My head pulsed with pain as Jerseil carried me away from the bridge and into the shade of the trees. I lost sight of Juan as my friend bore me farther down the path.

  There was a loud crack behind me, like a whip only louder, followed by a whizzing, swishing sound that echoed several times off the chasm walls. It had followed the horrifying roar of some monstrous creature.

  The world bounced, and each jolt jammed Jerseil’s shoulder into my gut. I couldn’t see what was going on anymore, but I heard another twang that was as loud as a gunshot. There was a rising taste of bitter apple and vinegar rising, and I needed to empty my stomach again. “Put me down. I gotta throw up again,” I said.

  “You’re not going to try and run back, are you?” Jerseil asked suspiciously, slowing down.

  I had been planning to do just that, but the bile rose in my throat and I didn’t think I could. “Oh God, no! Hurk! I’m going to fucking puke on—erp—you if you don’t drop me!”

  “Alright, my friend! Hold on,” he said, putting me down quickly.

  The trees hid us while I emptied my stomach for the fourth time. I wiped my mouth and looked toward the bridge at something huge that was moving toward the diminutive Juan. “What the fuck is that thing?” I asked. There was a double snap as two ropes separated at once. Oh no, that’s what the sound was.

  “An ogre.” Harper whispered, stepping up next to me. The ugly creature was enormous, and when Juan’s arrows just bounced off the rough breastplate the ogre wore, it just laughed and continued its advance on him. More ropes snapped with each step of the creature. I did not attempt to get to my feet. What was the point when I felt weak and my stomach would empty itself of bile and acid if I moved too much? I can’t help him.

  Juan switched bows and started aiming at parts of the ogre not covered by its armor. It didn’t seem to do much, and the mercenaries were cheering as the laughing ogre continued to advance on the smaller archer. The rope bridge swayed and bounced with each of the monster’s steps.

  “Oh God, Juan. Please run away. Don’t try to fight that thing!” Harper uttered, her voice not quite breaking. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she sat down next to me.

  Juan had gathered up several of the arrows that had missed him and was filling up the unarmored swaths of the ogre’s skin. The last arrow appeared to stagger the ogre, but barely. It suddenly lunged at Juan with speed, belying its size, and causing the bridge to ripple. Even more strands of the bridge separated in the mad dash. Juan jumped straight up, boosted by the bouncing bridge, and narrowly avoided being grabbed. He shot an arrow into the ogre’s eye, causing it to cry out and flail about. My elation chilled as the ogre’s hand grazed the old Ranger, who flew backwards through the air before landing hard on his back. Blood sprayed from his mouth with the bone-breaking impact. He bounced twice before sliding to a stop.

  “Come on, Juan. Get up. You have to get up.” I mumbled. “Please don’t die like this.”

  The ogre approached the prone man carefully, but Juan didn’t move. From where we were watching, it was impossible to tell if he was even breathing.

  The ogre rushed forward to grab him, but before its massive hand grabbed him, the old Ranger was on his feet and scampering up the ogre’s arm. It pulled back in surprise, but the movement did not slow or dislodge the old man.

  In moments, Juan had reached its shoulder in a skidding stop and fired three arrows directly into the ogre’s ear. It roared in pain and stumbled sideways, off balance, and the bridge groaned beneath them. Dozens of ropes snapped all at once, sounding like a rapid fire of gunshots.

  The ogre slapped wildly at the old bowman, but Juan was no longer there, having leaped down nimbly to the bridge with a shout. For once, the mercenaries were silent, watching their champion being torn apart, piece by piece, by the renowned Hero of the Dew-Kissed Rose.

  I could only imagine what Juan had done to earn that title, or the adventures that led to it. Nor could I even picture what was going through the minds of the Nallothian mercenaries. In that moment, I no longer believed Juan was sacrificing himself. As he turned to face the ogre again, I saw him for what he was: a dangerous and competent hero, one deserving of the respect he had earned. Not even the Steel Falcon archers dared to fire on him with his back turned to them.

  Almost casually, Juan pulled another arrow from his inventory, drew it back to his ear, and released it. The arrow flew right into the back of the ogre’s right knee, and the massive beast bellowed in pain, its leg buckling.

  And with that, the bridge collapsed.

  A final, thunderous snap echoed up, and down the chasm as the central cable finally split after all the centuries. The untold number of smaller ropes woven and intertwined around it gave immediately as the uneven halves of the bridge pulled apart, dumping both the ogre and Juan into the chasm. The ogre’s weight pulled the side it and the old bowman were on down quickly, and ropes whipped past Juan as he fell.

  “NO!” Harper cried out in despair, and Jerseil put his arms around her. She clung to him and sobbed.

  “He can’t die like that. Juan is a badass. This must be a trick.” I pleaded, shocked. I just knelt there, all of my ailments forgotten, and watched the scene play out in horror. The ogre fell out of view fast, and I looked to see if Juan had grabbed a rope or an outcrop. But he was gone.

  “I’m so sorry, but you must pull yourself together, Harper. We need to go. There is nothing more we can do here,” said Jerseil, concern in his tender voice. “We have to follow the general’s orders and get Finn away from here.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Harper sobbed, nodding her head. “Right. Yes,” she said between sobs. “You’re right. It’s what he wanted. Finn?”

  I looked again at where the ogre and Juan fell, the dark mist blocking my view of the bottom. I looked across at the recovering mercenaries, and I felt the stirring of something in me that was unusual. Dark and cold. But the weakness, nausea, and cramps were gone. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here,” replied hoarsely.

  We followed a faint trail for a few hours before we came to a more established one. If it wasn’t for my high tracking skills, we wouldn’t have been able to follow it for as long as we did.

  Jerseil spotted a turnoff to a decent camp spot before I did, making me wonder if he had a similar skill. But we were all tired, and the sun was setting. No one was interested in fire or food, so we just settled down to sleep. But of course, I couldn’t. I lay there just thinking about what I saw there on the bridge.

  The unbalanced fight, not only between Juan and the remnants of the Steel Falcons, but between him and the ogre. Yet when everything seemed lost, that old son of a bitch turned the tables on all of them. If it wasn’t for the bridge that, through a feat of engineering and magic, had existed without fail for centuries until Jaun and the ogre fought.

  It was bullshit. Juan deserved better than to die that way.

  I could have understood if he had been overwhelmed, out of arrows, and swarmed by more enemies than he could kill with whatever he used up close. Long knives, I would guess. I really didn’t know. But it would have been a glorious death. If there were truly such a thing.

  Not this falling into a massive and deep crack. Nobody, not even Juan with his high level, could survive such a thing. For all I knew, the bottom was a forest of jagged stone spires, perfect for impaling anything that fell in, like the beginnings of a horrific shish kebab.

  I wish I had done something. Anything. If only… I was stronger. It wouldn’t do to focus on that too much. I could do only so much. The thoughts led me to check my stats. I had to plan out where I was going to put my points with upcoming levels.

  But then I saw the amount of experience energy I had gained. I hadn’t done much today until we were running and fighting, and the poisoning apparently took some time to kill the different enemies. As I stared at it in my mind’s eye, the experience energy ticked up slightly. One of the mercenaries had just died.

  Didn’t they have antidotes to poison? Or was it something else? The more I thought about it, the mercenaries likely had to fight off the spirits and their allies while trying to backtrack out of the ruined city. The 303rd under Rebecca were probably making their lives hell, too.

  I’d have to ask Harper in the morning if she knew how experience from kill assists worked. Did each of the people I damaged give me experience when they died? I was willing to bet there was a statute of limitations, and I’d only get it for a short period of time.

  And thus ended my diversionary thinking, because this is exactly the kind of thing I would have asked Juan. Fuck. He would want me to put points into stamina, endurance, and possibly dexterity. Might as well follow the old man’s lead.

  I numbly accepted the experience energy. Almost three levels. Well, that gave me six points to distribute. I put two into stamina, raising it to 20. Then another two into endurance, raising it to 22. This pushed my health up to 258 and my potion sensitivity to 21, raising it to level 4. Thank you, Jesus! Less vomiting!

  I put only one point into dexterity, bringing it up to 22 and raising my AC to 20. Just for giggles, I popped one point into charisma, raising it to 18. Maybe I would be just that much prettier. And a better singer. My intelligence and wisdom went up one per level as usual, so they became 34 and 32, respectively. Which raised my mana to 236. The 24-point difference was huge.

  I could have done so much more with that extra 24 mana. I had grown close to Juan. He was like that uncle who always looked out for you. And so much had happened in the past month and a half. It felt like I had known him for so much longer. It was like losing my dad all over again. No, not quite. I can do something about this. We can do something about Juan’s death. What remains of the Steel Falcon Company. Commander Xander. They need to pay for taking him from us. I. Will. Make. Them. Pay.

  Morning reared its ugly head, cold and damp. It hadn’t rained the last night that I was aware of. The brightness and wispiness around us were a clear sign of low clouds. It was awe-inspiring and magical, but my grief and anger ruined the moment.

  We didn’t talk as we got moving, munching on hard biscuits. I remembered the question I wanted to ask Harper, but I waited until we had walked for an hour.

  “Harper, can I ask you something?”

  “What?” she replied.

  “How long does one get experience from assisting in a kill? Like last night, I noticed I had experience, and I saw it tick up while I was looking at it,” I asked.

  Harper just looked at me and started laughing. “How the fuck should I know? I never asked that kind of question. Just go with it, dude. Fuck,” she replied.

  It was good to hear her laugh. And it helped her open up a little. She and Jerseil talked about little things as they walked together. I kept my eyes open for any signs of predators or monsters. Seeing nothing, I relaxed a bit.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with the mercenaries, but I get the feeling that we shouldn’t dawdle.” I said.

  Jerseil regarded the surrounding trees. “After everything that happened at the bridge, the best thing for them to do is regroup and redeploy. Then the question will be whether they can go around on horses and catch up with us,” he said, pondering the issue.

  “I bet they’ll try to get out of the ruins as soon as possible. That place is nasty. And after what Juan did—” Harper’s voice faltered, and she took a second before speaking slowly. “They were not in a suitable position to move quickly. But what really worries me is that it was not the entire company. Unless they lost more people than expected before they caught up at the bridge.”

  The thought was disturbing. If that wasn’t all of them, then where were they? For that matter, would they have any idea of where we were going? I stooped down to grab a long stick off the ground. It was an old pine branch, springy from the moisture. It would bend a bit, but would break without a loud noise. I slowly worked the bark off as we

  walked.

  “How soon do you think those assholes could get on the move?” I asked after a moment.

  “If they didn’t celebrate, and if they dealt with the overturned wagons and injured in a timely fashion, I’d say two, maybe three hours,” Jerseil paused, “Either way, it’s a good bet that they would have been attacked by those spirits and their minions.”

  Harper nodded. “I agree with you. But that was pretty astute for a Supply and Support sergeant,” Harper said admiringly.

  “I… well… I’ve been studying for the officer’s test,” the embarrassed Bard admitted. He rubbed his left arm and looked away.

  “That’s awesome, Jerseil,” Harper said as she smiled approvingly. She reached out and squeezed his arm; the intimate gesture was not lost upon him.

  I sped up a little so they could walk and talk together more privately.

  Nonetheless, we must forge ahead! There's still a quest to complete and a riddle to solve.

  With head held high and stomach empty, Finn has to carry on.

  Thanks for reading!