++In extremis, when neither Witchfinder nor Circumscriber can offer aid, it has been known for ordinary people, mere Workers without combat training, to slay a vampire. Numbers can compensate for weakness, but only with courage. Only with the acceptance that some, usually many, will die.++

  Chapter 28

  Reggie was in the grimwoods before he really knew what was happening, leaping over Norvhan’s wall in one running bound and not even slowing as he sprinted off. There was a wind in his ears from his own sprint, and branches snapped against him like thin strings trying to halt a warhorse.

  He didn’t feel any of it, not really. There was a lot going through Reggie’s mind, too much for something as trivial as impacts on skin to register. One minute. One minute and everything had gone from good to bad, all he’d worked for was fucked up.

  They’re going to come for Ludvich. The knowledge hit harder than anything Reggie was sprinting through now, would’ve hit harder than a fucking tree trunk if he’d run right into one.

  Why hadn’t he left sooner? Why hadn’t he hurried? Why hadn’t he done a million other things, a million smarter things? Regret was sunlight in Reggie’s stomach, searing the flesh and leaving his fury to slowly mount. He picked up speed, bounding along at such a pace that his claws were tearing chunks from tree bark where they accidentally snagged it in passing.

  Reggie didn’t know where he was running to until he’d already arrived, didn’t even know how he’d remembered its location. The castle was jutting up ahead of him like a knife stabbed deep into the earth, spires stretching skywards, coiling mists about them, disappearing from sight. He wondered if Ajoke was still there. Didn’t much care, he needed shelter before the day broke and this was all he knew that might provide it without being within a heavily patrolled area.

  Only moments inside, Reggie heard movement and turned to see Ajoke poised beside the opening he’d stepped through. He hadn’t seen her. Her enchanted weapon was raised and ready to hit him, and he knew that had she not stayed her hand his life would’ve ended already.

  “Something happened,” she guessed. It probably wasn’t a hard shot to make all things considered, Reggie had given her one hell of a hint by sprinting the whole way in his monstrous shape.

  He was reluctant to transform back, to make himself vulnerable by stripping away his heightened physical power, but the alternative was leaving himself entirely unable to talk. Reggie made himself human—or rather, humanoid—and answered with a voice that sounded more snarl than speech even to him.

  “The Witchfinders figured out what I am.”

  Ajoke didn’t look nearly as shaken up by that as he’d have expected, she just nodded as if the information were being tucked away in some corner of her mind without emotion or opinion.

  “How?” she asked.

  Reggie told her, feeling a few stabs of embarrassment as revisiting it made him realise how obvious a set of mistakes he’d made.

  “That was an obvious set of mistakes you made,” Ajoke pointed out redundantly. Reggie resisted the initial, bitter rage he felt at that and just nodded. She wasn’t wrong, so he figured he didn’t have much right to go complaining as if she was. “What next?” Ajoke added.

  Reggie had to think about that, somehow he’d not been able to bring himself to ask that question while sprinting his way back to the castle. What next indeed?

  “I can’t go back to Norvhan safely,” he sighed. His thoughts turned, naturally, back to Ludvich. “But I need to. I have a friend there, someone they’ll turn on now they know the secret about me.”

  “Then you can do it by yourself,” Ajoke told him frankly. “We’re not friends and I’m not risking my skin on your suicide mission.”

  The bluntness was actually something Reggie appreciated, even if it did piss him off a bit. He liked that Ajoke would just remind him, word for word, where they stood. What he liked a bit less was that she wasn’t helping him save his friend but hey, nobody was perfect.

  He got to thinking. There was a way, he knew, that he could resolve this, some combination of words that would bring her into his side. Reggie stumbled onto it sooner than he might have expected.

  “What if I help you take out Eryqai?”

  Ajoke pretended not to be interested in that suggestion, but Reggie had enough experience picking apart faces that she wasn’t fooling him.

  “What makes you think that’s enough incentive for me to throw my life away alongside you?”

  “You already told me you wanted my help killing him, and you already told me you think we have a chance if it’s the two of us at once. I’m stronger now than when you said that, and I can get stronger still. Strong enough that a few panicked townsfolk and Witchfinders—one of which is already injured—won’t offset the difference. This is your chance to gain my assistance, and if we manage to save Ludvich you’ll have his too..”

  Ajoke did her best to hide it, but Reggie could tell he was winning her over. He could see that by how quietly annoyed she suddenly seemed.

  “I have an enchanted sword able to mortally wound him, and he doesn’t know I’m gunning for him. What do I gain from your help that I don’t gain from using you as a distraction to assassinate him myself?”

  “Assurance,” he replied at once. “You must know there’s decent to high chances of your assassination going tits-up. Anything could happen. Maybe he moves at the last second and your maiming blow just scratches him, maybe he has guards closer than you expected—more likely now, given my discovery—maybe something neither of us can predict happens. Bad luck can kill you very easily with a move like that.” Reggie knew that much himself, he’d pulled off plenty of ambushes already.

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

  But Ajoke didn’t look convinced, not yet at least. “And how will you help prevent any of that bad luck?”

  “I won’t, but I will make it easier to weather. If ten trained guards rush in to try and shoot you, you’ll have a much easier time of it with me there ripping them apart. And shit, if I survive that encounter, then I can throw my weight in and help you take out the elf. You against Eryqai? Not great odds. Both of us at once though is getting better, eh? You said it yourself that you think we could pull that off.”

  He was winning her over, which both surprised Reggie and pleased him very much. The old silver tongue hadn’t rusted away just yet it seemed. Did silver rust? Ajoke was speaking again before he got to ponder that more.

  “What do you think will happen if you kill an elf Circumscriber ruling over a whole town?” she asked him. “To you. What kind of attention do you think that will bring down on you, do you know?”

  Reggie had to admit he didn’t. Ajoke continued.

  “They’ll never stop hunting you. Never.”

  “And what difference does that make?” Reggie asked her. “They’ll never stop hunting me anyway. They want to destroy me because of what I am, I might as well do some destroying back at them and give them a reason to.”

  Ajoke met his eye, but nodded after a moment. If Reggie didn’t know any better he’d have said there was a note of respect in her stare now.

  “Alright then. I won’t turn down help if you’re certain about giving it. The attack was going to come tonight…”

  Reggie listened and made mental notes as she went over her plans, which he was, if anything, surprised to find were much simpler than he’d have expected.

  She would jump the wall at a time when Eryqai would be in his mansion, burst in through a window and attack him. She’d rely on speed and unexpected knowledge of the area to befuddle the elf’s guards and give her the necessary opening. Reggie didn’t rate its odds of succeeding as very good.

  Without him, at least.

  “So you’ll want me to, what, jump in with you?”

  She seemed to think about it for a moment. “Do the Witchfinders have any way of tracking you? I don’t want you luring them over to the point of my ambush.”

  It was a valid concern, though all of Eqyqai’s guards would have heightened their Attributes to some extent, Reggie doubted any had reached the level of even a middling Witchfinder.

  “They’d be here already if they could track me like that,” he thought aloud, “so let’s say no. I can rush in alongside you.”

  Ajoke gave that some thought too. She had a weird look on her face as she did, half caught between anger and concern. “Fine,” she said at last, “let’s do it.”

  The finality in that hit them both and they stood there, letting it wash over them for a few moments. Then they moved out to get to business.

  “You should take the chance to do whatever it is that’s let you grow so much more powerful so quickly,” Ajoke suggested.

  Reggie hadn’t eaten too recently, and would’ve fed to abate his hunger anyway. He took her advice and swept the forest for a suitable meal as he went..

  It was actually easier, not harder, to feed now. Reggie figured the Witchfinders wouldn’t be risking a patrol with one of their number hurt and the Circumscriber panicking, probably they were focused on Ludvich for the time being. That still meant his hunting was time sensitive given that he didn’t want the old man to die, but it at least let him do it without being shot at.

  And he got lucky, a woodlouse made itself known to him early into the search.

  This time Reggie was able to employ a new technique in killing it. Transformed into his second form, with Strength in the low 30s, he managed to actually grab it just under the head and force the entire front of its bod up off the ground. Even transformed, the woodlouse probably weighed ten or twenty times what he did and the several tons of weight definitely made themselves known to his arm and back. But he didn’t drop it, and with the insect’s stomach exposed Reggie was able to claw at the thinner carapace of its belly with his free hand. Blood spurted free and its struggles quickly weakened. Then he fed.

  +1 Strength

  Progress to next Tier, 41/50

  Name: Reginald Smith

  Age: 21

  Race: Blood Courtier [Inheritor Race, Tier 2]

  Class: None

  Attributes:

  (S)Strength 35(+12)

  (P)Speed 34(+12)

  (P)Celerity 34(+12)

  (S)Toughness 35(+12)

  (P)Charisma 10(-12)

  Abilities:

  Blood Magic I

  Form of the Beast II

  Royal Presence I

  Traits:

  Enhanced Senses I

  Regeneration I

  Addictive Ichor

  Reggie moved fast enough that he wasn’t that far behind Ajoke, despite his brief delay to hunt and regather his strength. He met her at a spot just two miles from Norvhan, agreed upon ahead of time, and was brimming with power by the time he did.When he got there, she looked to have started trembling as the stress of her approaching mission gnawed away at her.

  Well, that wasn’t surprising. If anything Reggie felt slightly reassured to see that she felt nervousness just like any other human. Humans he could rely on, to behave erratically and dangerously, sure, but predictably. Humans he knew.

  This human did as they’d both agreed, vaulting high and landing hard within the walls. Reggie and her made their way ten paces deeper into Norvhan before a sight halted them both at once.

  Reggie hadn’t seen it before, he knew that. He was sure of it. And still he felt like he had. Like there was some memory buried deep in the back of his mind, surrounded by all the primal instincts a human brain grew around, trying to claw its way back up and remind him of it. He trembled as his gaze washed over the wooden stake, the great log pile beneath it, the heavy shackles…

  …And the bound, former Witchfinder being forced towards it all.

  “Ludvich,” he croaked.

  “Don’t get distracted,” Ajoke hissed, “we’re here to—” Reggie didn’t hear the rest, he was already running.

  Apparently, the people of Norvhan were alert today. Despite the night and dark, the mists and great deal of noise they were already producing themselves, a great many heads whipped around to focus on Reggie as he sprinted right for them. It probably helped that he’d transformed fully within two strides and was now smashing a head-sized crater into the dirt with every step he took.

  Panic started instantly as people screamed, cried out, scrambled away. All of them got in one another’s paths and tangled everything up in a great big knot of disorganised bodies, while Reggie just kept shooting forwards towards it all.

  He must’ve made one hell of a sight, enough to terrify so many so quickly. But not enough to leave them all paralyzed. Reggie realised his mistake only when some men started surging forwards, guns raised up and eyes narrowed as muskets were levelled for him. All of them were big guns, firing fat and heavy bullets made to punch through the thick steel of a battlefield cuirass.

  Reggie was moving too fast in one direction to even attempt a dodge now, and he doubted very much he’d have had a solid chance of avoiding gunfire even if he could try. The muskets lit up as flints smacked down onto metal, spat out sparks, dribbled them onto priming, caught the flame, threw it farther in to ignite the main charges.

  Sound raced the score of musketballs coming his way, and sound was handily beaten. The hot lead cut apart the ground around Reggie with near-misses and smashed into his body on hits. He felt his limbs jerking from the transfer of energy, skin parting, muscle pulped and torn, bones shivering against the dozen or so impacts as pain flared up all over him. Reggie’s charge turned into a fall, and only momentum kept his body sliding forwards another ten paces to stop just shy of his attackers.