheral vision.  “Do you really believe that?  That they would send one person to change everything?”

Jess shrugged, taking another bite of food.  “I don’t really know for sure.  What I do know is that things are already changing.  How much safer are the western roads now that so many monsters are dead?  I bet trade goes up because of it, and that will make the villages expand.  Who knows what else is going to happen?”

I decided to tune them out, and double checked all of my gear.  Wrist gun was good to go.  Ninjato and mace were secure on my belt.  Yari spear-staff opened and closed smoothly.  Armor was clean and strapped in place.  Shield bracelet was fully charged, and glowing yellow.  Wait.  Glowing yellow?  “Enemies in the camp!”

As much as I didn’t like Cross, the man was solid in an ambush.  He was on his feet as fast as I was, sword in hand.  Murphy and Jess weren’t far behind, and the four of us were ready to face the line of zombies that came stumbling out of the trees.  A trio of robed figures–probably the magic users that had set off my bracelet–were behind them, along with two more of those super ghouls I had fought before.

“I guess they know we’re here.”  Murphy had his spear, and stepped in front of Jess.  “Let’s do this.”

“No.”  I held up a clawed hand, forming a dense orange fireball.  “They know enough about us now that it’s obvious there aren’t enough of them to be a serious threat.  This is meant to wear us down, so we aren’t a threat by the time we make it inside their base.  We aren’t going to fall for it.”

“Ha!  Not a serious threat, sorcerer?  I think you underestimate us.”  One of the robed figures held up his own hand, and started forming a throbbing ball of black necrotic energy that hurt my eyes to look at.  “Allow me to show you the error of your ways!”

“Oh, shut up, bitch.”  I dumped extra energy into the spell from my center, causing it to turn into blue flames laced with lighting.  I tossed it underhand like a softball pitcher, spreading my fingers so it would expand as it flew.  The drain on me was more than I wanted, but after everything this world had put me through I was getting used to it.

The fireball washed over the center of their line, lighting up the zombies like candlesticks.  One of the super ghouls tried to dive out of the way as it rolled farther backward, but was stopped by the lightning that shot out in front of the flames.  The robed man screamed as a bolt struck him, and his own spell devoured his arm whole.  His screams were cut short when he inhaled the blue flames, ending his life along with his two compatriots.  The only survivors were a few zombies on either end, and both super ghouls who were doing a good impression of crispy critters.

“What did I miss?”  Leedy came running out of the cabin, still strapping on his armor.  He looked around at the mess and unsheathed his sword.  “I guess we lost the element of surprise.”

Now that they had lost their controllers, the remaining zombies focused on Leedy’s voice and started stumbling in his direction.  That snapped everyone else into action, and they quickly finished off what I hadn’t killed.  I took a minute to manipulate the ball of energy inside me to increase my mana levels before going over to inspect the dead super ghouls, and the mystery men that had led them.

“Anything interesting?”  Jess had only cast a single spell–a well-aimed rock dart that had nailed a zombie in the temple and dropped it like a bad habit–so she was the first to join me.  “I didn’t recognize what those people were wearing.”

There wasn’t much left to look at.  I used my pocket knife to peel back a section of burnt and crumbling fabric, exposing charred skin underneath.  It was hard to tell with all of the damage from the fire and lightning, but I was pretty sure some of the discolorations he had were from intricate tribal tattoos.  “Any idea what kind of magic user or cult uses tattoos like these?”

Jess shook her head as she looked over my shoulder.  “No, not really.  At least, no group around here.  Guilds use uniforms and badges, not tattoos.”  She motioned over to the others.  “Maybe they’ll know something.”

Of course, they didn’t.  Leedy and Murphy only shook their heads after looking the three over.  Cross did a more thorough inspection, taking his time to go over what little evidence was left.  At the end, all he could do was shrug his shoulders in defeat.  “They could be from anywhere across the seas to the south, or maybe the far east.  Those regions use tattoos more often than ours.  An Eastern Marshal might know more, but I haven’t seen their match in my travels.”

Deciding to give up on them, I tried to find more of those black orbs in the super ghouls.  Surprisingly, the larger of the two didn’t have anything, but the smaller one had a pea-sized core that was rough and bumpy instead of smooth and pretty like the other one I had found.  To figure out why, I dug around a little and found the smaller super ghoul had a larger brain, with denser bones and muscles.  The ghoul must have been the stronger of the two, despite its smaller size.  It was a good reminder that size wasn’t everything.  For some people, anyway.  I cast my Identify spell on the bumpy orb, and the results were a surprise.

Item: Artificial Crude Monster Core

Type: Undead/Darkness Aspect

Grade: 1/5

Description: An artificially created core of condensed mana used to control rare subspecies of undead.  Can be used to empower enchantments.  Imperfect and crude aspects make it inefficient and unstable.

To me, the fact it was missing the warning about being from another reality was the biggest clue.  It had been made here, by someone trying to recreate the monster cores from elsewhere.  I hadn’t seen anything else like it before, and a feeling of dread settled into my stomach.  “This isn’t good.  We need to get to that cheese factory as fast as we can.”

Except that one time I had a quesadilla-related emergency, I never thought I’d have to say that out loud.