BT - Book 1 - Chapter 102

“We’ve been over this Jo.”  Micah shook his head.  “You’d be helpful on the raid, but I’m going to need the rest of the party for the final encounter.  There’s no way in hell they’re going to let me just challenge the Khan without proving myself, and right now I just don’t have the spare mana to fight his lieutenants.  That’s going to fall on the rest of you.”

“But I should be there,” Jo hissed, pacing back and forth with short jerky motions.  “The Kingdom probably sent someone senior.  Maybe even a knight.  You’re going to need my help handling this.”

“I might.”  Micah looked past her toward where Westmarch sat like an ugly scar on the horizon, jutting up from the rolling plain.  “But we’re out of time and we need the rest of the party.  We spent longer than we should crafting consumables.  I think you hunted down every monster that was over fifty in a league or two while I gave up sleep to finish the enchantments.”

“You saw the Durgh pickets.”  Micah grimaced.  “We only made it past them because of the Cloak of Tracelessness.  I still don’t know why we had to use the last of dad’s best silk for that.  I was thinking of making something like the Binding Wraps that I gave to Trevor and instead make an Amulet of Hidden Movements or something.”

“And this is why you can’t be trusted on your own,” Jo replied with a snort, a half smile playing itself across her face as she shook her head helplessly.  “You said yourself that the silk was the highest tier crafting material we had available.  Do you really think a cracked brass amulet that we scavenged from the Durgh ruins is really going to be able to hold an enchantment strong enough to fool a knight?”

“It might,” Micah hedged, trying not to recall the overwhelming auras of power that had rippled off of the senior knights at the Royal Academy.  Technically he was right.  He could replicate a portion of Jo’s silent movement blessing on a cheaper object.  It would just shatter physically in seconds under the stress that a high level opponent’s senses would put on it.

Jo just glared at him meaningfully.

“I followed your advice in the end.”  He shuffled his feet uncomfortably.  “It took us all of the temporal energy in the Alpha cave lurkers, but it’s almost as good as your blessing.”

“It doesn’t have anywhere near my wit or charm,” Jo replied with a smirk before sighing.  “You are right about getting the rest of the party.  With the speed the Durgh are moving we only have a day or two left before they reach Westmarch.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  Micah did his best to sound confident.  “I’ll slip in, find out who is leading the invasion, and slip back out.  Nothing to worry about.”

“Promise me that you won’t turn this into some sort of huge, apocalyptic magical battle,” Jo replied sternly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll try my hardest,” Micah said with a chuckle.  “As much as I like putting on a show, I’ll try to keep things stealthy.”

“And no ‘sudden bouts of inspiration’ during a spell and modifying it.”  Jo waggled a finger in his face.  “It might have worked out once or twice, but that’s exactly how you end up  getting blown into meat chunks.  You can’t save the world if you’re sashimi.”

Jo turned and began walking toward where the rest of the party was encamped at the lake.

“Or melting your body and forging a connection with a plane of existence that wants to devour the hells themselves.”  Micah shuddered.

She stopped and turned back to Micah, squinting slightly against the afternoon light.

“About that.”  Jo shook her head, hair blowing in the evening wind.  “I know you’ve talked about what happened in your past timeline, but when you touched my soul, I actually felt flashes of what you went through.  Are you sure you’re all right Micah?”

“Everything’s fine,” he replied, forcing his face into a brave smile.

“I’m not so sure.”  She stood with the son at her back, hair fluttering.  “I don’t think I really understood how much you have on your shoulders.  You’ve been bottling up so much and only really trusting yourself.  Sure in the last couple of months you’ve opened up to Trevor, Drekt and I a bit, but I don’t think I understood how much at the end of the day you saw success and failure riding on your own shoulders.  It’s not healthy Micah.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, heart racing.  She was right, but now wasn’t the time to think about it.  “We can talk about it later.  I’m about to sneak into the bedroom of someone at least ten levels higher than me.  I really can’t afford the distractions.”

“Fine.”  She turned away from him, her voice disgruntled.  “It’s just that with you, there’s never a later.  Other than when we first met and were training, it’s always been a matter of you falling from one disaster to another.  Think of it like a wound Micah.  You might not have to treat it today, but if you just leave it, it will fester and grow.”

Then she walked away.

Micah watched her go.  Maybe she was right.  Every one of his plans involved loading himself with stress past his breaking point and simply trying to push through.  He’d already made a handful of mistakes that could have been fatal to his plan with a slightly different role of the dice.

If Elaine Clancy hadn’t just assumed he wouldn’t have a countermeasure for her taking control of the Luoca, this run would already be over.  Similarly, if the Luoca had attacked him at any point before the ritual that summoned the sturgeon startled it into action, it wouldn’t have even been a contest.  The bug monster would simply have ripped him limb from limb before melting his corpse from existence.

The common thread was overconfidence.  Overconfidence got him into encounters that were out of his league, and overconfidence on the part of his opponent allowed him to win.  Not a terribly comforting thought for a man watching his only support walk away

He shook his head, turning back to Westmarch.  Magelights flared across the walls as the night watch began to assume their posts, preparing for the coming dark.  They had to know that the Durgh were on their way.  The Kingdom had enough forward scouts out and about that at least one or two would have seen the massive army massing itself for

Their vigilance wouldn’t make his job any easier, but Micah had a plan of sorts.   It wasn’t a terribly complex plan, but flying as high as he could above the keep with Flight and letting himself drop down from above the clouds, only using the spell to adjust his flight slightly to ensure that he landed on the tower’s battlements, slowing his speed to a reasonable level at the last second.

Either there would be no alarm and he could sneak into the building unnoticed, or the fortress’ magical defenses would alert those inside that they were being attacked by a flying foe.  In all likelihood that would mean that an elite would come to meet him, hopefully the person who had ordered the attack.

The Sun finally set, and Micah exhaled, expelling the tension that had been building up inside of him for the last hour or so.  He muttered the words to Flight, feeling his body lighten as the spell took hold.

Micah soared into the air, spear clutched in his hands and cape fluttering behind him as the clearing disappeared below.  The air rushed past him, growing steadily colder.  He knew from his time reading through the Royal Knight’s library, that he needed to stop the moment he felt lightheaded.  Apparently there was some sort of poorly understood mana field that would knock casters out if they tried to go too high.

He broke through the wispy clouds into the night sky.  Mursa's moon hung in the sky, a beautiful silver pearl amidst a sea of diamond stars.  Micah brought his spear up, tapping it to his chest twice in a salute before pointing it once at the icy beauty of Ankros’ night sky.  He nodded at the moon.

Once he’d padded his odds with a little divine flattery, Micah soared toward Westmarch, operating mostly off of instinct and memory.  Ten minutes later he stopped, ignoring the clinging frost of the clouds to dip through them and take in the landscape below

Westmarch was nearby, not directly under him but close enough that a course correction would put him where he needed to be.  Micah bobbed in and out of the clouds for a minute, staying out of sight as best he could while periodically checking his location.

Then, he let himself drop.  The night air whistled past him, his cape flapping up into the air and practically strangling him.

He stood still, hands gripping his spear as he stared down at the rapidly approaching roof of the tower.  At the last second, he willed himself to slow.

Micah felt his body lurch, but he resisted the magic trying to press him into a crouch.  Gently, his toes touched down on the wooden floor of the tower’s roof, stone battlements lit with magelights surrounding him.

For the moment, no one was there, but Micah pulled his new cloak tight about himself and activated its enchantments before running toward the wooden hatch that marked the ladder away from the roof.  As he ran, Micah couldn’t help but smile as his steps made no sound.  Even the wood planks of the floor refused to creak or vibrate under his feet.

“I’m sure it’s just a bird or something”  Micah positioned himself just behind the trap door, spear at the ready as he strained his ears to hear the muffled voice coming from beneath him.  “Martin doesn’t want to be disturbed so I have to deal with it.”

He frowned.  There was something familiar about the voice.  He couldn’t quite place who the man was, but Micah could swear that he’d heard him before.  A different voice responded, too distant to hear.

“Don’t worry about it,” the first man replied.  “Durgh can’t fly, and any winged monster in these parts isn’t a proper threat.  It’s probably a waste of time, but I can handle whatever’s up there.”

Below him, Micah heard the tromping of booted feet on ladder rungs.  He readied his spear, waiting until the noises came closer to activate both of its enchantments.

A fraction of a second in the future, the blurry outline of the hatch raised itself and a man’s head popped out.

“Brenden Thrakos?” Micah’s mouth moved silently, a frown creasing his brow, his body freezing in shock.

Micah’s moment of surprise almost cost him.  The trapdoor pushed upward.  Brendan’s head pushed itself above floor level.  The squire locked eyes with him, widening noticeably.

“Who the fuck are-” Micah’s spear ended the conversation.  It sprung from his hand in a blur, almost too fast for him to see, punching through Brenden’s head and burying itself in the wood of the roof.

It was almost anti-climatic.  Between Micah’s extremely high body attribute, the spear’s humming vibration, and the element of surprise, his foe didn’t put up a fight.  One moment, he stood on the ladder gawking at Micah, and the next, the light was fading from his blood-spattered eyes.

Thrakos, is former tormenter from his time with the Golden Drakes and the Royal Knights hung limply, his feet twitching twice as the nerves fired randomly.

Micah ripped the weapon from the wood timbers of the tower’s roof, letting Brenden drop to the floor below.  A second later he landed on top of the man’s still body

About ten paces away, another man stood gaping at Micah, a torch in one hand and a mace at his belt.  Before he could react, Micah cast air knife twice, one blade of wind hitting him in each thigh.

He began to collapse, mouth opening to scream only for Micah to Flash Step in front of him.  The spear slammed through the falling warrior’s throat, blood covered head punching through the back of his neck.

The man screamed, a silent gurgle, as he spasmed and went still on Micah’s spear.

Gently, Micah placed the corpse on the ground and withdrew his weapon before looking back at Brenden’s body.  He’d mentioned Martin, which could only mean his old supervisor, Martin Osswain.

Some of the gloom lifted from Micah’s face, replaced by a malicious grin.  The raid had just become significantly more satisfying.