Tristan rode slightly ahead of his grandfather as he felt the wind blowing past him. The two had let the horses really open up their speed once they got out of the mountain pass, and the duo cantered across the dirt roads that would eventually give way to cobblestone ones when they reached the heartlands of the kingdom’s territories.

  Unlike the southern areas that Tristan had been in when hunting down Felicity a Season prior, the dirt was firm and almost baked from the sun and heat. It made travel easy, and as the night began to fall the duo arrived at a small village that was just to the side of the road. A lake spanned out nearby – a large body of water that had several houses built along the edge; some on stilts just out over the water.

  “Ready to head back to the Fey Realm?” Tristan asked. He had used his symbol’s Disguise Form to assume his half-breed appearance now that they were back in the kingdom proper. Felicity was also invisible atop his head.

  Hurvun nodded, “Get to it, son.”

  Tristan had not let that go unnoticed. No longer was he just ‘boy’, his grandfather was calling him ‘son’, which cemented in Tristan’s mind that he had replaced his failure of a father; at least in his grandfather’s eyes. “On it.” He began spinning his crucible and pushing the essence towards the ring.

  Hurvun squinted his eyes as he looked across the village, “It is not that late. We should see some type of movement.” He drew his enormous sword, which prompted Tristan to pull out his own. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Felicity flapped up and into the sky, “I’ll go take a look!” She flew off to the village, and Tristan conveyed her actions to Hurvun. Less than thirty seconds passed before she came back with a worried look. “Tristan, those mean, black-leather guys are here!”

  “Black Company mercs? Why would they be this far out?”

  Hurvun frowned, “To stop us from returning…for some reason.” He glanced at Tristan, “I have some suspicions and a theory…but I am loathe to share right now.” He looked up at the top of Tristan’s head where he knew Felicity liked to perch, “Are the people alright?”

  “Oh, yes, they are just in their houses. I heard the Black Company people whispering about an ambush,” Felicity spoke rapidly, and Tristan conveyed her message.

  “Hmm,” Hurvun stroked his beard with his off hand, “We could circumvent the village and ride around – but if they were smart, they would have set up men off in the farmlands. And down the road. I would wager that the group here in the village is off duty and are relaxing.”

  “Yeah,” Felicity said as she made biscuits on Tristan’s head. “They were relaxing and lounging.”

  After Tristan relayed the message, Hurvun cracked a wicked smile. “Well, we can always ambush these ones who are resting up.” He dismounted and moved his horse to the side of the road, into a small crop of plants that came up to its haunches. “Come on, son. We’ll give them a right proper thrashing.”

  “Killing them outright?” Tristan asked as he dismounted and brought his horse over. “Is that…right?”

  “Son, I can tell you right now, the only innocent reason a group of Black Company would be here is if they were on their way to relieve the groups in the northern towers. But the group we met up there were fresh; they did not have the weathered look about them that standing guard leaves on a man. They were hired for a task, and the Archon told me as much. Gave me a warning that a group was hired by a prominent noble who paid enough to keep their name secret.”

  Tristan gulped, “I’ve…never killed a person except those assassins. And they were coming after me. This…this feels wrong.”

  Hurvun put a hand on his shoulder, “Tristan, you are going to have to come to terms with one truth in life; taking a person’s life is never something you should do without qualm, but it is something you will have to do. The fact that you feel some type of remorse before even taking that action shows that your mother and I raised you right.” He began moving towards the village, “If it makes you feel better, use that hammer instead of the sword. You can crush a few bones and take them out of the fight just as well as killing them would.”

  Tristan sheathed his sword and drew the starmetal maul. Felicity flew up into the sky, “I’m going to circle above, and I’ll keep an eye out for reinforcements!”

  He felt his pulse quicken and his heart beating rapidly as they approached the sounds of light revelry from the now-relaxing, off-duty mercenaries. They were sharing raunchy stories about their various escapades; primarily stories of violence and oppression. But one story in particular caught his attention as they closed in towards the flickering firelight.

  “Hey, Phil, you remember that one time a few Seasons back when we got to go out and suppress those rioters?”

  There was a cackle of laughter from another voice, just out of sight. “Oh, I remember that! You took that big mace of yours and crushed some people right proper. I never got the word from the higher ups why that was happening.”

  “Beats me,” the man replied, “I just hit what they tell me and get paid. Plus, the extra benefits.” There was laughing once more.

  “What benefits?” a younger-sounding voice asked.

  “Ah, lad, you’ll learn the best benefit of being on the kingdom’s coin is that we can do whatever we want to the smallfolk. They can’t complain, they can’t fight back, so what do they do? They just take it! Phil, that same riot, you remember that cute blonde-”

  “Yes,” this Phil replied. “The one with the small tits. I remember her fondly. She felt so right-”

  Tristan got around the edge of the small building made from wattle and daub. He was illuminated by the flickering firelight, and the conversation halted. He was fuming, feeling rage for what these men were describing. Letting his spinning crucible push the essence out into his body, he diverted the flow to his armor as the protective shell encased him. Without a word, he charged forward and slammed the maul into Phil’s shoulder; sending the man flying across the fire and into a crumpled heap on the other side of the small gathering.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Hurvun leapt into action right beside Tristan and began carving into the mercenaries. A cry of alarm went up as the rest of the mercenaries went into action, grabbing up weapons as best they could. One of them went for a warning horn, but Felicity flew down – invisible to them – and snatched it away before circling up into the sky. To the mercenaries’ eyes, their warning horn just went flying off into the night.

  Tristan advanced on the next mercenary who tried to draw their blade in time, but he crushed their shoulder with one mighty swing that sent them crumpling to the ground. He brought the handle up to deflect an incoming blow from his side, sending the weapon flying out of the mercenary’s hands as he then twisted the weapon about to thwack him with the shaft of the hammer. The mercenary went off balance, and Tristan followed up with a powerful swing to the leg, smashing it as they collapsed.

  The screaming of agony permeated the air, and Tristan risked a glance at his grandfather. The older man was decimating the mercenaries that circled up around him; keeping them at bay with large, sweeping strikes and occasionally picking one of his assailants off. His armor, also, had fully covered his body – a deep, crimson with green lines running along the seams.

  Felicity shouted down, “Tristan! One is running for help!”

  Tristan tried to look past the five that advanced on him and shook his head, “I can’t get them! Can you?” he shouted back.

  “Right!” she flew off, and Tristan was forced to focus on the melee before him. Swings came in from each direction and he deflected them with ease. Even when their blades slid down the shaft of the maul, his gauntlets stopped them. Tristan felt the impact and knew he would be bruised; but he was able to use their surprise to perform vicious counterattacks. The crunch of bones breaking and snapping filled him with a visceral sense of satisfaction.

  Sure, maybe not all of them had done heinous actions, but the fact they were so comfortable sharing those experiences with one another told Tristan all he needed to know about The Black Company. Their name was not merely because of their armor – it was also due to their reported behavior. If the group was not run by the king’s cousin, then they would have been kicked out long ago.

  But to a kingdom with a relatively small standing army? Well-trained, without a doubt, but small? Extra manpower was needed. And these bastards filled that role. Tristan felt no remorse at what he was doing as his grandfather’s words echoed through his head. Plus, he wasn’t trying to kill them – except that one Phil guy whose skull he had caved in. He was striking crushing blows, but nothing lethal.

  Well, perhaps it would be lethal if not tended, but Tristan did not care. Even though he felt anger in his gut, the cool essence pushed that down and replaced it with a calculated, precise hatred. His strikes were perfectly placed thanks to his intense training with The Matriarch. His inner world sparring against imagined enemies, both singular masters like her and groups of opponents made this fight easy. His armor helped quite a bit, as he knew several strikes got past his defenses only to be rebuffed by the armor.

  That is until one of them brought a mace to bear and got a lucky strike in. Tristan felt it crunch into his right shoulder and felt an intense pain spread through the joint as his arm went limp. He backpedaled rapidly and dropped the maul, drawing his sword with his good hand and feeling his survival instinct kick in. No longer was he taking cautious strikes to disable foes – this was a possible life or death scenario. He dispatched the one with the mace by pushing his essence into the blade to extend the reach, stabbing the assailant through the throat.

  Wait, that gives me an idea! He focused essence into the cloak to use the stored Thrice Command spell. “Lay prone now!”

  There was an invisible pulse of force that emanated out from him, and the mercenaries in front of him and encircling his grandfather all went prone on the ground. Hurvun wasted no time in dispatching the ones surrounding him, and Tristan did the same for the group before him. As both took deep breaths, only the sound of the whimpering and pained cries of those Tristan had injured with the maul could be heard.

  Felicity came flying back and her paw-claws were red and bloody. “I got the one that went off to warn the others! Well, I didn’t kill them, but I definitely kept them from finding their allies. Blinded them right proper!”

  Tristan frowned, “But he can still talk.”

  Felicity flapped over and looked at his crushed shoulder pauldron, “Yikes. You look hurt. Elixir?”

  “Please,” Tristan said as he let the essence fade from the armor. He let out a grunt of pain as the pauldron shrank slightly and pushed down on his cracked joint.

  Felicity reached into her storage dimension and pulled out a vial of the elixir, “That puts us at eight healing elixir – lesser.”

  Hurvun came over and frowned, “Tristan, you’ve got good hearing – better than mine. Listen to see if reinforcements are coming.”

  Tristan closed his eyes and focused on his sense of hearing as he swallowed down the elixir. He could hear the faint sound of shouting off in the distance, “The one Felicity blinded sounds like they warned their fellows.”

  Hurvun clicked his tongue, “The spell you used to get them all to drop prone – can you do that again?”

  Tristan nodded and spun his crucible, feeling the power flow through him. “Maybe twice more?”

  Hurvun grinned, “Good enough.” He reached down and grabbed Tristan’s maul, placing it into Felicity’s storage dimension. “Until you’re healed up. Even with an elixir, a crushed shoulder is not going to heal up instantly. Well, maybe if it was supreme quality.”

  Tristan followed him over to the horses and they re-mounted. Tristan whispered to his mount, “Just follow your buddy here and try not to jostle me too much, please.” He winced as he felt the shoulder grinding in the crushed socket.

  The horse let out a snort of response as it followed Hurvun’s mount along the road. Hurvun spoke softly, “Be ready with that spell – and this time, try to ignore me as a target if you can.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know it affected everything around me,” Tristan replied. “My bad.” He looked over to Felicity who had perched on top of the saddle in front of him, “Can I restrict enchantment targets?”

  “Yes, silly. You just have to envision the effect going around whoever you don’t want affected.” She began wiping her paw-claws on his cloak, “And make sure you don’t affect me. I’d imagine since my species is subservient to you by nature, I have no chance of resisting even if I wanted to.” She spat down on her paw-claw and kept wiping them clean on his cloak.

  Tristan nodded and looked up as Hurvun cleared his throat, “Son, get that spell ready.”

  Tristan spun his crucible as he saw the shadows moving up ahead. Thanks to his heritage, he could see in the dark and make out the black-clothed figures wearing studded-leather armor. He also saw the characteristic shape of crossbows. “Drop the weapons!” he shouted as he used the cloak once more, activating Thrice Command.

  He saw the weapons dropped from grips, and felt his essence drain prodigiously as his eyelids began to flutter from the expenditure. A little more. “Felicity, essence elixir. Now.” She reached into her dimension, pulled one out, and he slammed it back, gulping it down his throat. He felt the warm power coursing through him and beginning to seep into his essence crucible. But, instead, he did the dual-direction spin of it, and sucked up all of the essence whilst empowering his next use of the cloak’s spell. “Lay down now!” he shouted once more.

  The pulse of energy went out from him, and he saw all of the mercenaries drop prone. “Grandfather, now!” The older dragonslayer spurred his mount onward, and thanks to Tristan’s earlier command to his mount, he kept up. But Tristan felt the draw of slumber upon his eyelids as he had drained his essence from the repeated Third Order spells. His remaining essence was a tiny amount, and he focused on pushing it towards the ring on his finger. “Another elixir,” he muttered.

  Felicity uncorked another and handed it to him. Quaffing it down, he immediately made use of the energy. The duo kept riding into the night, far past the planned ambush point and off into the darkness.