By the time the sword and its wielder walked back out of the shallow gnoll den to find his waiting friends, he was covered in blood. In the mihey’d been separated, he’d killed everything with a pulse in the cramped, disgusting pd returo find only fresh air and judging eyes.
The sughter he’d just enacted wasn’t in vengeance for hurting him or for killing his horse, though. It wasn’t even because they’d tried to kill Vara. The bde khat now because the rampage had given it enough power to cim Enhanced e 1, letting it sense and even influes wielder’s emotions, though his scious thoughts remained out of reabsp;
That had cost it 150 Life Force, and removed some of the rust on its wire wound pommel. Still, despite that, thanks to all the pups that its wielder had sughtered, it still had enough left over to spend another 60 LIfe For Increase Reserves 4.
That upgrade had increased its pool’s maximum Life Ford deepehe carved runes on its bde ever so slightly, even as it had reduced its current Life Force totals to almost nothing.
Life Force: 31/500
In this case, it was the Enhanced e with its wielder that had paid for the sed upgrade. The man had fought like a demon, without any urging at all, through the guards, the old mutts who were too old to raid that had been behind them, and the vicious bitches that had followed. However, for whatever reason, when Ren had seen the you members of the pack, his rage had faltered.
That dey only sted until the bde’s hunger and bloodlust had been enough to tip the scales and make Ren see what the right thing to do was. A heart was a liability, but the man still had ohe bde did not, though, and it had been satisfied by its ability to influence him. Still, it was disappoio find that when it tried to do the same thing when his friends appeared, nothing happened.
Kill them all, they’re only slowing you down! It raged. Save one horse for yourself and go as fast as you to…
Its words trailed off when its wielder sheathed it and made it clear he had absolutely no iion of taking any more lives just now. It was a disappointing moment, sidering how much it had paid for such a marginal advantage and how much more it would apparently have to pay to increase its hold on him even further. The level of Increase e had revealed itself, but it was 300 Life Force, which was a signifit iment, especially in this empty pce with no one else to kill.
Increase e 2: you feel it? The gap between souls lessens and yrip on your wielder tightens. At this level, it extends past emotions, allowing some level of insight and influeo their very thoughts.
There will be time, it assured itself. It has only been a few days, and I’ve already e this far. In a few weeks or months, he, or whoever repces him, will be nothing more than a puppet to exercise my will.
-1 Life Force
Ren’s friends were all surprised and overjoyed to see that he didn’t have a scrat him. Well, everyone except for Elliah. He was so pale that he was barely holding on to his reigns.
It was clear that everyone knew how badly he was hurt, but it was equally clear that they could do nothing for him as he slowly died of the internal bleeding that had slowed but not ceased, and the iion that was starting to bloom within the man like a dark stain.
“I was so worried,” Vara said as she hopped down from her horse and moved to hug him. It was only when she saw just how drenched in gore he was that she held back. “I thought for sure they’d shot you almost as badly as your horse, but—”
For just a moment, the bde could feel he was about to fess that he’d been hurt but that his sword had healed him. It couldn’t let that happen and ruthlessly suppressed that urge.
“N-no,” Ren lied, “Just the horse, thankfully. I fought my way free and took them out, though. These things will never—”
“I’ll say!” Mardem said, pointing to his first battlefield. “You chopped them into pieces so small we might as well sell them at market as stew meat!”
“I did what I had to do,” Ren said dismissively, looking at his blood-spattered body. “Now I o find a stream or something to wash off.”
-1 Life Force
It turned out that a stream wasn’t too far, and after a half-hour walk, he was stripped to the waist and spshing himself . The sword spent that time w if its wielder realized all it would take to heal his friend would be to let him hold it for a minute and draw its lingering power out.
It assumed that he had, since Ren had figured out he could heal himself with it in the same way. So, the fact that he wasn’t volunteering that information to anyone was a good sign. It didn’t know whether that secrecy was driven by paranoia or indifference, but the bde did the best it could to ihat with its urgent feelings of possessiveness and jealousy.
If you let someone else hold me, even for a moment, they will steal my power for themselves! It raged. Even though the words did not reach the man, it was certain that the feelings did.
-1 Life Force
Ren might not uand where the sudden strains of anger and paranoia were ing from, but he was quieter after that, and he looked to his friends with more suspi, especially Mardem. The bde could feel the rift growiween those two in almost real-time and it was almost enough to make it salivate. Ohe trust was gohe bloodshed could start.
-1 Life Force-1 Life Force
The bde’s energy sted long after its wielder was , and the four of them spent the rest of the day riding toward the town of Tollin’s Cross, which was still more than a day away. Though it did not stay active long enough to see the pce, it wasn’t expeg much. Apparently, it was just a speck of a vilge at a crossroads between two of the rger trade routes in the region.
The location itself was unimportant. It was just the pce where two important roads happeo cross in the middle of the pins, and create just enough traffic to give life to erbsp;
Their pn was a simple one, and they stayed up for hours that night w and fretting over it while Vara stroked her dying brother’s hair as he id his head in her p, and the other boys promised that they’d do whatever it took to see him well again. They were sure that there would be work for meraries, at least in such a far-flung pbsp;
-1 Life Force
“Just a job or two would be enough to pay for more food and the best medies!” Mardem boasted, trying to reassure her.
“But what if it isn’t?” she asked pintively. “He ’t die from savihat’s just too cruel!”
“I’d do it again,” Elliah said softly, squeezing her hand.
He was trying to act strong, but the bde could see the weakness growing inside him. Disease was taking hold, and the dying boy’s Life Force was getting so thin and diffuse it had lost almost all i in him. It just wanted him to finally die so that the rest of them could keep moving that much faster.
They were all hungry now. The bde had always been hungry, of course, but now the four of them felt some measure of its pain there. Ren agreed with his friends, but never once mentiohat his sword could heal most of those hurts right now.
-1 Life Force-1 Life Force-1 Life Force
It was an amusing dilemma for the bde, and it ehe rising levels of guilt it could feel ing from its wielder right up until its Life Force ran out, and the world became dark and cold once more.
-1 Life Force
. . .
+10 Life Force
When the bde returo life, it was not in the pany of a caravan as it expected or even anywhere near something that might be called a town. It was in the dark, downwind of a campfire, where Ren was sughtering one of their remaining horses.
+6 Life Force
The group had not reached their destination. They had only reached a new level of desperation.
+8 Life Force+11 Life Force
It took one blow to cleave its head ly from its neck, but after that, they carved it up to get as much meat as possible. Even so, the bde only got 34 Life Force from the exercise. Life Force wasn’t the point, though. It was all about the meat. They were sughtering a med horse to keep going.
Wherever their destination is, it must have been further than they expected, the bde thought silently to itself.
“Why are we doing this so far from the fire?” Marden asked Ren as he tried not to get himself sthered in too much blood.
-1 Life Force
“Because we don’t want whatever es to sna our leftovers to ambush us in our sleep,” Ren answered coldly, obviously not happy about this either.
“But if we’d walked the horse to—” Marden started to say.
“If we’d walked the horse all the way to Tollin, then Elliah would be cold and gray before we ever got there, and you know it,” Ren sighed. “We have to keep moving. He needs medie. You know that Vara will never five herself if he dies likes this. He needs meat to keep up his strength and the attention of a healer as quickly as possible.”
-1 Life Force-1 Life Force
They talked more after that, but the versation ceased to be of io the bde well before they returo the firelight with the meat they’d harvest. The boys stayed up long enough to skewer and roast the meat until it was tough as leather. It was edible, though, and that was more than they had before.
Their trip was sloing after that with two of them on each of the remaining horses, but the bde stayed awake long enough to watch them reach the town at least. There, they sold one of their two remaining horses to a shady-looking man who probably cheated them.
It wasn’t as if they had a choi the matter, though. They needed enough silver to pay for a healer and got scarcely more than that.
Unfortunately, despite the less than generous payment, there was little the old man could do. Given how much time had passed and how severe the wound had grown, the gash caused by a filthy knife had festered into an open wound that had already begun to putrify.
-1 Life Force
“You’ll need magic. Herbs and fire only do so much. This will take more,” he told them with a sad shake of his head, “And fic you’ll need gold, not silver, I’m afraid.”
That was hat hit them all pretty hard. Vara had promised the healer anything if only he could heal her brother, but the old man had shaken his head sadly. “I did not mean to suggest that I had such talents at my disposal, miss. You may yet find a priest or a mage in one of the caravans that pass through, but I do not think that many of them would take even a body as young and pretty as yours for payment for such a thing.”
Ren very nearly murdered the man for the ent. Even suggesting the woman that he loved was a whore was enough to make him draw his bde, but she held him back, and even the sword’s relentless desire for bloodshed was not enough to make him sider cutting through Vara to get to the man that had offended him.
The four of them rented a single cramped room to save money and ate horse meat instead of the stew and freshly baked bread they could smell ing up from downstairs while they talked in circles once more. The discussion was tense, but the bde ran out of Life Force before they reached anything approag a clusion.
All they o do was make peace with the boy’s death and move on with their lives, but none of them was willing to do that, not even its wielder. The sword found this darkly amusing, and wondered how this little melodrama would py out.
