++Cannons are, of course, a useful tool of small-scale war, good for arming humans who would otherwise be unable to so much as scratch the more durable creatures of this world. When artillery fails, however, and even the Circumscribers fear to strike at something…send a Wizard.++

  Book 2: Chapter 18

  Reggie only realised now just how hard he’d kicked the hornet's nest that was Norvhan.

  He and Ludvich couldn’t estimate how many people they’d killed, but it probably didn’t matter. Three dead elves, that was the really important part. Three dead Circumscribers. Three symbols of elven authority and power, killed. The town was more than just panicked and enraged, they were terrified.

  That was just fine by Reggie, he reckoned with all the shit they’d put him through that they were due a little terror, but it also meant that everybody was quite alert. Fortunately, he had a way around that too.

  He’d not used his Royal Presence much lately, and so he was struck quite by surprise when he realised how powerful it had grown since he’d last gotten any real use out of it. Reggie blasted it out at full strength now, binding into the waves of impression a single striking thought; insignificance.

  Any sounds he made, any of his movements that caught a person’s vision, would be seen as nothing. Unworthy of consideration, easily ignored.

  It wasn’t perfect of course. Untransformed, Reggie’s Charisma was now sitting at a respectable 50. It was literally orders of magnitude beyond anything human, and the effects of his Royal Presence were proportionally strong. Even still, there were limits. Mere emotional impressions only had so much influence over a person who factually knew there was some horrible monster lurking in the woods with ill-intent for them.

  That Reggie was that horrible monster did nothing to him now, a reminder of how much people feared him was of no concern. People had always feared him, the only difference now was that he was powerful and they were weak. Better to be a nightmare than a victim, better any day.

  Which brought him to his current task of, essentially, kidnapping someone. Not just anyone, fortunately. Ludvich had pointed out that people were smarter than ants and would react to any sudden disappearances a lot faster. Worse, they’d set better traps. Even now, with his first attempt, Reggie couldn’t be sure of avoiding any ambushes. Ludvich had wanted to come with him and relented on the fact only when Reggie pointed out that he could run away faster by himself.

  Infinite stamina, Regeneration, all his accumulated Attribute points…Reggie had so many safety nets here. Compared to dealing with the deadliest creatures of the grimwood, Norvhan wasn’t a threat at all. Which was why he kept himself so focused on diligence. Getting relaxed would be what killed him, in all likelihood. Eternal life wasn’t anything to scoff at, but Reggie was pretty sure he knew why so few vampires managed to last more than a century or two past the date of their siring.

  So he cautiously leapt the wall. There weren’t as many sentries now, which was the real victory of his and Ludvich’s attack. Sure, their undead forces had been obliterated and their flight from the conflict had kept him from replenishing their ranks with more. It didn’t matter. He alone had already been most of the combat strength they’d brought to the last engagement, and with so many killed in it, Norvhan had to stretch their remaining men thin.

  Which meant more gaps in their sentries atop the wall. Reggie had an easy time slipping through one, then he was in.

  Hunting came next. That was the hard part, the bit where morals worked against pragmatism and Reggie had to dirty his soul with a new low.

  Easy. He didn’t feel so much as a twinge against his conscience as he stalked the streets, and didn’t take long to find just what he was looking for. A man. A soldier. Reggie loved soldiers, he’d always seen them from afar as a kid. Always understood them, in his youthful ignorance, to be the elves’ fist. A great weight to bear down atop anything that worked against their authority.

  In his youthful ignorance, he’d been completely right.

  Unfortunately for the soldier, elven authority was in short supply around Norvhan of late. He didn’t hear Reggie approach and didn’t have time to react as he cleared the last ten feet or so. A single kick saw both of the man’s legs knocked out from under him, so hard in fact that he spun like a damned bolas and smashed back-first into the dirt. He dented the ground, that’s how hard he hit, and any cries of alarm that might have left him were reduced to a sort of pained wheezing.

  Just fine by Reggie, he did enjoy the rare strokes of good fortune that drifted his way. Between this and the man stumbling through the streets alone for whatever reason, Reggie was almost worried the universe would collect its due.

  As something of a natural problem-solver, Reggie’s considerable intellect was well suited to the task of transporting his prisoner. He wondered how many great minds had gone forgotten in human history, stamped out by elven rule and elven remembrance. And of those minds, how many would have had the keen edge needed to think of his own solution— punching the man until he stopped moving and throwing him over the wall to land on its other side.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He kept hunting. Hunting, like he was after animals. Peelers or ants, even. Maybe a rabid bear. As a human, those things had been only marginally more hostile to Reggie’s life than the people of this town. Hunting.

  It sounded about right.

  Soldiers were easier to come by in Norvhan than magical creatures were in the grimwoods, fortunately. He got two more in quick succession, though patrolling and together rather than deliriously alone, incapacitated them just like the first and hauled them out past the wall. After that he decided to take his minor victory and run with it.

  Literally, as it happened. Reggie could just about accommodate all three bodies on his shoulders while maintaining a sprint, and the men were hurt enough that, though regaining consciousness fast, they couldn’t exactly do anything with it.

  And that was just fine for his plans.

  ***

  Oleri awoke to the sounds of horror and panic. The town was alight with activity as people ran around on clumsy human legs, screaming and demanding one thing or another. Ordinarily humans were placid things, she’d been taught as much and seen her teachings vindicated by long experience in the outside world. Fifty years of life had shown her how easily controlled the lesser species was, how naturally quiet and docile.

  Likewise, history had taught her how quickly that calm could be shattered. She was seeing that much demonstrated now, before her very eyes. Panicking humans were running around once she exited her shelter in the building at Norvhan’s centre. They were screaming and darting about with no clear destination in mind but an abundance of haste. Some were armed, and it was they who concerned her. Armed, panicked people had been the forerunner to a great many disasters.

  Order needed to be asserted, and fast. Oleri got to her work in doing so as she searched for her comrades.

  There were only two other Circumscribers in Norvhan now, however. In one fight their numbers had dropped forty percent, and the people were reminded of that every time they saw them all together. Every time they were greeted by three Circumscribers where they remembered five.

  Circumscribers weren’t indestructible, any Circumscriber knew that perfectly well themselves. Now the people of Norvhan knew it, too, and it was driving them mad. Oleri was almost pleased to see Arydaq levitating himself into the air.

  A Wizard, though not an especially powerful one, he’d been sent at the Warden’s insistence, which had told Oleri everything she’d needed to know about the depth of her master’s own panic. Arydaq was as big a cunt as any Wizard she’d ever met, any of the three, but she was pleased to see him now.

  If there was one thing more mythologised to the eyes of a primitive human than the Circumscribers, it was the Wizards; the Sorcerers, the wielders of magic. Oleri could practically feel the weight of control reassert itself over Norvhan as all eyes fell upon him.

  “Good people of Norvhan,” called Arydaq. “I understand your fears, I feel them myself.”

  That, Oleri knew, was a damned lie. Of everyone in the town, he was unique in being totally unafraid following the attack yesterday. Easily a dozen times between them, her and her remaining Circumscribers had been regaled with his account of it—where the monstrous vampire Reginald Smith had turned tail and fled at the sight of a single elven Wizard.

  The annoying part, of course, was that she wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong. No doubt the Wizard would be screwed by himself, but perhaps no more so than the rest of them would be screwed without him alone. Apparently some of this impression was shared by the townsfolk, because Arydaq enjoyed the attention of a man throwing lifelines out to everyone who heard him.

  “But this is no time for disorder,” the Wizard continued. “We must remain properly restrained and properly structured if we are to beat back this menace.”

  “That didn’t do us much good last time,” one of the soldiers snarled. He was a big man, and strong for a mere Worker. A career fighter who’d made his living skirting from one battlefield to another at the edges of contested elven territory. No doubt he’d killed more ìràwà than Oleri herself had. Maybe even more vampires.

  Which was probably why he had such a moronic lack of deference for a damned Wizard.

  “Eighteen of us died before you showed up in that last assault,” the soldier continued. “And now three of us have gone missing in the night!”

  Oleri felt like she’d just been punched in the gut, hearing that. She was well familiar with the vampiric habit of taking prisoners alive, and knew enough to be far more fearful of that than the ones who merely slaughtered them.

  Live prisoners meant that this Reginald Smith would have sources of fresh human blood. It meant, likewise, that he had three potential soldiers. Addictive Ichor was one of their more universal abilities, common even among Tier 1s and 2s. Not unheard of among Varkuun. If he didn’t have that, the worst-case, then he could simply turn them into lowly vampires themselves.

  Those three could help to catch more, then more still. Stories told of people clinging to their humanity after being turned, fighting their fellow undead to defend their true kind. Nice stories. Untrue. People wanted to live, and a newly-made undead rarely took long to convince it was better fighting for the creatures that didn’t want to burn it at the stake.

  Oleri took no time at all to decide that this was all very, very bad. And yet Arydaq kept flashing his smile with all the confidence in the world.

  “Rest assured,” he said to the soldier. “Your interests are being considered. I have no intention of allowing another attack on you or your men. You are, after all, people under the elves. Under our command, under our protection.” There were a few hisses among the soldiers, as, clearly, they found the man’s charm ineffective.

  Oleri watched as Arydaq weighed them, his face falling slightly. Then he continued speaking, his tone different now.

  “But we do not accept distrust or disobedience.” There was a dangerous edge in his voice, and the soldier who’d spoken found himself suddenly surrounded by fewer men. The man couldn’t have paled faster if he’d had his wrists opened to the bone.

  “I…meant nothing by it,” he began, then fell silent as Arydaq cut him off.

  “I imagine not. Your kind rarely has the cogniscence to mean anything when you act. That is why stark and lingering examples must be made.”

  Oleri looked away as the fire leapt out. It was, fortunately, fast. A Wizard’s flames burned hotter than most mundane fire, and this soldier found himself engulfed in an inferno intense enough that it glowed white at the edges. He barely had time to scream before screaming was past him.

  When the fire cleared, he fell to the ground as a charred husk.