“You know one of them?”

“The big one.” Cal said, handing the spyglass back to her.

Andra peered through the tube for a moment before letting out an appreciative whistle.

“Damn, that boy could match a Guar. Shame he’s an archer.”

“He did just put a hole through solid stone.”

“You sure it was him?” Andra said, glancing back at Cal.

“He’s the best archer in the village, by far. He was practically a savant with one Break. If he’s had Breaks since then…” Cal shrugged.

“Hmm…” Andra closed her spyglass and handed it to her waiting lieutenant, considering the battlefield.

“Are we going to go rescue him?”

Andra blinked and looked at Cal with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You mean are we going to sacrifice thousands of people trying to retrieve one of your friends?”

“When you put it like that-“

“Put Baroke out of your mind, Calvin. If he’s as good as you say, the Ilethans will try to keep him in peak condition, and there’s every possibility we will be able to buy him back once we kick their pasty asses out of here. The only thing you need to be concerned about is whether or not your friend is going to blow your mind with one of his arrows.”

“But-“

Andra gave him a look that sent ice down his spine.

“Yes, ma’am.”

If she won’t rescue him, I’ll do it myself.

“You look like you’re going to disobey.” She said, eyes narrowed.

Damn reading Skills.

“No, ma’am.” Cal said, arranging his thoughts and feelings beneath his skin.

“How much Bent you have left, Calvin?”

“Eight, Ma’am.”

“Hmmm…” she glanced up at the distant forest that the Ilethan army was tearing apart to build siege towers.

“We’ve got a long day ahead of us. Conserve it. Your bugs are more valuable on a cost-effect basis than anything else we could do with your abilities. That’s the ugly truth. Whenever they push forward again, and they will, I want you to be able to tell us which ones are real.”

“But what if I-“

“Strategy isn’t always exciting, Calvin. The more complicated the action, the more likely it is to fail. We have a big-ass wall, and we’re going to bleed them for every inch. Simple. It’s going to take time. The only way we could use your time more effectively is to have you kill high value targets, which would incur a much higher risk to your life. Do you want to die?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Could’a fooled me. Stay on the wall, and keep the rest of your abilities under wraps until I say so. I want the Ilethans to think of you as the wasp guy. When they come up with a counter, then we can think about coming up with a different tactic for you. Don’t blow your wad on the first day.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Calvin turned away from the scene below him, facing Ella, who was bandaging her leg. A thin line of blood was seeping through the white cloth as she wound the gauze around it.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Gadveran cloth is very fine,” Ella said, pausing to look at the gauze in her hands. “It feels almost sacrilegious to use such a fine cloth to soak up blood. But it’s what’s expected, I suppose.”

“I meant how is your wound?” Cal clarified, a bit of irritation coming through his voice.

“it won’t slow me down,” she said, matter-of-factly. “it didn’t hit any muscle or arteries, I’m happy.”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Cal said lamely.

Ella frowned. “Hurt?” She glanced back down to her leg, and up at him.

“When I was eight, I split my foot in half chopping wood for my mother. That hurt.”

“I took a Kugeya claw through the liver when I was twelve, that hurt. Chuela carried me all the way home, and I almost died before they gave me Noeula.”

“Well-“

“When I was fourteen, I was shot in the lung by a Seeker tribe,” she said as she stood, towering over him. “Like you.” She tousled his hair.

“Just a few days ago, I got a tattoo that hurt more.”

“This?” she pointed at her leg. “This won’t slow me down at all.” Ella picked up her shield and Crusher, hooking the flail’s handle in her belt, grinning at him.

From what Cal had personally witnessed from the mental tug-o-war between the two of them, Ella had indeed faced far worse than a shallow cut on her leg. He decided to drop the issue. If she wasn’t upset about it, he didn’t see any reason he should be. She saved his life, after all.

“I never saw the tattoo. Where is it?” Cal asked. he couldn’t make out any kind of tattoo on her arms or legs, face or neck.

“That’s up to you to find out.” Ella said, sticking out her long pink tongue.

“Well, it’s definitely not on your tongue.” Cal rolled his eyes, his heart hammering as he briefly imagined the process of finding it.

“Gadveran Tattoos are much cleaner than ours, that’s for sure. It’s those tiny steel needles. I bet if I brought some home, they’d be thrilled.”

At the mention of her tribe, Cal’s buried anger resurfaced. For her sake, he hoped they were okay. He also wanted to kill her father and every other Genosian adult male and let the rest starve to death.

Feelings were funny things.

Ella’s brows furrowed as she looked at him.

“Look alive, they’re getting ready for another run.” Andra called out to them, breaking him out of the moment.

***

True to the general’s word, the Ilethans pushed four more times in as many hours, cutting Cal’s Bent down to half by noon, when one Bent came back. Each time, Cal was able to isolate the real ilethans, dropping behind the line of sight and avoiding the Bent-powered return fire.

After they realized they couldn’t pin Cal down they started adapting their tactics.

Cal first noticed it around noon when a large portion of the twitching unit of several hundred soldiers simply didn’t fall down when peppered with arrows.

In fact, men fell in groups of five or more, falling to the ground wounded in identical ways.

Andra saw it moments after Cal did, and knew what was happening.

“Hollow formations.” She growled, ordering the archers to stop. As Cal looked on in curiosity.

“There’s only twelve men down there, and they got a few thousand arrows out of us.” She studied the battlefield, scanning the Ilethan troops.

“General!” came a shout from the west, drawing their attention, where a Gadveran soldier wearing the usual brown and tan armor waved at them. “A force is climbing the wall, beach-side!”

“Go take care of it,” Andra said, nodding to Cal, “These bastards like their fake-outs, so I’m staying here.”

“Ma’am!” Cal said, breaking into a sprint as he ran along the back of the wall, following the narrow footpath the soldiers were trained to keep clear as he aimed for the beach far to the northwest.

After less than a minute, Cal made it to the west side of the city wall, where tan and brown uniforms were stacked four deep, pressing against something he couldn’t quite make out. The average soldier was a tiny bit taller than him, blocking his view as they engaged the Ilethans in a chaotic melee.

How the hell am I supposed to help when I can’t see? Cal thought, his gaze blocked by Gadveran uniforms.

I could use Sense grafting to get a better view, but no. I’ve got to conserve Bent.

“I need to see what’s going on!” Cal shouted to Ella, pointing forward.

She glanced back up at the situation ahead of them, taller than the surrounding people, and able to see beyond them.

“There’s some kind of giant wooden building making a bridge onto the wall.” She said, peering ahead.

“Siege tower.” Cal said. How the hell did they sneak a siege tower past us on day one?

“They’re streaming out of it,” she said. “We’re trying to push them back, but it’s not going well.”

“I need to see,” Cal said.

“Got it,” Ella said, kneeling down and slapping her knee.

Cal stood on her knee, getting an extra couple feet of vantage as her hands stabilized his legs, preventing him from falling over. Just over the tops of the warring factions’ heads, he could see the wooden tower’s entrance, creating a veritable fountain of men that spilled out onto the stone wall.

Calvin drew the only component he had, the slime, and focused his attention on the interior of the tower.

Shaping

4/11 Bent Remaining.

Slime exploded on the inside of the tower, coating the inner staircase and part of the bridge leading to the wall.

The thundering sound of footsteps running up the internal staircase became thuds and shouts of men unable to keep their feet and sliding all the way down the stairs in a chaotic mess.

“Tremble before the Wizard-King!” Cal shouted. The tower was less than useless now, and would be for the next hour, since the slime wouldn’t dry out or wash off until it disappeared.

Plenty of time for the foot soldiers to deal with the problem.

Damnation! If Andra had given me back the fireball component, I’d be able to reduce this thing into ash in a matter of seconds…why am I falling?

“Ack!” Cal shouted as Ella’s knee twisted out from under him, her hands pulling him down, slamming him to the stony floor.

“look out.” Ella said, businesslike as return fire from archers on top of the wooden tower whizzed over his head, burying themselves in the armor of the soldiers crowding in behind him. Ella’s skin turned silver as she put her large kite shield over Cal’s body.

An arrowhead emerged three inches through her this wood shield, stopping a hair’s breadth from Cal’s face. Another struck Ella’s head, bouncing off with the ringing of steel.

“Guess they’re not as good as your friend.” She said, eyeing the arrow poking through her shield.

“Guess not.” Cal agreed as the Gadveran troops began to flow around them. The lack of pressure from deeper inside the tower allowed the Gadverans to push the enemy already on the wall back to their bridge.

Once their feet touched the slime, the Ilethan formation collapsed, and they were shoved back into the tower or fell off the side, falling fifty feet to death or critical injury.

“They’ve started hacking the bridge apart,” Ella said, standing and peering over the others while covering him with the shield. “We’re done here.”

****

Dupdomancy has reached Level 12!

Level 12: 144 pounds, 60 minutes.

Calvinian Summoning has reached level 4!

level 4: 64 pound limit, 16 minutes. 0 slots available.

0/11 Bent remaining.

“Uugh,” Calvin groaned as he dragged himself toward the barracks, leaning against Ella, who had arguably done more work than he had. The tension of getting shot at every time he poked his head up drained energy at a completely unreal speed.

“You think she’s trying to stop me from rescuing Baroke? Cal asked, glancing over at Ella, who sported a couple extra scratches, her hair hanging from her heat, stringy and damp with sweat. She was still wearing her armor, with a few arrowheads dangling from the protective leather.

Cal was unharmed.

“I don’t know who this Baroke is, but it seems like Andra’s making sure you don’t have enough Bent to get yourself into trouble.”

“That’s the impression I got too,” Cal said, thinking back to being ordered about the battlefield until he was completely dry. “She said to come back for some vials of Bent in the morning.”

There wasn’t a barracks anymore, so soldiers were instructed to sleep in a series of buildings close to the wall that had been vacated for the use of the Gadveran military.

The fact that these buildings were a short walk from the red light district seemed to raise morale, as soldiers snuck off in twos and threes to go get fleeced by the local working women. The sergeants overlooked it as long as they were back in bed by morning.

As long as everyone’s happy with the arrangement. Cal thought, glancing down the main street as they limped along, catching a glimpse of a dusky skinned woman chatting happily with a couple young men, leaning against one of them intimately while placing a possessive hand on the other.

She wore a silk robe that was a lot fancier under the dim light of the lanterns, with some kind of wrap that pushed her breasts up, seemingly inches away from bouncing their way out of her clothes.

She laughed heartily as the young men said something before one of them slid a hand over her waist, and in short order, the three of them ducked into a nearby alley.

“See something you like?” Ella asked with a raised brow, a tiny bit of ire in her voice.

“How much Bent do you think a prostitute has, on average?” Cal asked, glancing back up at her.

Ella’s eyes widened, and moments later the two of them took a hard right turn, following the stream of soldiers into the soft illumination of the women’s lanterns.

“Hey, you two looking to tackle things together?” one of the women called out to the two of them, a young looking girl with long, slicked back hair, lovely breasts and form-fitting clothes that revealed large swaths of soft skin. “I don’t mind mixing it up.”

She gave the two of them a shy grin as Cal met her gaze. All he felt from her was cold calculation and an undercurrent of malice.

“No thank you.” Cal said with a polite nod.

Just like that the woman’s eyes slid off of the two of them as if they’d ceased to exist.

“Are we being picky about the walking Bent container?” Ella whispered as they walked past.

“She was mean,” Cal whispered back. “I want someone willing to help.”

Ella snorted.

They tromped along, and Calvin looked around until he felt a gaze he liked. Sitting against the wall, of a building, smoking a bit of Thanja as she studied them curiously. Cal found a woman who met his criteria. Older, with more discretion. She had a transactional feeling to her gaze, but had people’s best interests at heart.

“How are you two doing this fine evening?” She asked, knocking a bit of ash out of her pipe. “You can call me Perthea, You seem like you want something special.”

“That is the case.” Cal said, digging into his purse and bringing out a single Stone coin. “I’ll give you five dust for each point of your Bent.”

Perthea’s eyebrows raised. “You got some kind of mutation, boy?”

“Is that a problem?” Cal asked.

She raked her eyes up and down Cal’s body, her gaze containing a healthy amount of caution. A moment later her gaze flickered over to Ella, then back to him.

“Depends. If you want my Bent you’ll have to take it right here, in view of everyone. Can you handle that?”

Her caution was understandable. There was no telling with strange mutations, and Cal hadn’t been particularly specific about how he took Bent. She simply didn’t want to be lured into a room where he might eat her heart to gain her powers or some nonsense. Cal idly realized that walking the streets with a Genosian might give people an odd impression.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then it’s one Stone for each Bent.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Cal said, eyes narrowing.

“I use my Bent too, young man, and it fetches a high price.”

“An eighth.”

“A Stone.” She said, taking another puff.

A Stone was enough to buy some nice furniture, or a month’s worth of food. There was no way she was earning that much money sitting on her ass and smoking. It was all the pay he had managed to scrounge together.

“All right, I guess we can’t come to an agreement.” Cal said, nudging Ella and pointing at the young Gadveran woman they’d left a few dozen feet back. “Let’s go ask her. She’s cheap.” Cal knew this for a fact, reading it from her gaze. She also felt like a gossiping kleptomaniac, though.

“Half a Stone.” Perthea relented.

“One stone for four.” Cal said, turning back.

“Three. All I can spare for a pittance like that.”

“Fine…” Cal gritted out, pulling the silver Stone out of his purse and placing it in the woman’s cupped palm. He’d offered a fairly low price to start with, but she’d ratcheted up the price from five dust to over a hundred and thirty. It was no longer cheap.

She studied him with her deep brown eyes for a moment before pocketing the silver.

“Alright, what do I do?”

“Take my hand, and let me in.”

She should be good at that. Elliot’s words dripped with sarcasm.

Perthea hesitantly gripped his hand, and a fraction of a second later, he delved into her, coaxing out her Bent.

She let out a restrained gasp as Bent began flowing down her arm, sending flares of pleasure straight up their spines. The Bent began to transfer over to Cal’s veins, turning them black.

1/11 Bent remaining.

2/11 Bent remaining.

3/11 Bent remaining.

Cal released his grip and saw Perthea staring into space. The slender Gadveran woman was stunned.

“I thought it would hurt. You could do that for free.” She breathed.

“True, but I’m kind of new here, and in a hurry.” Cal glanced around for a moment before leaning down and whispering. “Would you mind putting in a word for me with your friends? I’m looking to make this a regular thing, and obviously I can’t pay a Stone each time.”

She blinked a couple times, her eyes slowly refocusing on his face.

“Another Stone,” she said, holding out her hand.

Cal dumped the rest of his purse into his hand, revealing a meager selection of copper dust and pinches. The largest coin he had was an Eighth.

Perthea heaved a sigh, and this was where his careful selection of a good-natured whore came into play. “Fine, keep your money. I’ll talk to some of the girls I know. Will you be back here tomorrow night?”

“If I’m not dead.” Cal said with a shrug.

“See you then, young man.” She said, waving him off with her long pipe, still emitting a bit of smoke from the tightly packed cherry in the center.

“Three Bent isn’t much,” Ella said as they walked back to the emptied out apartments where the rest of the soldiers were crammed in like sardines.

Cal looked up at the sky, the night filled with the sounds of explosions and clanging steel meant to keep the defenders awake. He needed a way to get into the Ilethan camp without being spotted, and a way to get back.

A giant-wasp drawn palanquin came to mind, floating through the sky at a height undetectable to the enemy.

“It’s not enough to do what we need to do, now yet, anyway.”

Cal looked over at Ella. “How much do you think a wasp can lift while flying, relative to its body weight?”

“I have no idea.” Ella shrugged

“Guess I better start testing it.” Cal said as they walked along the darkened streets. Him and Ella together was somewhere around three hundred and fifty pounds, plus Baroke, who must weight two, two fifty by himself.

Add an extra hundred pounds as a safety precaution, and he needed his wasps to be able to carry seven hundred pounds to be totally confident.

After a few minutes of walking, they ducked off into a secluded alley, and Cal summoned the largest wasp he could.

Calvinian Summoning

2/11 Bent remaining.

The wasp’s body was the size of a large dog, its wings as long as a grown man. The alley was just barely big enough to run the test.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ella said, peering into the creature’s compound eye curiously.”

“You grew up in a forest full of giant insects.”

“And I learned to have a healthy respect for them.”

“Wanna help test its lift?”

“I’ll pass, if you don’t mind,” she said, eyeing the giant wasp.

“Alright,” Cal said, holding out his arm and instructing the wasp to lift up on it. The giant wasp leapt into the air with a horrible buzzing sound and latched onto his arm with its sharp claws, pinching his skin and nearly slicing him open before he could tell it to stop.

“Okay, that almost cost me my arm.” Cal said, wincing as he slapped a hand down on the small cut until it stopped bleeding. The only injury he’d gotten that day was self-inflicted. The giant was clung to the wall of the nearby building, watching them with quivering mandibles.

Cal suddenly felt like a fleshy caterpillar waiting to get eaten in the wasp’s gaze.

Those things are not cute.

Ella raised a brow and waved her hand in a ‘you see?’ gesture.