PreCursive

  “YOU ’T DO THIS TO ME!” The pntation owner screamed at me from his bound position in the dirt. He was an older man, strangely ht in parison to most of the Veredenese I had met. His formerly well-kept grey hair was wild and hanging over his reddened face as he struggled against the ropes I’d bound him with.

  And I was currently in the process of freeing all of the Sculpted he had bound with sve bonds.

  How the Herztalian upper css had vihemselves it was okay to ehe Sculpted, when the institution itself was outwed, I would never know.

  That was nobility for you, I guess.

  I only spared the sver a single disied gnce before I got back tently, I lowered my Bond Breaker down onto the exposed back of the female stone Sculpted that was anxiously waiting for her turn. Luckily, this one wasn't one of the near zombies that sometimes occurred with Sculpted sves, like I had seen with Pete ba Marrowmist. All around me were over a dozen different Sculpted of all different positions, watg with still disbelieving eyes as I broke the unbreakable.

  They were, all of them, free now. This was the st Sculpted I had to free at this particur location.

  I exerted the ti amount of pressure at the point of tact, and the sharpened prongs of the Breaker pierced the Sculpted’s rocky exterior. She shuddered from the sensation, and those shudders only increased when I depressed the activation rune on my creation.

  Below me on her back, her sve brand shone briefly with Aetherial light, and then vanished forever. When it was gone, I stepped back from the Sculpted woman as she rose up from her kneeling position in the dirt of the farm unsteadily. Her fellow former sves rushed to support her.

  I gnced over them briefly, gave the distracted and celebratory Sculpted a nod of aowledgment, and turo leave.

  I had other pntations to get to, after all.

  However, I was stopped by the sound of a voice. I normally wouldn’t care about what they had to say, but the particur words halted me in my tracks.

  “Y-you….damned ELF!” The sver sobbed to himself, catg the attention of the now freed Sculpted. “YOU’VE RUINED ME! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEED MY FAMILY NOW!?”

  I spared said family a brief gnce, as I felt irritation well up inside of me. They were watg the proceedings with frightened eyes from the doorway of the farmhouse that rested on this pntation. An older teenage boy was standing protectively in front of his mother and two twin younger sisters, all of them well dressed, and all of them obviously…well-fed, let’s say.

  I don’t even know why. It’s not like I had threatehem.

  Oh, fuck it. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know.

  It was because of my growiation, here oskirts of Elderwyck. I had been doing this for four days now, and that was more than enough time for word to spread about the ‘Elf’ that was freeing sves in the area. And naturally, because I was supposedly an ‘Elf’, I was doing it by sughtering all of the masters and doing unspeakable things to their corpses.

  I resehe implication. I hadn’t killed a single person in my personal campaign against the sve owners of the Duchy of Elderwyck. Maybe a bit hing up, but no life’s blood had been spilled.

  Honoka had been irritatingly prest about how my new features would be received by the popuce. It was doubly irksome because nobody had actually seen said ears during my campaign. I had never let down my hood or removed my mask at any of the near dozen locations I’d hit over the st few days. You could only really see the impression of longer ears under said hood, and apparently that was enough for the Herztalians.

  I was finding that cultural fear of the Elvish retty ong the popuce.

  To my dismay, that had eveeo the Sculpted.

  Out of the er of my eye, I saw many of the former sves I had just freed suddenly bee wary at the words of their ‘master’.

  I’d only been like this for a few days, and I was already sick of it.

  I turned away from the sobbing sver in the dirt without a word and prepared to leave. He didn’t deserve my aowledgment. As I walked away into the nearby forest, however, more words reached me from the st Sculpted I had free.

  “Thank you…” I heard the stone woman say in a near whisper.

  I smiled slightly, not pausing in my stride. I normally wouldn’t have heard that, but my new ears were good for something at least. They seemed to have boosted my Perception to a degree.

  They let me know that at least one of them was still grateful.

  I disappeared into the forest to pn my move.

  ……………………………..

  A few hours ter, night had fallen upon the Duchy of Elderwyck. And I…

  Was holed up in front of a small tent, looted from a pntation I had raided.

  I holy didn’t feel bad about it at all. Rhazal’s assault oy of Elderwyck itself hadn’t sted long enough to spread across the tryside to a huge degree, and thus it had been…mostly spared the depredations of the Revenants.

  With my activities, it hadn’t been hard at all to keep myself supplied and 'housed', so to speak.

  I poked at the campfire I had set up in the familiar clearing I had chosen, sending a shower of sparks up into the sky to join the rising smoke. As they did so, I gnced around where I had chosen to hole up while I waited for the Army of the Uprising to reach the region.

  I’d ended up where it had all began, here in Elderwyck. The meeting point that Baldrid Liora had arranged for themselves before infiltration. The barn that the Gnoll woman had fought off an assault from SED forces.

  Well, former barn.

  Baldric had bur down, after all.

  There wasn’t much left of the structure, at this point. His deliberate arson had reduced the battle site to little more than a few charred standing timbers, poking out of a se of scorched grass ah. It had been a few weeks by now, so there was already starting to be indications of new growth ich. Of the previous battle Liora had fought here, there were no more traces.

  Which had beeire point, I supposed.

  And…I was brooding again.

  Damnit.

  It’s not like I was alone here, either. I had more than enough responsibilities at my ne to keep me occupied.

  Speaking of…

  I heaved myself to my feet with a tired grunt, and approached the group of horses hitched to a nearby tree, carrying an ‘acquired’ sack of oats and a brush. Their ears flicked in my dire, but they knew me.

  “And how are you today, Marquis?” I murmured to the bck-coated equine, holding out a handful of oats for him.

  The horse that the Thunderheart tribe had gifted to me just s my words. Still, he accepted the with no pint, mung os pcidly. While he did so, I did some basic care on the animal, brushing his coat out and iing him for any issues. When I was doh him, I moved on to the other two horses. Charlie, the rge draught horse meant for Sylvia, gave me no problems at all. Meanwhile, the pony that had previously beloo Baldric, Poppy…

  Well, she was a biter. I swear the little shit tried to take a few fingers along with the oats I gave her. Still, I cared for her just as well as I did the others. I wouldn’t hold her ornery nature against her.

  When I was done, I stepped bad sidered the three beasts of burden. I was…gd, that I had thought to retrieve them upon esg the city. They had bee with a stablemaster ba the Stacks before we had slipped our way into Elderwyck, and it had been hard to slip back out to che them during our campaign. I’d worried about them, but there had been little I could do.

  I had been right to be worried, it turned out. I had no idea how the stablemaster had treated the horses in life, but he was…very likely dead by now.

  Along with most of the Stacks.

  When I had moved through that area, it had been mostly a ghost town. There had only been a few frightened faces that peaked through ramshackle shanty-town, when before they had been dht bursting with refugees. Most of the octs had been lured into Nerexxa’s trap to be used as sacrifices for her ritual to awaken Rhazal, and those that had bee? Well, it seemed like the Revenants had mowed through a good number of them.

  Most of the Stacks was little better than splinters at this point.

  A sad, tragid to a ucopia of already tragic stories.

  Thankfully, the stable itself had still be standing, even if it had been abahe horses inside, including my three rescues, had been weak and starving at that point, locked up in their stalls as they had been. I’d put off my pns to free the Sculpted in the tryside by nearly half a day just feeding and watering those horses, before ultimately setting them loose.

  Maybe they’d have a better life, out in the grassnds. I sure as hell couldn’t care for all of them.

  But I had takehree with me. Even if Sylvia was too atose to care for Charlie, and Baldric was…well.

  Dead.

  It was still the right thing to do.

  I kept my breath even as I stood there watg the grazing horses. I didn’t even turn my head before I called out into the air of the clearing. “You e out now,” I said aloud, my tone calm and unbothered. “I know it’s you, Liora.”

  Silence, for a moment, before I heard a pair of padded feet impact the grass behind me. I didn’t flinch, even with as close as she had been to me.

  I’d known my rade had been watg me for a while now.

  After all the times I had been surprised tely and paid the price for it, I was keeping a closer wat Lifeblood Sehe slow pounding of her heart had alerted me to her presence, even when I had no other indication as to it.

  “You’ve gotteer at that,” The Gnoll woman said quietly from behind me. I hummed in aowledgment as she moved up to stao me, but didn’t say anything. I g her from the er of my eye, only mildly surprised to see that although Liora had been sneaking around, she wasn’t in Near. I hadn’t fotten Baldric’s final request to her, after all.

  I don’t think she had, either.

  We stood there in silence for a moment, simply watg the horses mill about in the light cast by my campfire. I didn’t have much to say, but I eventually became aware of Liora’s attention lingering on me.

  She was…just looking at me in silence.

  I didn’t bme her. It’s not like I was wearing my hood and mask at my osite after all.

  What would be the point?

  “A final gift…” I said roughly, gl out at the horizon about the tree line. Elys was obscured by clouds tonight, and I was only slightly able to see her waning crest form through the haze. “From Rhazal.”

  “Yes, I heard,” Liora answered, to my surprise. Her lips quirked mirthlessly at my attention. “I made tact with the remaining Division members. Wisp informed me of your…affli,” She sighed and ged the subject. “Do you require assistan your task?”

  Wisp, huh. I...guess she had seen more under my hood than I'd thought.

  I’m gd we weren’t pretending she didn’t kly what I was doing out here. Still, I shook my head. “No…I hahis,” I said, and then chuckled lowly. “It’s not like a bunch of weak sve drivers match me. What guards I’ve entered…well. Let’s just say they haven’t been a problem.”

  Liora nodded shallowly. “There are rumors iy now, about the Elf that’s going around and freeing the Sculpted,” She said, to my frustration.

  “An Elf...” I sighed. I ged the subject. “Has the Army been sighted?”

  Liora took the ge in topics with good faith. She was smart enough to see I didn’t want to talk about it. “Yes, it has,” She nodded. “They should arrive by tomorrow. I thought to e ach you from your…task.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not done. I…there are only a few more pntatio in the area. Ohey’ve all been liberated I’ll…” I fell silent, before speakiantly. “Has there been any ge with Sylvia?”

  Liora silently shook her head.

  “Alright,” I breathed. “Grey ha then. He has his task and I…I have mine. I’ll…che when I’m done. I doubt the Army is going anywhere soon.”

  “You would be surprised,” Liora muttered lowly, to my own surprise. When I turo her with a raised eyebrow, she shook her head. “Simply some unsubstantiated rumors I’ve heard. Don’t take too long, Hart. The war isn’t over, just because of a risen aed Camity. It might accelerate faster than you think.”

  With that, Liora abruptly took her exit, as I had long noticed was a habit with her. The Gnoll woman simply walked into the woods and vanished from sight. Moments ter, I felt her heartbeat fade into the distance.

  I ground my teeth in frustration for a moment at Liora’s suspis, before turning away from the horses. I strode up to my campsite and started to kit myself out once more.

  If I didn’t have much time to finish my self-imposed assig, then I o get back to work.

  A night assault would probably work just as well.