I started meditating; I was rotating the energy around my meridians. I had noticed that my new meridians were a lot easier to flow the energy around in and with the better flow I was able to circulate the energy around myself a lot more times. I had cracked into the nineties the day after I got my new meridians and my rate of improvement was increasing, just as John had predicted.

I had noticed that every 30 rotations my abilities would spike: after the first 30, I had reached the peak of the human physique. After 60 rotations my body had been broken down and born anew, I was now beyond the human limits of physical attributes, supernaturally strong, supernaturally fast. 90 quite honestly was a disappointment, sure my physical attributes increased, but not by much the main thing that happened was I was able to form a thin projection of void particles outside my body temporarily sealing of myself from the outside world.

After 90 I could hold the void sphere for around 10 seconds. In these last 2 weeks I had reached to 99 rotations this allowed me to hold the invisible barrier up for about 90 seconds. I was about to break into the 100s and become a true mage. There was a bottleneck between 99 and 100. At the moment I was a mage disciple but after breaking through into the 100s I would become a true mage. Finally taking a step into what John called the true world.

It was after midnight that I woke up from my meditation, not having made any progress beyond 99 rotations. I was woken up by a loud ripping noise. I opened my eyes to see a sword blade ripping my tent apart, slashing towards me. I hurriedly dodged out of the way. I rolled out of the tent from the front, without grabbing my sword or any weapon. I ducked and rolled to the left out of some kind of instinct. I felt something cold whiz past me as I rolled away, I turned around and looked up to see my assailant’s face, but it was too dark. There was enough moonlight to see the shiny sword but not enough for me to clearly make out the attackers face.

I scrambled to my feet and moved left avoiding a thrust, I tilted my body avoiding an upward slash, and I ducked underneath a decapitating strike. I kept dodging and retreating moving away from the tents moving myself to a more open ground.

Then I heard his cackling laughter, I instantly knew who he was. “I heard you’ve been actin’ like some kind of genius swordsman, fighting multiple opponents on your own, showin’ off your fancy sabre techniques. Teaching MY RECRUITS! You lowly, filthy pleb, reaching above your station” he raved “you beat me by cheating and then used MY reputation to cheat your way into becoming the best swordsman here. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST! YOU RUINED MY PLANS!!!”

I avoid a thrust at my shoulder, he was ranting and raving, but he was also swinging the sword. He didn’t do the villain thing and stop to monologue. The raving lunatic was multi-tasking. “Hello David” I said back, narrowly avoiding another slash. “nice to see you out and about, haven’t seen you for this past fortnight, where have you been pal?” a thought went through my head of {why am I antagonising the crazy man with the sword?} But that thought was interrupted by a vertical slash, which I avoided by side stepping to the right. He swung backhand with a horizontal slash, I had predicted this move and already moved out of his range.

“You dirty rat! Stop dodging and fight me!” he shouted, people were waking up and starting to get out of their tents by this point. Hopefully someone would come and subdue him.

“No thanks” I said ducking underneath another wild swing, I wanted no parts of him. I was hoping that he would make enough noise that some of the other soldiers would notice and come deal with it.

He swung back, I dodged backwards. I fell into his trap. The backswing was a feint and he changed his swing midway and turned it into a thrust. The sword should have pierced me through, but I was saved by my new void infused skin. The sword barely left a scratch as it slid past my waist ripping my tunic. A light gleamed in David’s eye; he now knew that I was more than human. He had felt the contact with my skin and instead of gutting me all he had managed to do was ruin my night shirt.

David was opening his mouth to reveal my secret. I hurriedly summoned my kukri behind my back. I intended to use my supernatural speed to silence him. “I KNEW YOU WER--” an arrow pierced him through the neck. At the same time I had moved stabbing him through the chest.

It’s hard to stab someone in the chest. The chest offers natural protections other parts of the body don’t. The ribcage is a lot harder to penetrate than you would think from Hollywood movies. There are the hard bones and two layers of strong intercostal muscle, the lungs which is soft and kind of like a sponge and the heart, which is surprisingly thick and hard to pierce as it is surrounded by the double walled fibrous pericardial sac. But I managed it. I saw David’s eyes go wide as he realise what had happened, then I had to close my eyes as some blood sprayed onto my face from the neck wound. I pulled my knife out, and blood gushed out. His mouth was filled with blood as the blood rushed out of his heart and filled his lungs. He died pretty quickly as the blood was no longer being pumped into his brain and the brain cells died of oxygen deprivation.

Various thoughts went through my head:

#1: who shot that arrow?

#2: Is it still Deus ex-Machina if you were about to kill him anyway?

#3: I just murdered someone, it was an active choice, he had found out about my secret and I had actively decided he could not be allowed to live.

#4: It is a lot harder to stab someone than I realised. It was. People don’t realise it but they naturally hold back some of their strength in a fight. It takes years of training or some psychopathy to fully consciously hit someone full force. It’s like those brick breaking karate videos, the key is to aim through the brick and follow through. Normal people instinctually aim at the top of the brick and don’t follow through.

I collapsed on the grass, sitting down opposite the body. I took a couple of deep ragged breaths, turned over on all fours and started to heave. I wasn’t feeling sick to my stomach. That would come later. This was the excess adrenaline. I saw Isiah come walking up, he had his own hunting bow in his hand, a quiver slung on his back. I guess I knew who shot David. He offered me his hand to pull me up, I gladly accepted. I grabbed his hand with my hands (which still trembling from the excess adrenaline still coursing through my body) and he pulled me up.

“Thanks” I said, he knew I meant for shooting David and not for picking me up

“You’re heavier than you look” he said acknowledging my thanks, not mentioning anything about my bloodied hands.

“What happened here!?” Staff Sergeant Randel said coming through the crowd that was forming. He was followed by Corporal Mark.

He had a lit torch with him, he pointed it down to look at the body, when he saw that it was David’s he furrowed his brows and then sent Mark to check on the brig and see what had happened to the person who was supposed to be guarding David.

The Staff Sergeant noticed the arrow sticking out of David’s neck and Isiah’s bow and said “you two follow me”

We followed behind quietly; he took us into the medical tent. Not where I was expecting, I was expecting the command tent or straight to the brig, not the medical tent.

He looked at my upper body and commanded “strip” I immediately took my ruined shirt off. The medic came bustling in, yawning.

“Check him out” he said to the medic pointing at me.

“It’s just a scratch” I said. It was just a scratch I could feel how deep the thrust went and I knew that it hadn’t penetrated deeply at all. But it was bleeding profusely so the jack the medic checked me out. He cleaned up the wound and wrapped it and pronounced that it was indeed just a scratch.

“So, what happened?” the Sergeant asked brusquely.

I explained to him about sleeping in my tent when I heard it being ripped. I told him about me avoiding the wild slashes from an unknown assailant, about recognizing it was David because of his mad rantings, about him wanting to kill me because “I took his rightful place as the best swordsman”. I then told him about him nearly stabbing me through, about the arrow piercing his throat and then me stabbing him through the chest.

He seemed to have figured most of it out already and was nodding along to my story. “Why didn’t you use your knife from the beginning?” he asked

“He was stark raving mad, I thought me being unarmed might calm him down. I was really just hopping to distract him long enough for someone to sneak in from the back and tackle him to the ground. I didn’t want to kill” I said being completely honest about the situation.

He turned to Isiah. “Why did you shoot him? Why not wait for someone more experienced?”

“I saw Emris lead him away towards the opening, the fight woke me up. I saw that Emris was unarmed so I took my hunting bow when I went outside. When I saw him almost stab Emris I thought I should end this, so I loosed my arrow.”

“Why did you aim at his throat not his back? It was a dark night” the Sergeant asked. I sat upright at that question I hadn’t actually thought about it until that point, but that shot was incredibly accurate and well timed. It was not a fluke.

“My aim was off, I was training with the practice bows and my own hunting bow is weighted different. I was aiming for his heart.” He said. I saw that the Sergeant had bought it, but after 4 months of being friends, I could tell that he was lying. An arrow shot through the neck from 50 yards on a dark night, it shouldn’t have been possible, but my instincts told me that Isiah had done just that.

“That’s a strange knife, where did you get it?” the Sergeant asked looking at my knife

“My dad got it for me. he said it was modelled after the old Greek swords called kopis.” I lied. I don’t think the kukri and the kopis were related by history, but the shapes were remarkably similar so I knew that lie would work.

The Sergeant asked to see the kukri; he weighed the thing in his hands and gave it a couple of swings. “It’s heavy and unbalanced” he said “It swings like an axe” which is true, the forward curvature of the kukri made it front heavy by design. This gave it tremendous chopping power, and the thick spine and large size did make the kukri a pretty hefty weapon.

“It’s a memento from my father” I said, taking the knife back.

“Sarge, you should come have a look at this” we heard from the other side of the tent, someone had brought David’s corpse in through the other side, and the medic was examining the body

Autopsy were a taboo in the 6th century so there wasn’t going to be a medieval version of CSI, the cause of death was obvious anyway, exsanguination due to a stab to the heart and I was the culprit, case closed.

The medic had taken David’s tunic off, and had him prone on the bench, his back facing the ceiling. There was a weird shaped tattoo on his back underneath his left shoulder; it was very small about the size of a pea. I don’t even think anyone would notice it unless one was looking for it.

It looked like Ψ, the Greek letter psi. I didn’t know what that meant so I looked at the Sergeant.

“The witches Mark” he said grimly. “None of what we say gets out of this tent, do I make myself clear?” he said looking at both me and Isiah.

We nodded

“That is the witches Mark, which means he was a traitor, working for the witch. She must have been trying to influence his mind and something went wrong which is probably why he was acting so strange.” He said. He turned to us and said “If anyone asks, tell them he went insane, due to petty jealousy.”

Mark came rushing in through the front flaps of the tent, behind him were two of the more burly soldiers in the platoon, they were carrying a body through the tent. “How did he die?” I asked.

“He’s not dead, just unconscious.” Mark laughed. “It’s just a bump on the head.”

“You shouldn’t have moved him; he is going to wake up with the world’s worst headache.” I said relieved.

The medic mixed something noxious smelling in a bowl and the room started smelling strongly of ammonia, he brought the bowl to the unconscious soldier’s nose. The soldier woke up with a start, he was disorientated and holding his head. I walked over, while the medic threw out the noxious liquid. I took a candle from the table; I lit the candle using the caged torch that was being used to light the tent.

I snapped my fingers to get the man’s attention. “Look at the candle in my hand. Follow the flame.” I moved the candle to the left and then to the right, he had trouble following the light. He was obviously concussed. “Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is?” I asked.

“It’s Tuesday and I am at the training camp.” He said annoyed and confused.

“It’s Friday, you got hit in the head, you are going to be confused and disorientated for a while. You may also feel a little sick.” I said handing him a bowl. “You could be bleeding inside your skull, I am sorry but I am going to keep you awake for the night, to make sure you are fine.” I had him chew on some willow bark to help with the pain. Probably not the best idea since aspirin (which is what willow bark is) also has an antiplatelet effect so if he really was bleeding inside this would make it worse.

I asked the medic to have someone stay with the soldier to keep the waking the soldier up once every hour. In the two weeks since I had met him the medic refused to tell me his name. But we had become familiar, he had seen me work and had realised I was a fairly good medic and he had come to trust my medical advice. We could almost be considered friends; but the bastard still wouldn’t tell me his name though.

I walked outside the tent only to be greeted by Mark. “What happened?”

I explained the whole thing again, from the beginning. He frowned when I told him about the arrow to the neck and how Isiah had misaimed, but otherwise said nothing. I left out the part about the witch’s symbol tattooed on David; I also left out the part about my skin and actively deciding to murder David to protect my secret, obviously.

Mark looked at me sighed, and said “David was always a hot head, but he had been acting stranger since last year.” He looked into the stars, so I did the same. They were different than the ones I remembered from modern times, the sky was different. There were more stars visible, the light pollution from modern times obscured so much of the night sky, the milky way was visible where as it was impossible to see during normal times from the cities or the suburbs.

“You killed your first man, you will kill again. It’s the soldier’s life. It is going to change you. You lose a part of yourself every time you take a life, not a big part, just the part that matters the most. It can chip away you, sometimes it breaks you and you run away from it all to become a barley farmer, like Mathew. Sometimes it just scars you until all you are left with his a gruff calloused old man who lives for battle.” He sighed and looked back down; I continued staring at the sky contemplating his words

“My advice; find a woman who loves you, marry her, have a bunch of kids. The killing can’t take away what you have already given away”

I turned to face him “do your parent’s know of this family?” I asked.

“Not yet, I am scared that mother wouldn’t approve.” He said

I scoffed “Bess is the kindest most generous soul I have ever met. All she wants is your happiness”

“It is more complicated than that. Liz is the widow of my former squad mate and she has a one year old boy. I love him like my own, but I am afraid my mother wouldn’t understand” he said.

“Is that the reason you won’t go back?” I asked

“Yeah”

“Do you love her? If you love her then Bess will love her. Your mom worries about you” I sighed “I feel tired, how am I going to sleep? my tent is all ruined.”

“Probably best if you don’t wake up the quartermaster, wait till tomorrow morning.” He patted me on the shoulder and went on his way.

I walked back to my ruined tent and started picking through the wreckage. It wasn’t that bad, the only thing that was damaged was my tent, my pack with all of my clothes and equipment were all okay. I was in the middle of repacking when I heard a polite cough behind me, I turned around.

“We should talk” Isiah said to me.

“Yes, we should.” I said back.

We walked away from the camp. Walking in the opposite direction to the town, we had walked for about 10 minutes and we were now in the middle of a field, cattle grazing probably. There was nothing but grassland around us and we would be able to see anyone before they came into earshot.

There was awkward silence around us for a moment before Isiah broke the silence. “You aren’t a normal human.” Not a question, a statement. “I saw David make contact, he should have run you through. You aren’t working for the witch or David wouldn’t have hated you. Who are you?”

“No, I am not a normal human. And no I don’t work for the witch, I hadn’t even heard of her till Mark came riding into the village.” I said “as to whom I am, my name really is Emris, I was born a mage. Both my parents were normal humans and everything I have said about them is the truth” I said lying, even when revealing my secrets I couldn’t reveal that I was from the future.

“I am not like those normal mages. I can’t control fire or the wind or water or lightning. All I can do is store stuff.” I explained what my power was and how I had come to find out about them, minus all modern things.

“You aren’t just a simple human either; no ordinary human would have been able to see me being stabbed from 50 yards away, on a dark night. And no ordinary human would be able to shoot someone through the neck at 50 yards on a dark night. What are you?”

“No, I am not an ordinary human. I am a were, a turned were. Specifically I am a were-cat” he said whilst changing his hand into a paw, his eyes became vertical slits.

My best friend is a were-cat