++Many underestimate the intelligence of mana-infused beasts, and many die before being able to realise their mistake. Apparently physical size is not all that increases with the touch of magic. Such creatures have been known to discriminate in choice of prey based on numbers, apparent size, observed physical abilities or even condition and injury. One cannot afford to show them weakness if one does not wish to invite attack.++

  Chapter 21

  The problem with planning the murder of a Circumscriber was that they were very, very hard to kill. In fact, it was pretty much their whole job description to stop people from killing them, or at least other elves. That meant that Reggie’s current experience, consisting of killing animals via ambush, was not hugely applicable.

  It also didn’t change his plans much, despite the scope of the issues now posed. Reggie still needed power, he still needed it as soon as possible. He was still dealing with the risk of exposure and all the other complications he’d been juggling in his head. Still running, he had to admit, on luck more than anything else.

  Reggie didn’t bother debating with himself about heading back into the grimwoods, he knew already how that argument would end. As soon as the sun was down he disappeared into the treeline, gun in hand, eyes keen, whole body trembling as he waited to move far enough away from town that it was safe to transform.

  Or, well. Not safe. His incident the other night was evidence of that much. Reggie resolved to keep a sharper ear out for any gun-toting Witchfinders he might run into. Big place, the grimwoods, but evidently not big enough to be guaranteeably free from stumbling into problems like that.

  He kept a sharper everything else out for more woodlice, but it was getting hard to find them. Apparently he’d either killed or scared off most of the ones within convenient reach of Norvhan, which left Reggie with a good deal of floundering around in the dark. That was fine. He was patient, and had recently acquired the power to see in the dark.

  What he had not acquired, not yet, was an immunity to all the things that lived in the dark. Just because Reggie didn’t see demons as much anymore, didn’t mean he didn’t have to keep an eye out. There were more than a few nasties that would end his dreams of a brighter future the moment he ran into them. He’d do well to keep reminding himself that.

  Mists broke around him, coiling in his wake. Even with a long-gun awkwardly jerking around on one shoulder, Reggie was sprinting fast enough that he doubted there was an animal in the world able to keep ahead of him without mana in its body. Not so comforting surrounded by creatures with more mana than him, of course, but he was working on that. It got bad enough after a few moments that Reggie found himself wondering what else he could try to hunt beside woodlice. As usual, Sycily was helpful there.

  Juvenile wolf spiders will be reaching Tier 2 or more, once they have grown sufficiently.

  The thought of fighting those sent a shiver down his dead spine. Which wouldn’t stop Reggie from doing it, if he had to. Just made him really hope he stumbled onto another option.

  [You should fight an adult wolf-spider.]

  “That is basically the same as telling me to just kill myself.”

  [You saw through that? Gosh, you’re so smart Reggie!]

  Talking to Dvo was fucking weird, as usual, and Reggie did his best not to be too thrown off by the fact. He needed his wits about him if he didn’t want to have his dick ripped off after all. Those wits didn’t turn up any imminent attacks, which was nice, but they also didn’t turn up any prey. Reggie felt his irritation mounting as he moved.

  Blood. He’d entered the forest hungry already, hungrier after a few more hours without eating, and he’d really been banking on stumbling onto something he could use to slake that thirst. So far, it wasn’t happening. Dangerous. Transformed as he was, he was burning through the vampiric ichor in his body faster than was ideal. How much longer would his strength last?

  A few hours, maybe, he estimated. And that last hour would be far from the peak of his abilities to boot. Reggie hurried up a little as he realised it.

  It wasn’t the sound of a monster that stopped him, in the end. Something else. Something worse. Shrill, sort of long and grating. It hit him right in his instincts, cutting through all the meat and bone of his body to knife into some deep part of himself that Reggie knew every human plopped out already equipped with. It was the sound of a person screaming, a sound his instincts had all been built around recognising.

  Except those instincts were a bit weird now, making him hungry rather than upset at the noise of fear and agony. Reggie started for its source.

  For completely legitimate reasons.

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  Trees whipped by him like he was a hurricane wind, and Reggie closed the distance fast. How far was that sound audible from? Hard to tell, but he didn’t think it was more than half a mile away at most. He took less than a minute to reach it, exploding through the underbrush as he did, and as he finally reached the source Reggie’s every thought was overtaken by a single, crushing realization.

  He had made quite a horrible mistake.

  The adult wolf spider didn’t let him dwell on it before it started bounding for him, a great mess of stabbing legs and dripping fangs and eyes that glinted with an unspoken promise of violence. Here was a killing thing, a killing thing made better than any musket Reggie’d had the pleasure of firing. And it was heading right for him.

  From fifty paces away, though, so he had time. Time to draw his weapon, to drop to a knee, to fire a shot and watch it bounce off the spider’s carapaced face like he’d tried shooting a boulder. It came at him with the speed of a falling guillotine blade and ten times the finality.

  Reggie scarpered like the man under that blade, because he fucking was.

  Running outright wasn’t a winning strategy here. The wolf spider was—Reggie checked with a glance—well over double his speed, it’d be on him in seconds. How did he get away then?

  He didn’t, so forgot that and focused on what he could do. Climb a tree? Maybe, but even if the spider couldn’t climb it’d just knock the fucking thing over. Hide under a boulder? Again, those damned legs looked like they’d smash through stone fast enough. Digging was suicide, diving down into deep water seemed promising until Reggie realised he’d not seen any he could use across this whole section of the grimwood. His options eventually came down to only one.

  Reggie didn’t like it, but he liked the idea of being bowled over and eaten alive even less. He added a tilt to his run and started circling around, now hearing the spider’s footsteps as they grew closer to his spine every moment. Maybe two seconds before it was on him, and he was shooting right for the source of the human-sounding scream. If there was a person there, strong enough to survive enough time to scream when fighting the wolf spider, then he could only hope they were still able to fight. If so, he might have an ally powerful enough to let him live through this.

  Unlive. Whatever.

  Thirty paces from the source of the scream, then twenty-five. Then the wolf spider caught him. One clawed leg shot out and smashed into Reggie like someone had swung a tree trunk into him. Gravity forgot about him, and by the time it had remembered screaming vampires were meant to come down eventually Reggie had already cleared another twenty paces of woodland.

  He took long enough to gather his bearings that the spider was already on him by the time he did, glaring down with those dripping fangs and empty eyes, bringing its head towards him in a finishing—a cannonball hit it in the fucking side.

  A small cannonball, mind. Reggie didn’t exactly get a good look at it mid-flight but he knew it couldn’t have been that big by how little debris went shooting off in all directions. The spider was hurt, regardless, stumbling away with its carapace cracked and yellowish blood leaching out through the tiny fractures. Reggie wasted no time in scrambling up to his feet and hefting his replacement melee weapon.

  Sledgehammer, Tier 0. Mundane.

  Modifiers; Strength +10, Speed -6.

  Clumsy as far as weapons went, Reggie would’ve preferred the pointy iron tip of his pickaxe, but all the same sheer mass made its benefits known now as the metal head slammed down onto the spider’s skull hard enough to burst most creature’s craniums like rotten fruit.

  The wolf spider’s head was made of tougher stuff, and Reggie didn’t even hear the carapace crack. What he did hear was a maddened scream and the sound of rapid footsteps, then something smashed into the spider and, miraculously, drove it a full pace to one side. The something in question was presumably who Reggie had heard to be brought over here, a woman. Short, kind of athletic and…weird. Her skin was darker than any Reggie had ever seen. For a second he thought she was just crusted with dirt or tar, then he realised it was the actual colour of her flesh.

  He’d heard of people like that, but dredging the memories up was somewhat difficult in the middle of a fight for his life. Reggie opted instead to focus on swinging his hammer again and, satisfyingly, managed to send it cracking down on almost the exact same spot as before. This time there was a bit of damage to the carapace, a few hairline fractures at least.

  Then the wolf spider stabbed him, a leg shooting out and running itself right through Reggie’s chest. He didn’t even feel it, at first. A moment passed, the pain hit him like a speeding carriage as an agonized spasm ran through him.

  Reggie hit the same spot with the hammer, watched the wolf spider stagger away as it ripped the leg from him. It seemed surprised. Well that was fair enough, it’d probably mistaken him for a human. Reggie closed, swung again. This time the spider ducked back and avoided the blow, but it shrieked as something carved along its side, something swung by the woman Reggie had ended up finding his new ally in. She was wielding a sword, a long, top-heavy one with an edge that shimmered and pulsated in his eyes. It cut like nothing he’d ever seen, marking the wolf spider’s flank and leaving a drizzle of blood to trail after it as it backed away from the human and the vampire.

  Reggie half-wanted to hurry after it, and half to stay put. The thought of tangling in melee again was no thought at all. What if it stabbed his head? Reggie didn’t know if he’d survive complete brain destruction, and he was doubtful considering what a piddly little pistol ball had done when Ludvich put one in him. This was a secondary death he was staring down, a permanent death.

  If he stood here paralyzed by indecision, the spider might move on the attack again. Was it better to wait for that or meet it on his own terms? Reggie never got to settle that concern. The spider turned and sprinted off into the woodlands after another few moments of staring at him, moving faster than anything Reggie had ever seen despite its injury.

  He spent a few moments staring at where it had run off to, making sure that it wasn’t about to come charging back. Then he grinned with the manic sort of energy that came from thinking you were about to die and being proven wrong.

  “We make a good—” his words to the strange woman were interrupted as she dropped down onto her back. It was only then that Reggie saw what a mess of wounds her body was. After that, everything became automatic as Reggie rushed to her side, trying to tend her.

  He almost missed the sound of the wolf spider’s footsteps coming closer again.