Tibs sensed something ahead of them, but couldn’t be certain what it was.

  Over a decade of pushing his sense, it had seemingly reached a limit at a distance equivalent to walking for the span of four fingers-worth of the sun moving. An effect of sensing so far was that he could barely make out what he sensed within any of that distance. Even an adventurer next to him became nothing more than a fuzzy mass of essence he couldn’t tell from another mass.

  He had learned to recognize signs within that fuzziness that warned of groups of people, bandits, when he was in the wilderness, which was the only pce sensing this far served any purpose. It would be a barely detectable mass of life essence, due to the number of people, with points of fire and metal. The closer he got, the more details he made out, as he pulled his sense in, but it wasn’t until he was a fingers-width’s worth distance that he could tell anything of use.

  He’d asked schors about it, in retion to adventurers and how they sensed their elements. He’d used bards’ songs as the excuse for his question, since they were constantly referring to the adventurers sensing something in the distance. Usually in how the hero of the song found the vilin.

  He’d had to listen to them droning on about essence not being what people thought it was. That a skilled adventurer could do whatever they wanted with their essence; that was, after all, the basis for magic. How it was possible for them to sense what couldn’t be perceived. That with training, they could know things that others never could.

  Of course, when Tibs ask how they could do that, none of them had an answer. It was simply magic.

  By what Tibs sensed, there was trouble ahead of them.

  “Fernan,” he called to a guard looking after the wagons behind his. “I need to have a talk with Rigel. Look over mine.” Tibs hurried his horse to the front of the caravan.

  He slowed it and settled next to the wagon. “Sir.”

  “It’s Rigel,” the man sitting on the bench replied. “One day, you will call me by my name, Tyborg.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rigel sighed.

  Tyborg had too much respect for people in authority to ever address them by name. Graiden had resorted to threats of a knife in the gut, before Tyborg had reluctantly begun addressing him as Gray. Rigel was too nice to pull off the kind of threat his man could.

  “Let me guess. Is it slowing down to avoid a coming herd this time? Or should we speed up?”

  Like people, animals barely registered to his sense; their life essence was too thin. That was, unless there were a lot of them. A herd or a pack’s worth of them, with made scaring them with an etching risky. He had no way to predict how a herd would react. He also didn’t need to sense them from so far to be able to advise on what they should do. It had come up twice over the two months of travels.

  He’d expined it with ‘he had a feeling’. He couldn’t cim to know how animals travel without coming up with a believable expnation for how he knew, and while he was certain there were books about that, too, he’d yet to be bored enough of his other research to look into that.

  Having a feeling was an expnation nearly everyone used in their lives.

  “I don’t think so. I just thought it might be good for me to scout ahead.”

  Rigel studied Tibs, looked at his eyes, as he did each time Tibs had advised him, then shook his head and chuckled. “The way the gut of yours tends to be right, I’d think you’re touched.”

  “I’m not.”

  Being touched by an element, was what people called those who weren’t adventurers but still did things that seemed impossible. The reasoning being that without the help of the elements, they wouldn’t have been able to. In Tibs’s experience, skill accounted for most of the cases he’d witnessed, and randomness for others, and only extremely rarely, had the person had the faint tint to their life essence that spoke of a connection to an element.

  What he’d never understood was the reflex to check the eyes. It was impossible to miss with the adventurers, and impossible to see in anyone else. Even those with the faint connection didn’t show the element’s color in their eyes.

  “Then it’s going to be trouble, ain’t it?”

  “I think we’re better served if I go check and I’m wrong than not, and we’re surprised by bandits.”

  Rigel looked into the distance ahead of them. “Bandits, huh?”

  “What else would it be out here?”

  “More likely to be a dungeon made monster than bandits.”

  “There’s a dungeon in the area?” Tibs looked around. There wasn’t one. If there was, there would be a town already. The guild, taking possession of it. And there was no mountain.

  Rigel ughed. “This would be a city road, if there was. Not some pce, weeks away from even a vilge.”

  “Bandits make more sense, then.”

  “Go.” The caravan master motioned Tibs ahead. “I’ll let Gray know we might encounter trouble.”

  He set his horse to a canter until he couldn’t make out the wagon, then pushed it to a gallop. He applied etchings of purity to the animal to deal with the damage pushing it without rest caused.

  As he pulled in his sense, getting closer, he gained more definition and confirmed what he’s suspected. Water held up. It would be in barrels. Metal containing fire, braziers. Moving life essence with metal against them. People and the weapons they carried. Twenty of them, by the weapons being carried. There might be more, in the wild bandits often resorted to clubs, which he couldn’t sense.

  The camp was far from the road, and he didn’t sense anyone close to it. So they weren’t aware of the caravan yet. There could be sentries, but the essence would be too faint for him to sense lone people unless he pulled his focus in tighter. He did that as he got closer, and didn’t sense anyone.

  Not every bandit group Tibs had encountered of the years used sentries. Many counted on the sounds caravan made. He didn’t bother with hiding the sounds of his horse. They were too far in the forest to hear a lone traveler, and he could deal with sentries if they were present.

  By the time Tibs was close, he’d had to dispatch two of them. He couldn’t give them the luxury of letting them leave. They’d run to the camp, and them knowing Tibs was on his way would just complicate matters.

  He walked the horse among the trees, on the opposite side of the bandit camp, tied it to one, and removed armor and clothes. He didn’t need them for this, and ciming he’d found nothing, when returning with his armor cut and pierced, raised too many questions.

  He’d learned that through experience.

  Whispers had gone beyond him being touched, and into him being a dungeon made creature.

  He’d vanished into the forest, and continued alone to the next city. He hadn’t gone into battle against bandits, when he was alone, wearing his armor since.

  Wearing a worn shirt, his bracers, and pants, but no boots, Tibs trekked until he reached the camp. He couldn’t understand the nguage, as he got close enough to hear them, but the tone of discontent came through clearly. It was months between caravans, and they must be tired of waiting.

  He walked between the tents at the periphery and among the bandits.

  “Greetings.”

  The reaction was instantaneous. Two and two people jumped to their feet, sword and clubs in hand. He chucked to himself at how he’d fallen back into his old numbers. He rarely did that anymore, and usually when things didn’t go his way.

  They were dressed in clothing more worn than his. They were dirty and too thin. Some, he sensed, were on the st of their essence.

  Someone asked a question he didn’t understand.

  “Let’s try this again,” he said, in Urynian, this time. It wasn’t common within this kingdom, being the main one two kingdoms over, nadir wise, but there had been a war, a century back, that had brought many of them here. “Can you understand me? I’d rather not start this without at least giving you the option of leaving.”

  “Leave?” a woman replied in a mocking tone.

  He smiled. “Good, you understand. As someone who knows you might not be doing this out of choice, I’m telling you to leave. The approaching caravan is under my protection. The fact hunger might be driving you to this won’t keep me from making sure their travels are undisturbed.”

  She spoke in hurried tones, and the other’s excitement told him she wasn’t telling them to make pns to leave. The man who grinned at Tibs had bckened and crooked teeth. Even without this fight, he had no more than a day’s worth of essence in him. He said something in nasty tones without looking away.

  “Rupil take shirt for him,” the woman said in a defiant tone. “Pants go to who kill you.”

  “Have it your way.” He ran at them, and only three weren’t surprised at the rush, or that he was unarmed.

  He kept the etching in his mind as he jumped at the rger man, raising his arm as if he was armed. He channeled water, and he released it.

  The expression went from smug to terrified as the ice formed over Tibs, an armor that glinted in the sunlight. The sword that formed in his hand was a thing with vicious spikes jutting from a sharp edge. The mans sword shattered from the impact and was cut through as Tibs nded before him.

  The screams, as Tibs ripped it out of the body, were as much terror as rage.

  A few ran.

  He envisioned the etching and released it with the sweeping of his sword. Thin bdes flew at their back. They fell, but only one’s essence leaked quickly.

  The impact staggered Tibs forward and cracked his armor. He reformed the etching as he straightened, and turned to face the muscur woman. She stepped back in surprise. His eyes told her what she hadn’t understood the appearing armor meant. She steadied herself, and with a scream brought the rge war-hammer down on him.

  He channeled earth and coated his arm with it, stretching it down the side of his body and to his feet. He caught the head in a hand, the force of the impact sent down along the earth, instead of through his bones. He softened the metal and his fingers sunk in. She nearly pulled him off his feet as she yanked it back, but he took hold of the essence and held it in pce. She pulled harder. He pulled, and she staggered into his sword. He casually flipped the war-hammer in the air as he stepped back, caught the shaft, and swung it into her side, adding his will to the blow.

  There was no essence left in her by the time she crashed through the shoddy tent.

  The arrow bounced off the side of his helmet, and he turned.

  He hadn’t expected them to have an archer.

  The woman was already releasing another, and Tibs sent it careening with a wave of the hand, and burst of air. He sent essence at the fire in the brazier next to her, and she was engulfed in the explosion.

  He blocked the sword, then turned to face the man. He parried the following attack and stepped out of the way of the sweeps. The thrust made it past Tibs’s parry and through the armor. The man smirked and said something.

  Tibs punched him away. He pulled the sword out, and with a smirk of his own, let the essence that made it go. He dropped the leather and wood that had been the pommel to the ground.

  The man cursed.

  Tibs turned to face the two wielding clubs running at him. Another etching as he raised his arm, and a shield of clear ice blocked them. He grinned at their stunned expression, then he had a sword in hand and cut their stomachs open with it.

  He made two ice bdes and threw them at the two fleeing. One missed entirely. The next one, he directed with his will and the woman fell too.

  Why was throwing so abyss hard?

  He blocked the woman’s sword and moved the shields ice over it before she pulled it away. He wrenched it out of her hand and cut her down.

  He looked for his next opponent, but all that was left of the bandits were the whimperings from those dying. He ended them with a cut across the throat.

  He let the etching that made his armor, shield, and weapon go and looked at the carnage he’d wrought. He felt no guilt. He’d given them the option to leave. They’d chosen to fight.

  Now, to remove the evidence.

  He crouched and pced a hand on the ground. It parted under each of the bodies, swallowing them, then closed. He couldn’t regrow the patches of grass, but he moved others to mask the shape of the hole. The fires he extinguished, then pulled even the residual heat from the coals and ashes. With air, he scattered them and the tents.

  If Graiden sent someone to check, they’d think it had been at least days since the bandits had given up and left.

  He returned to his horse, cleaned the fight off himself, and dressed. Then rode back.

  * * * * *

  “So, you came back.” Graiden rode next to Rigel’s wagon. “Figured you’d turned thief and stole my horse to ride the rest of the way on your own.”

  “Come now, Hun,” the caravan master chided him. “Tyborg wouldn’t do that. I told you he went scouting. Do we need to get ready for an attack?”

  Tibs shook his head. “All I found was an old camp. They must have given up waiting.”

  “Or moved to a better location,” Graiden countered.

  “If that’s the case, I’m sure Tyborg will feel the need to scout ahead again.” Rigel smiled at him. “Isn’t that right?”

  Tibs realized that always being somewhat correct each time he came to the man could be giving the caravan leader the wrong impression

  Or the correct one. Which Tibs didn’t want him to get.

  It might be best to let the caravan be caught in the next herd that crossed their path.

  AnnouncementBottom Rung is avaible on KU: https://amzn.to/3ShmXzW

  You can read the previous arc in Tibs story here

  Do you have opinions and suggestions? feel free to leave them in the comments.

  Thank you for reading this chapter.

  If you want to watch me writing this story, I do so on Twitch: https://v/thetigerwrites Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 8 AM to 11:30 EST

  If you want to read ahead, you can do so by finding Stepping Wild, on Ream Stories where the story is multiple chapters ahead even at the lowest tier, and the support helps ensure I can work with a minimum of real-life interruption.