His stalker didn’t even hesitate to follow as Tibs entered the forest.

  He’d expected Joman to turn around once he realized where he was going, but his determination to prove what he believed, was stronger than the fear his experience in the forest had to have instilled.

  Tibs had decided that four days were enough for Firmen and Merka to have calmed down. He’d let Mother Natril know the previous evening he’d be hunting for a few days. The village should have meat, he’d told her, then, reluctantly, had admitted he was the one missing eating hearty stews. An exaggeration, more than a lie. Tibs’s life had taught him to eat whatever he could get, but he still preferred enjoying a solid meal.

  And he would return with a kill; killing a deer would be simple, as he returned from the dungeon, and however long he stayed there would be explained by how long it took his hunt to be successful.

  The one flaw with his plan was that armed with only the old sword he’d found in Mother Natril’s attic, he’d have to either cause himself injuries, or pass himself off as a master hunter to have brought down the animal in close combat uninjured.

  She’d been surprised when he’d showed it, or with how well preserved it had been—he’d used his element to remove the rust. He’d then been reluctant to ask for its use as she held it wistfully, but she gave it to him. Her man, she said, wouldn’t want his sword to linger if it could be used to improve the village’s life.

  If he had to make use of it, he’d use metal to give the blade a proper edge, but he’d have to will it to remain.

  Making items from essence that didn’t need will to continue fell within the ability to make weaves; which he had yet to work out. He’d read multiple books from library and universities about it, even some claiming to contain advanced knowledge on weaving the elements. But weaves were the domain of the sorcerers and they didn’t part with what they knew easily.

  Without fault, the books had contained theories as to how weaving was done, but even their basic techniques hadn’t produced an item that remained.

  His stalker only complicated matters in that Tibs would have to act like he was tracking prey until he grew bored, or fearful, and returned to the village.

  * * * * *

  The sun was well past its zenith, and still Joman followed Tibs.

  The man was bad at hiding. Even without using his sense, Tibs could follow the clumsy progress. If he’d actually been hunting, Tibs would be cursing the man for scaring the animals away, and he considered doing so.

  But what would it accomplish? What would a confrontation do, when Tibs couldn’t prove he didn’t have magic, that he was a person just like Joman and the villagers. Any denial would only reinforce the man’s belief.

  He could scare him off. He had wood now, and even without channeling it, he could take control of the essence in the trees. He could turn the forest into something of the man’s nightmares. And strengthen Joman’s beliefs in the process.

  He’d need to channel the element to have the level of essence needed to act subtly enough with the trees he might pull off the man thinking it was his imagination, but he had no idea who he’d be under Wood’s influence.

  She had a need to nurture. He’d picked that much up; to help him grow through his hardships. He’d have something of that. What might he do as such a person, when confronted with Joman and the trouble he had? Admit to everything without care for the consequences? Demonstrate the power he had? Seek to help him understand how much the dungeon might help him become stronger?

  And even if Joman could benefit. Knowing everything that was ‘out there,’ that what he’d experienced had happened settled him. Maybe it would push him to seek the dungeon out. Maybe he’d become stronger, instead of dying there.

  But then what?

  Could Joman hide what he became? What happened when the rest of the village learned? When the next caravan stopped here and instead of villagers, they encountered Runners.

  What happened when the caravan brought the news to a city? How long until the guild was here, taking control of the dungeon, realizing there might be dungeons it didn’t know about? What happened to the people here then?

  No, what happened to Tibs if the guild took control of all the dungeons out there?

  So, he did what he’d claimed he’d come here to do. Acted like he’d found a track, and set about following it. With Joman still following, he sensed for something to kill. Something large; maybe the sight would be enough to frighten the man away. Or maybe Tibs could let the animal get a strike in and prove he was nothing more than a person.

  And he’d be weeks, maybe a whole season stuck in the village. They had no one to help his healing; to blame for how quickly he healed.

  Tibs hoped he didn’t have to resort to that.

  As he’d expected, Joman was loud enough to scare away the larger animals that might be the deers Tibs sensed. When he was able to get close enough to a mass of essence that didn’t run off before Tibs saw them, it turned out to be a bear curled up in the opening for a den, dug into a mound.

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  He could take it on. He was confident he could even do so without revealing he used elements. But what would Joman make of that? Would he believe a person could take on a bear and win? Do that without serious injuries? It didn’t matter a skilled enough hunter could take on a bear. What mattered was what Joman would believe.

  And there was the risk Joman would draw the bear’s attention, and Tibs would have to rescue him again.

  He retreated, forcing the man to scamper out of the way, and set about finding another animal.

  He found a deer, accompanied by a fawn in a lighter part of the forest; far enough, Joman’s noise didn’t carry to them. The fawn looked large enough Tibs thought it would survive without its mother, but he moved on.

  In a clearing, he found a trio of deers. A buck and two does. The buck was the largest, and had more meat, but was this trio part of a larger herd, or the start of one? If he killed it, would he end this herd?

  Only days before, he knew he wouldn’t have cared. As a hunter, he’d want to bring the largest kill, feed the most people. But Wood’s comment about the disregard Tibs showed to the plants he killed and damaged had stuck, and while he could accept he had to walk on the grass, even if it damaged it, he didn’t have to fell a tree for firewood, and he didn’t have to risk decimating a herd just to build the impression of a skilled hunter.

  A doe would do, and he figured that if there were fawns involved, they would be with the parents.

  He moved along the edge of the clearing, and, thankfully, Joman stayed where he was. Be it that he’d accepted Tibs was hunting and needed to remain quiet or that he was exhausted from the long trailing, he didn’t care. If he couldn’t go to the dungeon today, he wanted to end this and return to the village.

  Once in position, he caused a stone to clatter on the opposite end of the clearing, and as soon as their attention was in that direction, he ran. Using Air, he kept himself from making noise until he was halfway to the doe, close enough it wouldn’t matter when it reacted. It would be too suspicious to make it within striking distance without them realizing he was there.

  They scampered, and with Air, he increased his speed to keep up. He might be going too fast, but he had to hope Joman was too far to realize that. Tibs made his strike only a nick, causing the doe to bolt away, but he guided the point of the sword to the channel of essence in its neck that represented the strongest blood flow.

  He let it run, stopping to pant, hands on knees, then searched the ground until he found the trail of blood. He followed it while the doe slowed, then went down. The loss of essence had slowed as he approached, and when he saw it, the line of blood down its pelt looked to be dry. But it still had essence.

  He didn’t know how to go from there to maintain the impression of a hunter.

  Hunters were usually archers, and they aimed for the heart, which would cause the life essence to burst out of the animal; or the person. The hunt was over before it could start.

  Did it have enough essence to bolt, if it noticed him? He didn’t think so, but he’d seen desperate people do more than they should have been able to with the little essence they had left.

  He ran, with Air, to reach it before it could react.

  It was still faster than he’d expected, and the thrust at its chest only left a line on the underside as it jumped to its feet. He turned the ground into mud where its foot landed, and he was on it as it struggled. The thrust was true, and it stopped moving. The little essence it had left drained away with the sword he pulled out.

  Stringing it up to bleed it out, with Joman now spying again, proved difficult; he hadn’t brought rope.

  When he had to hunt for his meat, he’d make a stone pillar, hooking a leg and lifting the carcase. Now, he took thin branches and removed the outer skin. He’d seen guards make ropes out of reeds and other plants, but hadn’t understood what they’d done. He had no idea what he was doing here either, other than carefully taking the wood essence, wrapping that around the fibers he pulled and the weaving the plant matter the way he’d seen, making it into a rope through essence work, instead of the physical kind. It would fall apart the moment he no longer willed it to be, but until then, he should seem real enough.

  The temptation to channel Wood to make the work faster was strong enough he emptied light from the bracer and set that reserve to absorb Wood essence instead.

  He used essence to guide the finished rope when he threw it over a high branch, tied one end to the deer, pulled it up, tied the other end, and sat to wait.

  In the early days of having his element, he’d thought blood was life essence. As he’d become more skilled at sensing how it moved through the channels in people, he’d felt his belief supported.

  But blood remained well after the life essence had drained out.

  He’d decided that it was more that blood and life essence moved along the same path. If the essence had created the paths blood traveled through, or the blood caused the essence to latch on as it moved had caused him to ask a scholar about the body and its interaction with the elements it contained.

  He never wanted that kind of headaches again.

  The shadows were stretching before the blood stopped dripping, and Tibs decided not to wait anymore because of his stalker. He cut it down, then hefted it over his shoulder and started walking.

  Instead of following, Joman headed to where he’d hung the carcase, and Tibs stopped. The rope still existed because he wanted it to, and he could do so until he was far enough night would have come. And if his stalker fell back too far, hoping to find a clue to the truth?

  “If you lose sight of me,” he called, “you might get lost again, Joman.”

  He would rescue the man if it came to it. But they were close enough to Firmen that letting him wander until he understood the folly of venturing in the forest alone might cause him to stumble within the dungeon’s influence.

  Tibs didn’t know if Firmen would let anyone cower in a corner this time.

  When Joman was close enough he could see Tibs in the diminishing light, he set off again. He picked a steady pace, and didn’t alter it. This time, it was on his stalker to keep up with him.

  * * * * *

  It wasn’t quite full dark by the time they reached the village. Tibs gave the doe to the tavern owner because he had no interest in figuring who did the meat work. He ate the vegetable stew, then returned to Mother Natril’s to sleep.

  * * * * *

  He had to wait two days before returning to the forest.

  He’d considered heading back out immediately, but the villagers had swamped him with questions about his hunt. The village trappers and hunters asked for where he’d hunted, what animals he’d seen…what monsters might be there. The villagers asked about the magic he’d used to bring down his kill, to know where it was. When he pointed out there was no magic in hunting, and the village hunters confirmed it, they pointed to Joman as the source of their claim.

  So the man had proclaimed Tibs magical, in spite of not being able to see anything to confirm it.

  This time, he left well before sunrise, having told Mother Natril he was going back hunting before turning in the previous evening. She’d been pleased. She was enjoying the extra meat in the stew, while Tibs thought he’d brought a large enough deer for there to be more.

  He sensed the man and his woman in their house, sleeping apart. He hoped Joman would know better than to chase after him when he woke, but readied himself to search for him on his way back from his run.

  And hoped it wouldn’t be his corpse he’d return this time.

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