Chapter 73: Chapter 73 – Limits of Strength

Villages this near to the city don’t generally have walls, the knights, guards, and hunters have kept the forests clear of any real monsters for so long that they haven’t needed it. They've relied on the strength of others, and now that protection is gone. There are a few roughly sawn logs thrust into the earth at the beginning of a wall that’s already been abandoned.

Still, it isn’t even the monsters that have gotten them, nor the bandits, though they’re likely a part of the story. A horde of desperate, hungry people have flooded the few homes and trampled the fields, pulling at spouts to chew on them trying to sate their desperate hunger.

I know, because I’ve felt it myself. Seeing them here, they each seem just as alone as I was, surrounded only by other animals desperate to take what scraps of food they can find. When all the people around you are just more competition it’s hard not to feel alone.

What can I do to fix this? If it was only bandits and monsters, then I could slay them, but it’s more than that.

When we first passed through this place on our way to the city, it was entirely unremarkable. Just one more village in a long string of others just like it. A little smaller than most others, but not particularly memorable.

Now, there’s nearly nothing left of it. The smooth, well-maintained streets are hidden by the masses of starving and tired strangers who’ve given up on running. The homes are partially burned down, but even so, they’re packed full of desperate faces that peer out from the windows.

“Most of the people here are too weak to keep marching on,” Lothar reports as we all stand close together, the rest of the company setting up camp around us, a few hundred metres from the village.

“The man I spoke with was chased from his home in the capital by a group of criminals—bandits, really—another was fleeing from a monster attack in the city streets. It’s the capital city, but… I think we should treat it as hostile territory until we hear that things have changed.”

“How is this possible?” Adeleya asks, shivering though it’s not yet cold. “This is the capital we’re talking about. I know that this conspiracy was bad, but destroying the capital city itself…”

“The nobles can hole up in their homes…” Lothar shrugs with barely a frown. “Likely as not, it’s not the capital that’s fallen. The knights should easily be able to deal with all this. No, it’s that they are letting the city fall into chaos.”

“Why?” Nadia asks, leaning in and meeting everyone’s eyes. “What do they get from this? What’s the point?”

“Arrogance,” Theo growls quietly, shaking his head. “Just because they can keep a secret, doesn’t mean that they’re competent. Whatever they have planned, it’s twisted by arrogance and idiocy. The same is probably true of whatever they want from the elvish ruins.

“For now, we focus on what’s in front of us. Lothar, the village?” Theo presses.

“The people who can’t keep going, stayed,” Lothar explains. “The weak, the old, the injured who can’t afford healing. The villagers have mostly been run from their homes. This place was struck by bandits two nights ago, and they had the run of the place until they, too, fled ahead of us. Could be they had scouts that saw us coming and decided to make a run for it.”

“So, no serious threats, and nothing we can do to help,” Theo nods slowly. “Keep on guard and be ready for anything. This place must look like a gourmet platter to hungry monsters.”

“What can we do to help?” I ask, hefting my sword on my shoulder and gazing into the forest, looking for something to fight. Looking for something I can do to make this situation better.

“Nothing,” Theo shakes his head, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Unless you can think up a way to sprout some crops from these fields… I suppose we could heal those that need healing, but it’ll wear you out, and we don’t know if you’ll need to fight tonight.”

“I’m training anyway,” I say, looking up at him. “Anna and I can train our healing magics and help these people.”

“Alright,” Theo nods after a moment’s thought, “I’ll speak with the march commander and we’ll get some guards ready. You’ll be set up next to the camp and they’ll have to come to you for help. No wandering away from camp tonight, and have Grey hidden as far from camp as you can. A few scouts have already glimpsed him and sent reports to the commander… we don’t want anyone looking too closely into him.”

“Okay,” I nod quickly, checking on Grey but finding no one near him. I don’t think I can trick a truly skilled scout or guard. Thankfully the æther channels I’m forcing into him let him stray pretty far from me now, but since we’re not on an æther well he has to walk really slowly to not use too much energy. The moment he fights for real while I’m not there to support him, he’ll become ash and I’ll lose my ability to speak with Namor.

I can’t build enough æther veins in him to make him properly survive without me, I just can’t weave them tightly enough as I am right now. I need to practice. I need to be better.

“Training?” Namor asks, grabbing my hand as the others scatter to their own tasks. My job is to take care of Namor, so I don’t have many other tasks to worry about.

“Training,” I agree, walking with her to the edge of camp where a little space is left cleared for those of us with time to spare on practice. Even in this situation, we need to keep ourselves strong and keep working to improve ourselves, those here ahead of us are sparing in pairs, moving through practice motions, or shooting arrows or magic at distant targets.

Namor takes up a long, blunted spear which is more than twice her height and a tall shield that’s large enough to hide behind. She struggles to move with both in hand, simply huddling down and whispering a quiet chant, summoning the same weight-altering magic that I’m practising alongside some strengthening magic. Of course, she uses a translated version of the chants, but she’s making it work. She has to.

I’m probably not going to be strong enough to protect her as she is, but if she can take a few hits and hit back, then maybe we’ll be strong enough together. The other mercenaries around us give us a wave and a smile which seems genuine.

“Do you girls need some help today?” Nadia says, approaching us. She’s the one that helped Namor choose her spear and shield, even if she was a little worried with the girl’s choices.

“Namor? Are there any questions you need to ask?”

She slowly shakes her head, adjusting her grip on her weapons and puffing out her chest to try and look a little stronger and more confident in herself. Her eyes shimmer with determination as she huffs and tries her chant again.

“Can you watch and see where she could improve?” I ask Nadia. “She’s still trying to get everything right, learning more things would just make it more difficult to remember all the other things you’ve taught her.”

“I can do that,” she nods confidently. “I’ll be doing my own training to the side, but I’ll be watching.”

I let the chant build up along my tongue, the sounds morphing my æther veins into shape and forming and unravelling through my flesh and bones. The ground feels more solid under my feet, as my arms become heavier.

Using body strengthening across my body, I move through the familiar motions of striking with my longsword.

It doesn’t drag me quite the same as my swing makes me sway to the side, and it doesn’t lift me up when I slam it into the ground, even when I’m jumping and trying to throw myself up and over as I usually would. It feels weird. It feels bad.

Still, there are times when I want to change directions and this would make it a little easier. It’s just that I would only want to use it for half a second before returning to normal, or even making my sword heavier instead of myself.

After a while, I use the chant again to flow magic into the sword to make it heavier while I return to normal. The stress of the magic isn’t as bad as I was expecting, but it’s still far from easy to maintain.

Everything is about balance and momentum, but if I can control where my weight rests, I can control all my movements that much better.

“Syr,” Nadia approaches after a short break, while Namor is still working on her chants while holding her weapons up. “You need to work on your feints.”

“I… I’m not good with feints,” I say, flinching as she pokes me right where it hurts. “Shouldn’t I just focus on the things I’m good at?”

“Syr, do you realize just how powerful this new magic is with your fighting style?” She asks. “You haven’t ever been able to reliably beat Theo in a sparring match, have you?”

I shake my head. I could stand toe to toe with a knight, but Theo, who isn’t even at that power level, can still beat me nearly every time. Sometimes I can use brute force to overwhelm him but it’s not easy.

“Watching you training just now, I can see you one day standing as his equal. All you’ll need is that weight magic, and some practice with feints.”

She continues, probably reading my confusion from my expression.

“When you swing your sword, depending on where you place your weight, you’ll either swing yourself back or swing at the enemy with terrible force. Right now, anyone that has fought you before can read exactly what you’re doing from how you place your feet and how you move, but if you could use feints with your magic, you could confuse your enemy. You could make them think you’re striking when you’re retreating, creating an opening, or the opposite, strike at them when they think you’re running.

“It won’t help all that much against monsters, but against people, this one difference takes you from being an amateur relying on tricks to win, into a proper warrior.”

“I’ll… okay,” I nod, forcefully suppressing my frown. If I can become stronger, then I’ll overcome this weakness.

Namor is finally done with her magic chants, both weight and body strengthening, which she uses so that she can hold her spear and shield in place.

“Syr, I’m ready!” She cries, lifting her spear into the circular gap in the side of her shield and peering at me through a small slit near the top of the metal slab. I’ll get her a thicker version when she’s stronger.

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I put my weapons aside and pick up a practice sword, to face her down. Nadia looks between us, giving me a nod to prove that she’s ready to watch over us.

“You can’t get me this time!” Namor shouts, her eyes flicking over me as she watches for any sign of movement. Her spear is pointed at me and even as I walk to the right she pivots to keep it firmly on me. She’s getting better every day, but she’s a long way off of being able to protect herself properly.

She thrusts her spear, but I sidestep it easily and charge in close to her. She swings the spear at me, but I easily deflect it with my wooden sword. Sliding around her shield I slide in close, shouldering it aside as I try to hit her with the pommel of her sword.

She smacks my attack aside with surprising force before swiping at me with her claws.

She’s not horribly fast, and I could easily step back out of her reach, but I instead raise my arm to catch her attack. Her claws sink into my forearm, easily cutting through my unfocused strengthening magic and spraying blood between us.

Namor stops, blinking between me and her bloody hand. I step in with a smile and wrap my arms around her, lifting her up in a big hug. She’s fluffy and the second-most huggable person I’ve ever met.

“That was awesome!” I shout, swinging her around before setting her down on the ground. “Did you plan that out, or was it instinct?”

“Nadia told me to get a smaller weapon for up close,” Namor mutters wiping the blood from her paws. “I did good?”

“Very good,” I nod quickly. “Be careful not to use claws when training with others-”

“Sorry, I know it’s bad!” She bursts, shrinking down before me as Nadia steps closer.

“No, it wasn’t bad,” I correct her, leaning in to hug her again, this time I’m kneeling in the mud to get to her height. “You need to be ready to fight with your everything. If you hesitate, it could get you hurt. It could get people around you hurt. So, I’m really, really happy that you are taking this seriously, okay?”

Namor nods slowly, bearing her teeth in a small, nervous smile.

“We’re going after the bad people, aren’t we?” She asks. “I’ll have to fight them. I’ll have to punish them.”

“The bad people are scary and strong. Very strong.” I shake my head slowly. “They’re still trying to hurt us, so we’re going to run away.”

“But-!” Namor shouts, but she shudders, her expression twisting as she comes to a sudden stop. She’s huffing out long breaths.

“You want to punish them?” I ask and she nods quickly, letting out a long growl and baring her teeth.

“You have to be bigger and stronger then, don’t you?” I say, lifting my swords. “Can you keep training?”

“Can Papa…” She looks up at me before shaking her head firmly and gripping her weapons tighter. “Please, help me get stronger.”

“If I can step in,” Nadia says, hesitantly adjusting Namor’s grip on her spear and shield. I translate her advice as she helps the smaller girl work on her technique.

Training doesn’t last for too much longer. We’re both pushing ourselves hard, and I’m finding that there’s only so much I can gain from swinging my sword around over and over again. I need to think out new movements, how I could use my weight magic to change things up and what I can do to make my feints work better.

Anna approaches us when we’re done, pulling me over to the healing tent set up with more guards than we’ll probably need. Namor follows closely, smiling and waving at a few familiar mercenaries as we pass by. She’s more friendly with them than I am, and her tail is flapping back and forth excitedly.

There are already people sitting around waiting for the free healing, there’s a tense air in the room that I can’t fully understand right away. Looking at them, I slowly come to understand the simple animalistic emotions rushing through them. Terror and desperation blended in their expressions.

I try not to look at the people. They’re skinny and weak, even the ones we heal barely look any healthier as they stumble outside. Instead, I focus on what I can learn from all this.

Observing Anna at work I slowly get a little better at handling my own healing magics, the way she guides the magic without letting it leak is just so difficult to imitate so I don’t really try. I use her as inspiration more than anything.

When the initial surge of injured people leave, I take out a set of scales and weights that I got from a man a few days ago. It was a bit difficult to haggle, but the man insisted on trading for food and when I offered him a stray rabbit that Grey caught, he was happier than when looking at my coins.

“What are you doing?” Anna asks, watching me set out the weights and chant my spell.

“Yesterday, I could use this spell to make the weight half again as heavy. I want to see…” I let my words trail off as I even out the scales, the affected weight sitting on one side equal to two of the same size on the other. “Double.”

“Congratulations,” Anna says, her eyes opening wide.

“I have 5 dedicated weight æther veins in me today, yesterday I had only three.”

“That’s fast!” Anna exclaims and I nod slowly, looking away from her for a moment.

“I… after my shift on watch last night, I did my thing. I pushed myself to the limit and just channelled as much weight magic as I could. It works. It makes me stronger,” I meet her eyes. “If I knew this, I could have done this every night. I could have been so much stronger.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Anna asks. “You pass out screaming, don’t you? If we’re attacked and you’re like that…”

I nod slowly, shrinking down into my seat.

“I know, it was stupid. But it works,” I insist. “If I do this every night, I could have visible æther veins in less than a year, Anna. From nothing to someone as powerful as a knight in less than a year!”

“You’d have to do that every night,” Anna looks at me worriedly as a new patient walks in, stopping our conversation for now.

Burning away in that darkness has only gotten more stomach-turning knowing that there are other things floating in that place with me, not least some sort of dragon that I can’t quite remember. The green flames still flicker in the back of my mind occasionally, but the rest of it makes no sense to me.

Namor sits nearby working on her magics, every now and again she’ll ask for her Papa, but she’s smart enough to know that it’s dangerous to go out there today. She buries her worry, and I try to calm her down with distractions when I can but I know that it’s not enough.

The sun slowly crawls across the sky, and the night promises another fight, so I relax my training a little to sit down and work on all my numbers instead. Planning out how I might train without passing out for hours on end.

“Your math seems accurate,” my new magic teacher says, lowering his glasses as he hands the sheet back to me. “Are you sure that you want to keep such a heavy training schedule?”

“It’s how you get stronger,” I shrug. “I can do most of my training while doing other things, too. It helps me control the magic better that way.”

“Distracted casting is good training in itself,” he nods slowly. “How are you progressing with the chants?”

“Do you have any more to teach me?” I ask. “I’ve memorized them all, but I haven’t figured out how to do chant-less casting yet.”

“Rather than chants, perhaps it would be better to help you understand the magic itself. As you likely know from reading a skillbook, there are various quirks with most magics that you can only fully understand and utilise as you better understand the magic itself and reach closer towards mastery. I can help you to understand the steps you will need to take, and what you can expect to gain from this magic, if you are ready?”

I nod quickly, ready to copy down the most important notes from the lesson. Namor sits beside me, listening attentively.

She’ll grow up strong enough that she won’t have to lose anyone else. I’ll make sure of it.

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