WW Chapter 56: Towards Brayton (Patreon)

The journey out of the inner city was quick, and, as they walked to the northern gate, a part of Ezra dreaded encountering the guards, and especially a certain detective. However, he hadn’t done anything wrong, was in the process of leaving, and, more than all that, was accompanied by a Pseudo-Knight directly under the employ of the Duke of Brayton. The image of Rebecca having to bow her head before Mabel was a precious enough memory already. If the arrogant detective somehow decided it was wise to challenge a representative of the Duke, Ezra was looking forward to the end result of that stupidity even more. The idea of the wretch having to bow down a second time was enough to push away all that anxiety.

When they got to the security checkpoint, however, nobody stood in their way. One of the guards, who Ezra thought he recognized as the guy whose knee he hit, shot him a dirty look, but that was all. The two people walked up to the gate, and, as soon as Chloe demanded that they be let out, they complied without complaint.

Once through, Ezra couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know they were going to do as you asked?”

“There are little things that guards at checkpoints look for,” Chloe answered. “Especially anything resembling a coat of arms. One of the first things that these guards will be drilled on before they’re allowed to work a checkpoint like this is every crest of every noble, especially ruling nobles, within a hundred kilometers or so. That, combined with the fact that I came in through this gate this morning, means that they were prepared for me.”

Ezra nodded his understanding, and though he still had plenty of questions to ask her, he was willing to give her the time that she had demanded before he asked them again. Instead of asking any of those questions, he simply asked, “Since we’re going in this direction, can we just go past a bar I know? If possible, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to get some food there, and I want to let the Madam know that Tilly won’t be back today.”

Not for the first time, Chloe gestured for Ezra to take the lead, and he did so, walking through the streets and alleys towards The New Dragon’s Toenail. Before, when he walked through the slums wearing his uniform, people had avoided him, though not as if he was a plague victim. Now, though, with his armor on and his spear in hand, nobody wanted to get within two meters of the pair, and they strode easily through the streets to their destination.

When they finally arrived, Liam was at the door, a cane in his hands as he let a couple people in. It was almost three hours past midday, so some of the earliest people looking for a drink and dinner were making their way in. As they got closer, Liam smiled and gestured at something in the door. Adam poked his head out at the other guard’s summons, and Ezra felt his eyebrows climb as he saw the armor his friend was wearing.

“Welcome home,” Adam said. “I’m sorry I missed you this morning, but I’m surprised to see you now. Are you just on your way out?”

“Exactly,” Ezra noted. “If you could see if maybe there’s something travelable that we could get in the next minute, I’d appreciate it. Of course, we’d pay.”

Chloe looked around, poking her head into the building and seeing what was there as Adam jogged back to the bar counter, where he started speaking with the Madam.

“It’s a nice place,” Chloe said simply. “It’s late enough that I doubt we’ll get to our first rest stop before dark. I’m happy to pay for the food, if it means we get something fresh instead of trail rations.”

“I’m sure we can get at least dinner sorted,” Ezra agreed. “A whole lot better that way than hard biscuits.”

Only a handful of seconds later, the Madam brought over a package about fifteen centimeters tall and twice as wide, wrapped in a linen cloth. As she handed it over, she said, “Because of the packaging, it will be more expensive. One large silver.”

Ezra’s eyebrows climbed high, but Chloe smiled and said, “That’s a really good price! I’ll make sure I drop by next time I happen to be in Villy. You know, as long as the food is good.”

“If that is all you require, then I suppose I will see you again,” the Madam answered. Then, her face softened and she looked at Ezra. “Am I, then, to assume that Tilly will remain in the inner city for now?”

“Yeah. The person I introduced her to said that she’s got potential and will be taking her on, free of charge. At least, for now. If it ends up costing something eventually, I can help out with that.”

“If you wish, you can attempt to explain that to Tilly yourself. However, many people find value in providing their own path forward, and I suspect you know Tilly’s attitude regarding that.”

Ezra couldn’t help but nod in agreement to that, stepping forward and repeating, “Thank you. For trusting me, for helping me.”

“Of course. Keep in touch, please. Be safe.”

Ezra smiled as he took the Madam into a quick hug as Chloe handed over the payment, and they took their meal and walked out the door. Waving and saying goodbye to the people he knew and cared about, Ezra felt a certain emptiness swell up inside of him. After all, he was leaving. However, he was also excited for the path that lay ahead.

Once they got out of the slums, Chloe looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “You’ve only recently become an Adept, so you don’t know exactly how a journey in a small group like this usually goes. What we’re going to do is go at what is basically a steady jog for you while drawing on your reserves in your inner world. We’re going to continue with that pace for as long as you can manage until you get down to about 10% of your reserves left. At that point, we’ll slow down to a march, and depending on how quickly you can recover while moving and meditating, we will repeat that until we get to our destination. Since you only recently ascended, I recognize that you won’t have some bountiful reserves to fall back on, so don’t exhaust yourself trying to go for an extra couple of minutes. It will slow us down much more than understanding what your limits are. Clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ezra nodded. “Why do you use fancy words like ‘bountiful’ sometimes?”

“That’s the first question you want to ask on this journey?” Chloe laughed, rolling her shoulders. “I’ll tell you, it just makes me laugh. Most people who are in your position weren’t born in the slums. I happen to be the fifth child and third daughter of a minor noble in Brayton. When I made it abundantly clear that I didn’t want to be married off and instead wanted to follow after my second brother’s steps in training, my parents allowed me to do so. Now, here I am, stronger than he is, and just about as politically connected as my older, married sisters.”

Ezra blinked a couple times, trying to understand that, but before he could ask anything else, Chloe said, “Let’s go!”

She started jogging, just the way that she had in the city after she picked him up from the stockade, and Ezra tried to apply the same lesson that he learned from looking at her going ahead. He ran, the wind in the air, listening to his inner world as he asked it to move around his legs and hurry him along. It was a strange feeling, and he knew he wasn’t doing it quite right. Each movement was awkward, his legs twisting through the air as he ran forward. Instead of the wind pushing him to greater speeds, it seemed to push harder against him, and he stopped trying that as he caught up with Chloe.

It wasn’t difficult, as months of aerobic exercise every day, combined with the natural inclination of his inner world’s affinity leading him to speed. In fact, it was an exercise in self-control to keep to her speed, but he already knew not to sprint and exhaust himself faster.

His breathing came in a constant rhythm, his steps reaching further and landing lighter than they could have without the aura. Ezra calmed himself as he drew steadily on his inner world. At his side, Chloe’s movements were steady, her feet landing heavily, but the ground cushioning the blows as she kept up with him without any difficulty.

Strangely, the greatest difficulty was keeping a steady pace. The wind wanted to surge and to rush, to go right and to go left. Much of his self-control was caught up in maintaining the flow of his aura directly forward, following the road that Chloe had directed them to walk on.

“You’ve done a whole lot more than just try to see how you can hit things with your aura, haven’t you?” Chloe asked, her breathing steady.

“Yeah,” Ezra answered, his own breath much less unbothered. “It seems pretty stupid to get the ability to use wind and then just hit people with it. Even though it does hit people really good.”

“That’s true enough,” Chloe laughed. “I’ve heard that there are some more conceptual affinities at the higher tiers that don’t do as good at physically hitting, but as far as I know, there isn’t a single type of aura that doesn’t do at least a little bit of hitting people good.”

“So how did the fight against the Blades go?” Ezra asked, unable to wait any longer.

“Short answer, they’re well hidden, and I couldn’t find two of who you said were the three most important members of the gang,” Chloe reported, her words more a growl than words. “Knifefingers, he didn’t show up anywhere. That guy with the aura that you said was an Adept, I could find him, however. As soon as he saw what I was capable of, he immediately surrendered and told me he was done. ‘I’m not getting paid enough for this,’ were his exact words. He left his weapons behind and got out of there. He ran to the south, out of the city, and, going off of what I could see of his nature, he won’t be coming back.

“I didn’t find anybody who seemed to be a priest. However, I did clear out four different hideouts, each one with a couple dozen people in there. I’m not in the habit of mass murder, and I’m not about to start that, but the three weak Adepts that I did come across found themselves with a broken arm.

“So, I can’t say that I crippled the entire organization, but I did get rid of their chief enforcer and struck the fear of the gods into them.”

“They came around trying to kidnap and kill the people I call family—” Ezra began.

“They haven’t done anything to me, so don’t appeal to my emotions,” Chloe cut him off, “and do you honestly think that everybody who’s ever thrown in with the gang deserves to have me come in there and break their skulls? Because I could do that. I could just go in there and kill every single one of them like a baby chick in the nest. They wouldn’t be able to do anything to me. Do you want me to do that? Is that what you wanted me to do when you asked me to see if I could sort out the issue with the Blades, to wade through a lake of blood of my own making, blood made from the murder of dozens who haven’t ever done you wrong? Whose only crime was to try to keep themselves alive in an environment that you know is inhospitable to life?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on you murdering everybody,” Ezra said hotly, “but I asked you to ruin a gang, not to scare a couple of the thugs who don’t matter, like you said.”

“I said I would give you three hours of honest effort to rip the gang out by the roots. I don’t enjoy torturing and interrogating people. I did that for you,” Chloe snapped back. “I was looking for the roots, and, somehow, they knew I was coming. Maybe they were able to give me enough false information to keep me behind them, maybe this priest actually has some real power. I don’t know, but I went around attacking a bunch of people who were helpless before me because you asked me to.”

Ezra continued on his path, scowling and unable to look her in the face. Sure, she took care of a couple people, but she could have done so much more. Even so, her words about taking out his revenge and “defending” his friends and family with overwhelming force against others who didn’t deserve it settled into his chest. That consideration of other people was something that he hadn’t been able to afford before, since he could only take care of who and what he could. Now, though, he was beginning to have the power to look beyond himself. Before, he’d been told that getting stronger meant seeing what he could do and choosing wisely. Was Chloe doing that, or was she just manipulating him, like so many people in power were always doing?

The journey devolved into an uncomfortable silence before long, one that neither Ezra nor Chloe made an effort to break.

***

When it grew close to nightfall, Chloe called for a break to eat, and then, while they ate, she sighed. 

“Look, I get how frustrated you are. It’s shitty to have to worry about your family being safe. You thought that asking me for help could fix the problem entirely, and I did too. Turns out, the people you were asking about were sneaky and stronger than expected. I did what I could and I did what I promised, even if it wasn’t as much as you expected. Or as much as I did, for that matter.”

Ezra nodded, having taken a few hours to sort himself out as well. “You’re right. And you were right too. I haven’t been out of the slums for so long to forget how bad it can be. I don’t like the Blades, but they don’t all deserve to get killed.

“When I’m strong enough, though,” he continued, squaring his shoulders, “I’ll go back and spend the time I need to to find Knifefingers himself. Because he’s earned his place on my shit list.”

“Fine by me,” Chloe shrugged. “Now finish up your food so we can get to the inn. I have some things for you to practice, once we’re done for the day.”