Temüjin must have seen the look on my face as I pieced together what had happened because he stopped cutting meat and stood up.

I raised my hands as the anxiety crashed back into me, stronger than before, “Don’t make any threatening moves, please. It’s shit scared of you right now, and bleed through is affecting me too.”

“Explain,” came the curt reply.

“I think I bonded it as a familiar, or it bonded me,” I said.

“The familiar bond? How did you initiate it?” he asked, relaxing.

“I dumped the scraps, like you told me. I found this little guy, or girl I guess, a few feet away under a fern. It had a mangled leg, so I healed it up and put it by the pile. Last I saw, it was chomping away but it obviously followed me back here,” I explained, “Which would be why I was feeling so anxious in the woods, I guess. They’d be terrifying to a hatchling.”

“Is that all? I wouldn’t think that a simple healing would be enough to create a familiar bond,” he said.

“It bit me after I healed it. A blood bond would do, wouldn’t it? I had blood from it on the hand that it decided to chomp,” I asked.

“Mystery solved,” he said, with a brief chuckle at his pun, “that would certainly be enough to trigger the bond, I’d think. It may have been the luck of the draw, though. I’ve never heard of any Chosen of Tabiea. Either way, congratulations on your familiar.”

He grabbed a few thin slices of meat, and moved closer, “Can you explain the bleed-through you were talking about?”

“Tabiea said that I’d be able to form an emotional connection, but that I wouldn’t achieve true communication with my familiar. It’s in a tizzy right now, though. Literally everything is terrifying to it, and that’s all coming through the connection. I can block it out,” I said, moving down and picking up the hatchling, “but it takes conscious thought.”

Temüjin slowly reached out and offered it a piece of the deer. I could feel the turmoil the little thing was going through. It was still starving, the few mouthfuls of food it had eaten earlier not enough to sate it, but at the same time it was absolutely terrified of Temüjin. As his hand moved closer, I tried to project feelings of calmness and friendship. Hunger won out over fear, and it snatched the meat before trying to hide itself in the crook of my arm. When it had finished that piece, it peered back over my arm cautiously before taking the next one.

“A Snowsquall Drake isn’t the companion I had thought you’d choose. An interesting choice, to be sure,” he said, amused at the antics of the squirming animal in my arms.

“What can you tell me about them?” I asked. It wasn’t a giant tiger or war bear, but a drake was a bit like a dragon, and I didn’t think that could be all bad.

“For one, they have a well-deserved reputation as being fearless and vicious creatures. I killed all the mature ones around the valley years ago. When they mature they typically stake out a large area as their territory and kill everything in it that’s stronger than they are or die trying. They’re a dual element beast, air and water. When they break through to third rank they start to develop wings, although they can’t truly fly until they’re sage rank. Even as adults they tend to be smaller than other drakes, which has led many would-be beastmasters to underestimate them and end up as a snack. Like I said, an interesting choice,” he said, feeding it a few more pieces of venison.

The drake, oblivious to the conversation, was gobbling down the strips one after another and the sense of fear I was getting from it had vanished almost completely, being replaced by an almost giddy happiness.

“Wait, there are beastmasters in this world?” I asked. Temüjin had never brought them up, and I internally cursed myself for not asking.

“Yes, there are. Some beasts can be tamed. Others, like the little drake here, are more likely to eat the tamer. You’ll need to work on that connection. If it goes on a rampage in a village or in a city it will be killed, and you’ll be on the hook for any damages. The Elves are particularly skilled at it, but there’s a man in Gladewood that also knows a bit about taming beasts. We can speak with him to learn more when we visit, I’m afraid I don’t know much about them other than how to kill them,” he said, feeding the last strip of meat to the bottomless pit I was holding, “Thankfully, they mature and gain in power slowly, so we have some time to come up with a training plan.”

“Uh, about that…We might not,” I said, remembering the rest of the familiar boon.

That got a raised eyebrow from Temüjin.

“Tabiea said she left the boon “open” so that the familiar would grow with me. Hurt like hell, too,” I said, grimacing at the remembered pain. It had been every bit as bad as my first breakthrough, even though it didn’t exhaust me afterward.

“Well, let’s hope you can exert enough influence over the connection to keep it from trying to kill everything it meets,” he said, turning back to tend the fire.

I slept like a baby that night, the feelings of safety and security the little drake got from being near me echoed and amplified across our bond. It snuggled into the crook of my arm as we laid in the tent. Temüjin apparently had a soft spot for animals, because he had kept fussing over it and feeding it strips of meat until I could feel that it was uncomfortably full.

Our trip continued uneventfully through the third day and most of the fourth. We continued to stop so that Temüjin could show me how to identify and harvest useful plants, but as the forest thinned out those stops became less frequent. By the afternoon of the fourth day we had left the forest behind completely and were traveling through a grassy plain that was strewn with huge boulders.

Temüjin stopped, before turning and telling me, “They’re just a few li ahead. Just follow your nose, they stink.”

“You’re not going?” I asked, “I thought this was going to be a joint mission. You know, I’d get to watch you in action while trying to not get myself killed. You never said I’d be doing this alone.”

“I’ve watched you, Karlus. You are…an excellent learner. But you need to be tempered. I erred when I called your world soft, but you have never taken the life of a sentient creature before,” he said.

“Yeah, because back on earth we called that murder, and in my state we’d kill you back if you did it,” I replied.

“Here it is murder as well if there is no provocation. But sometimes taking the life of another is self-defense. Those goblins will breed, and eventually, if no man or beast stops them, they will march to Gladewood and rape, torture, eat, and kill every man, woman, and child that lives there…In that order,” he stated with certainty. I started to speak, but he raised his voice further and continued, “I’ll make a deal with you. If you walk up to the goblins and convince them to leave the valley, peacefully, or to co-exist with the creatures in the valley, peacefully, then you have my word that no harm will come to them.”

I knew it was a trap, but I also knew it was the best chance I had at not getting blood on my hands that day.

I sighed and took off my pack, “If you’re not coming I’ll leave the pack here. No sense getting it torn up.”

“Excellent,” he said, “the young hatchling and I will be waiting here when you return.”

Spear at the ready, I tried to keep my noise to a minimum as I crept further into the rocky field. The further in I ventured the larger the boulders became, from the size of a small car to the size of a house. The goblins had chosen a horrible, and devious, site to settle. The giant rocks would serve as windbreaks and protected paths for the shorter humanoids. But to me it seemed that food would be harder to come by this far up in the valley for a strictly carnivorous race.

Luckily, for once I didn’t let my mind wander too much, and when I rounded the next obstacle I wasn’t caught flat-footed by the half dozen goblins that were heading down the trail toward me. We saw each other at the same time and as I opened my mouth to begin parley they screeched loudly. Waving stone weapons, they started barreling toward me screaming like banshees the entire time.

Temüjin’s training took over, and as the first one got into range I flicked my spear out in a quick slash to carve through its throat. Gurgling, it slowed and was bowled over by the others as they kept coming. Backpedaling to keep my distance I parried a weak spear thrust from one, before slamming the metal cap on the butt of the spear into the chest of another. The spear butt connected with a brutal crunch, and I could feel it’s ribs shatter from the blow, but that cost me as the third managed to land a solid hit with his club on my right arm.

My arm went numb from the force of the hit and I frantically channeled earth and water qi into the arm while fending off the four that were still alive. They all had short weapons and after their initial rush they seemed a little less hesitant to be the first one in range.

“Ok guys, or gals. We don’t need to fight,” I said, both to buy time for healing and to at least attempt to end this without further bloodshed, “Let’s just talk about this, ok?”

Goblins aren’t apparently much for conversation because their only reaction was to keep trying to kill me. Of the four still standing, two were using clubs and two were using crudely knapped stone knives. One of the club wielders batted away a weak thrust from my spear and a knife-wielder tried to take advantage by stabbing at my calf. Rather than let him, I snap-kicked him in the face, knocking him back.

My arm still wasn’t fully healed, but I could move it a little now, and I started to channel air through my hand before launching a small bead of compressed air behind the goblins. The detonation knocked them off balance enough for me to kill the wounded knife wielder and one of the club wielders with quick thrusts to the chest. The unharmed knife wielder decided that he had had enough and started running away. The club wielder bared his pointed teeth and leapt at me like an animal, abandoning its weapon in favor of grappling.

That caught me off guard and I didn’t manage to raise my spear in time before it got inside my reach and snagged onto my leg. I was able to interpose the spear haft between us so that it couldn’t easily bite at me, but the thing was far stronger than it looked, and I wasn’t able to dislodge it from my leg with the leverage I had.

Unluckily for it, Temüjin had prepared me very well for being grappled and had shown me an excellent trick for dislodging any unwanted hangers-on. I channeled a ridiculous amount of air mana over my skin, did my best Blanka impression from Street Fighter 2, and lit the little bastard up like a Christmas tree. I pumped enough voltage into the goblin that it was blown back and hit one of the giant boulders with a sickening crunch.

After verifying that it was down for the count, I finished healing my arm while moving forward. The goblin that got away might be back with reinforcements, I figured, and it was better to be gone when they arrived. Temüjin had said there were between ten and fifteen in this tribe, so I could end up getting swarmed again if I wasn’t more careful.

I gathered my wits, made sure I wasn’t hurt, and moved forward. Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped into my eyes. It wasn’t a hot day, but adrenaline and nerves conspired against me. Hoots and howls from the remaining goblins were barely audible on the breeze and I adjusted my path to intersect them. As an afterthought, I started to actively pull moisture from the air. Fire made for a great offensive weapon, but there was a chance that I’d spark a wildfire even on the well-watered grasslands. Water and ice, however, didn’t run that risk.

The afterthought paid off almost immediately. Within a few minutes, I came across another goblin, this one alone. My collection efforts had yielded a few cups of water, and with a gesture I slapped it all over the mouth and nose of the lone goblin. It started to ineffectually claw at the water with one hand but surprisingly enough it had the presence of mind to keep the club it was wielding firmly in the other. Keeping the water animated to drown the goblin was taking more energy than I had anticipated, so I closed in and took a few thrusts with my spear. The goblin was forced to defend and used its club to bat away the spear head.

I could see panic start to rise in its yellowed eyes and it continued to claw frantically at the water, trying to remove it. I kept the pressure up, not giving it time to regroup, and started attacking with purpose. The goblin managed to parry the first thrust, but I flowed with the momentum and let the club guide the spear head to my right and stepped forward with a brutal kick. Temüjin had covered hand to hand extensively with me, and the kick landed beautifully on the goblin’s ribcage. Any remaining air in the goblin’s lungs bubbled out through the confining water and the earlier panic gave way to desperation. It swung for the hills with the tiny club and stumbled to its knees as I side-stepped and finished the fight with a single thrust.

I was getting accustomed to the idea of clearing out the goblin infestation, after all they had attacked me without provocation every time I’d run across them. Using water to incapacitate the goblin left me feeling a little unclean, though. I had taken every step I could to end the fight quickly, but it seemed cruel to drown the creature on dry land. Shaking my head to clear it, I kept moving forward. I’d debate the ethical considerations with Temüjin later.

It took another twenty minutes of skulking around before I found the main goblin encampment. Temüjin had been right, yet again. All it took was following my nose. Personal hygiene wasn’t high on the list of priorities for goblins and that lackadaisical attitude extended to their campsite. One of the stones surrounding the camp was large enough to accommodate me, so I climbed up as quietly as I could to get a better look at what I’d be facing. Temüjin had said there were between ten and fifteen goblins. I had killed six, but I could see at least thirty in the camp below. They were scattered in a roughly circular area, with large boulders helping to protect them from the elements. The goblins seemed to be completely unaware of my presence as they fought each other over scraps of raw meat or mated with each other in broad daylight.

A hoot went up from the troupe as the survivor from the first group tromped back into camp alongside another four goblins. Each of the new arrivals was carrying one of the goblins I had previously killed, and the bodies were unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the camp. The largest goblin present stepped up to the pile, but rather than say a few words of benediction in their tongue it whipped out a metal short sword and carved off a leg from one of the corpses before biting down. Temüjin had mentioned that goblins were cannibalistic but I had, stupidly, taken that to mean that they ate humans without considering that they ate each other. The rest of the tribe followed eagerly, and new fights broke out over choice pieces of the carcasses. I watched, disgusted by the savagery, as a plan began to form in my brain.

It took me a while to get all the parts of my plan together, but the goblins were too busy fighting, feasting, or fucking to notice me. I first used earth qi to remove a hunk of stone from the huge boulder I was on. I made it into a hollow sphere about the size of a basketball, before reinforcing certain parts of it with qi to harden it, just like the sphere and foundation back at the cottage. Once that was done I started drawing in air qi to create one of the air bombs that Temüjin had demonstrated on my first day of qi training. Normally they were used to knock enemies off balance, but if overcharged they could be devastating. That took time, though, and in a fight the few seconds it took to draw in more power could be lethal. For an ambush, however, it was perfect. I didn’t stop with just a little qi, either. I loaded down as much as I could pack into the air bomb before shoving it into the hollow rock sphere and shaping it closed.

That was an almost fatal mistake. I hadn’t accounted for the interaction between opposing elements and when I shaped the rocky sphere closed my qi flow to the air bomb started to degrade rapidly. Rather than be holding the lethal grenade when it exploded, I tossed it into the middle of the goblin camp and ducked back behind cover. I had pumped more qi into that air bomb than anything else I’d done so far, and when it exploded the sound went beyond deafening.

After a few heartbeats, I looked back over the rock and into the camp. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. I had tried to control fragmentation by reinforcing parts of the sphere to act as shrapnel when the air bomb went off. It may have even worked, but I couldn’t tell from the destruction in the camp. I climbed down from my cover and began to pick through the devastation. The air was misty with suspended blood droplets and the ground was covered in gore. Some of the goblins had been dismembered, limbs blown completely off by the air blast or shrapnel. Other had burst like overripe grapes when air blast picked them up and slammed them against the surrounding rocks. A few were still alive, barely breathing after the detonation. Those I put out of their misery with shaking hands.

Then, as the adrenaline rush wore off and the smells and sights and sheer destruction I had caused came into focus I fell to my knees and vomited.

That’s how Temüjin found me. On my hands and knees, vomiting while surrounded by pieces of goblin.

“Well done, Student,” he said, “And I apologize.”

“For what,” I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“I didn’t expect there to be this many,” came his reply.

“So, this wasn’t some fucked up test?” I asked him.

“No, it was not. I had expected no more than ten or fifteen. Another group may have been subjugated by the leader of this tribe in the time it took us to travel here, perhaps,” he said.

“Good, because if…” I trailed off. I couldn’t find the words for what I had done and what I was feeling. I wanted to be mad at Temüjin for putting me in this situation, but I couldn’t summon up the emotion to feel much of anything at the moment.

“Come with me,” he said, “and let me show you what good you accomplished today.”

Numbed, I did as he instructed and followed him out of the boulder-strewn field