Viora managed to heal Vasily for about a minute before her eyes rolled up in her head and she dropped toward the floor. I managed to snatch her before she hit the stones and lowered her gently before glancing at Vasily. The man obviously wasn’t fully healed – his skin was still red and blotchy, he had a line of blisters running from his left ear down his chin, and when I touched his skin, he flinched away without waking. Still, he was breathing easily now, his eyes closed, which told me that he was probably out of danger.

I took the Elder off the altar and put the Priestess on it. The welts on her skin looked angrily at me, but they weren’t bleeding, and they didn’t seem to sink down into her flesh. I guessed that she she suffered from exhaustion more than injury, and my hope was that the altar would recharge her batteries.

I checked over Vasily and Renica as best I could, using my limited knowledge of first aid from Earth. Both breathed normally, and neither of them were in danger of bleeding out. They were just out cold. I didn’t have to look hard to find the source of Renica’s lack of consciousness. The woman had a massive goosebump on the back of her head, and I didn’t envy her the headache she’d probably wake up with. Her pupils dilated normally when I peeled back her eyelids, though, so I figured if she had a concussion, it probably wasn’t a serious one.

Vasily didn’t have an obvious cause for passing out, but after seeing how much pain he’d been in, I didn’t blame him for fainting the moment that agony eased. I could have awakened him, but I didn’t; he likely needed a short rest. I let him lay on the floor and stood up, wondering what I should be doing. I supposed I could go see if the loggers needed help, or maybe ask if anyone else wanted an extra hand, but I didn’t. My eyes fastened on Viora’s spell book, which rested tantalizingly on her desk.

There was no way I was going to try to cast any of the spells in that book, that was certain. I’d just watched what was basically the poster child for how magic could go wrong, even for someone as skilled as Viora seemed to be. Of course, I didn’t actually know if she was skilled or not, but she seemed pretty good to me, and I knew I wouldn’t be that good. So, I was definitely not interested in fiddling around with those spells.

However…

I walked over to the book, glancing at the others as I did, and flipped to the first page. I didn’t understand anything on it except the title, “Solar Luminance”, and a few phrases here and there like “raise your hands to receive the sun’s blessing” or “ruminate on the light within”. The thing was, I wasn’t trying to decipher the book. I just wanted Sara to see it. The AI was much, much better than I was at that sort of thing.

“Got it,” she said in my mind. “I know how that spell works.”

“Really? That quickly?”

“It’s probably the simplest spell in there, John,” the AI replied a bit deprecatingly. “It’s not really that big of a deal. Do you want to turn to the next page? The more spells I work out, the better I’ll be at helping you create spells that are more suited to you than healing and making light.”

“Are you suggesting that I wouldn’t make a great healer?” I scoffed, grinning.

“Are you suggesting that you would?” she countered with a laugh. “Remember your ‘altered’ alchemy attempts on Kuan Yang that healed you and blew up a giant monster?”

“Okay, fair point.” I flipped to the next page, reading the title, “Hands of Warmth”. It didn’t take long for Sara to work out that one, too, and I moved on to the next one, “Sun’s Tendril”. I made it through three more spells before a cough startled me out of my perusal. I quickly looked up, resisting the urge to slam the book shut. That would look like an act of guilt; a smarter move would be to pretend I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“You won’t get anything out of that book, lad,” Vasily groaned, rising to a sitting position and rubbing one of his temples. “Ugh, that blast nearly did me in.” He grinned at me. “What a shame that would have been, eh? To survive twenty years of military service, three wars, and the Battle of Lotec just to end it all to an augury gone wrong. I’d never have lived it down in the Long Halls of Cere.”

“I’m glad you survived it, then,” I said.

“Only because you ended the augury when you did – if a bit haphazardly.” He shook his head. “Not sure how you did that, to be honest. I couldn’t even stand, and you were up and walking.”

He sighed and rose unsteadily to his feet, using the wall to brace himself. I moved to help him, but he waved away my hands. “I’m fine, Ionat. I’ve suffered worse.” He took a deep breath. “Still, you saved my life, as well as Renica’s – and, most importantly, the Sorvaraji’s.”

“You’re the village leader, Vasily. I thought saving you would be the most important thing.”

He shook his head. “The heart of this village is that altar, lad. Its magic keeps most of the mooncursed away, and the Sorvaraji’s spells heal and purge us of their taint when they do attack. She keeps us all healthy, restores us when we’re hurt or sick, and ensures that crops that shouldn’t grow in this soil flourish.

“More importantly, though, she’s our spiritual leader. I might be Borava’s head, but she’s its heart and soul. I can teach them how to fight; she makes them believe they can and gives them a reason to.” He looked at me grimly. “Go to any small village in the Kingdom of Vutana, and you’ll hear the same. The Altar of the Sun is the center of the village, the reason it stands against the moons and their children.”

He straightened, imperfectly concealing a grimace of pain. “That’s why I’m glad that you saved her, even if it might have meant all our lives. Borava will continue when I’m gone, but without a Sorvaraji…” He sighed. “If there’s ever a time when you have to save someone in this village, lad, make sure it’s her. You hear me?”

“I think you might be overdramatizing my abilities a bit, Vasily,” I laughed, but he shook his head grimly.

“I’m an old soldier, Ionat, and I’ve faced every kind of fighter there is in my day. I can tell an infantryman from a cavalryman by the way he walks, a swordsman from an axe man by the way he stands. And you…” He hesitated. “You’re no soldier. You think too much; I can see the questions in your eyes. Soldiers who think too much die on the battlefield.

“You’re not an officer, either. You can tell those right away; they take over any place they find themselves in. No, you – you’re a hunter, Ionat, but not like Renica. I see the look in your eye, how you’re aware of everything around you. You don’t go after game; you hunt omeni. Am I right?”

I considered lying to the man, but the simple fact was, I didn’t know enough to come up with a good lie. Any story I concocted to explain my particular skills would be easy to pick apart, and for the time being, I needed this man to trust me. Once I knew more about this world, I could leave the village in safety, but for the moment, I didn’t have much choice. Honesty was the best policy.

“Yes,” I sighed after a moment. “I’m something like a bounty hunter, Vasily; a person who hunts those who need to be hunted.”

He nodded his head. “Good.”

That wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. I figured he’d demand answers, maybe insist that I leave the village. “Good?”

“Yes.” He looked over at Viora. “I didn’t understand everything she said,” he admitted. “Auguries tend to be vague at best. I did get part of it, though. Someone in the Darkwood’s Heart is causing the problems in the forest, and whoever they are, they need to be stopped – probably killed.”

He glanced down at Renica’s unconscious form. “Renica isn’t a killer, Ionat. She’s a hunter. She can take down animals, but a person?” He shook his head. “You know how hard that can be.”

That was true; it was hard to kill a person, at least when you’d never done it before. We’re all wired not to hurt and kill others, and a soldier or assassin has to overcome that instinct. That was a big part of my training in the army; not to kill per se, but to get into a mindset where I did what had to be done and followed orders. The fact that those orders involved killing was secondary. What mattered was that I was willing to follow them and carry them out.

“So, you want me to find this person and deal with them?” I asked.

“Yes, but not until after the close moon has passed. The Heart is at least a two-day trek.” He sighed. “In the meantime, put that book away. As I said, you won’t get anything out of it. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“You have?” I asked, surprised again.

“Of course. Viora lets anyone who wants to look inside.” Vasily laughed. “She’s wise enough to know that forbidding it would just encourage people to try.” He gestured to the book. “The arcane mathematics and formulae require years of study just to understand, apparently. You can’t just copy them and make a spell happen. Again, I’ve tried. It doesn’t do anything.”

I nodded, not saying anything. Vasily was right; I probably wouldn’t be able to decipher the spells in that volume. However, Sara could, and once she understood, she could teach me. I wasn’t worried about the math involved – I’d gotten all the way through calculus in high school, and while I didn’t remember it all, I figured I’d pick it up again quickly enough – but I’d probably need help with the more esoteric concepts. Still, I couldn’t wait to start learning how to use spells; assuming Sara had enough information to get started, of course.

“Maybe, John. I’ll see what I can come up with. I think it’s best to start with an existing spell or two, rather than creating new ones right out the bat, though. You’re probably right; some of the concepts are going to be tricky to envision.”

“So, should we do anything about these two?” I asked, gesturing at the slumbering women.

“Not much we can do, really. It looks like the Sorvaraji just needs to rest, and there’s no point in taking Renica out of the altar if Viora needs to heal her when she wakes up.” He straightened. “I promised you some axe training, and I intend to keep that promise.”

“Vasily, you’re not in any shape to spar with me…”

The old man chuckled. “You might be surprised, lad. I’ve fought through worse. But we won’t be sparring today. Today is all about learning to use a war axe, not that little toy at your hip.” He turned toward the door leading out of the altar. “Follow me.”

I walked after the man, noticing that he moved with a definite limp. I could almost feel the discomfort in his steps, but he didn’t make a sound. As he said, he was an old soldier; soldiers knew how to push through pain.

I followed him to the middle of the commons, which stood empty of the tables and chairs that filled it earlier. Glancing at the grass, I let my eyes follow the drag and scuff marks that led to a dozen different homes. It looked like a large chunk of the villagers donated their tables for use for the communal lunch. Either that, or there simply wasn’t a space big enough to store everything, so they spread it out among a bunch of houses.

People kept stopping the old man and asking him what happened, but he waved them off with the claim that the Sorvaraji would explain later. I noticed he didn’t say how much later, though, and no one seemed to press him on it. Either the villagers weren’t that curious about his obvious injuries – which seemed unlikely since they were asking him about them – or they trusted him implicitly. That spoke well of the elder, but it also reminded me that I didn’t really know these people or understand how Vasily had gained such trust. It was smarter to reserve judgment until I knew more, despite how likeable and friendly the old man seemed.

Vasily reached out and grasped the upper arm of a tall, muscular man, one that stood a solid three inches taller and probably weighed thirty pounds more than I did. “Serghei, please fetch a pair of war axes and bucklers from the armory.”

“Yes, Elder.” The man bobbed his head and hurried off.

“I thought we weren’t sparring?” I said, looking dubiously at the wounded elder.

“We aren’t, but someone needs to show you the forms you’ll be practicing,” Vasily pointed out. “Serghei is the head of the village militia, and he’s skilled with an axe – at least, skilled enough to start your instruction.”

The weapons the man carried back were deceptively simple. The war axe consisted of a five-foot-long wooden pole with a single four-inch-wide axe blade that was far thinner that the wedges of steel I’d used to cut trees the day prior. An eight-inch, flat spearhead jutted from the top, and a conical spike six inches long stuck out the opposite direction as the blade. Serghei handed it to me, and I hefted the weapon, getting a feel for it. It was honestly lighter than I’d been expecting – and far less ornate.

“This is a war axe?” I asked. It wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting.

“Is there something wrong with it?” Vasily asked.

“Well – I thought they were bigger,” I admitted. “You know, a solid metal shaft, double-bitted, with huge blades that could cut through an entire person.”

Vasily chuckled. “You’re thinking of a great axe, Ionat, and you don’t want to use one of those, trust me. They’re terrible weapons.”

“Why? I would think the extra mass would help cut through things, and having the second blade would be useful if the first got dull.”

Vasily shook his head and held out his hand, taking Serghei’s axe from the larger man.

“A war axe is heavy enough to get through most armor, especially with the extra momentum the long haft grants it,” Vasily explained. He lowered the weapon, gripping it with one hand and using his forearm to brace it. “But it’s not so heavy you can’t use it one-handed with a shield in formation, which is important for a soldier in battle.” He lifted the weapon again and touched the axe blade. “This blade is wide enough to remove a limb or sever an enemy’s spine, but not so wide that the power is too spread out to penetrate armor.

“Great axes were designed to hunt mamatuks, the largest creatures on Soluminos. Their blades open huge gashes in the creatures, so they bleed out, the only reliable way to kill one since pikes and muskets don’t work well against them. Even so, it takes dozens of wounds to have any chance to bring one down, and only a sharp axe can get through their tough, shaggy hides, so the extra bit helps.

“Against an omeni – or most of the mooncursed, for that matter – great axes are too slow and unwieldy. The lightest ones weigh three times what that axe you’re holding does, and the heavy ones can be double that or more. Only the Pietan mesterzi and Hasrovan geroi use them in warfare, and they only use them as anti-cavalry weapons.”

Vasily chuckled. “They’re very good at that, by the way. When the Valanyans last invaded Hasrovo, they thought their trained vasak cavalry would give them an easy victory. The geroi quickly taught them otherwise. Geroi train daily with the great axe, and they’re all built like small mountains. They let the Valanyans charge and responded by using those axes to cut through the legs of the cavalry’s mounts. A vasak without a leg isn’t dangerous to anyone, and the Valanyans fell to the geroi short spears pretty quickly. The invasion was a disaster, and after that, Valany only wars with Isafured to their east.”

“You seem to be well versed in military history,” I noted.

The old man shrugged. “Winters are long and cold here, Ionat. By midwinter, the snow buries the village, and we don’t have teams to clear paths the way the cities do, so we’re all trapped here for moons. Reading is as good a way as any to occupy that time, and I’ve always found history to be a fascinating subject.” He smiled at me. “I have something of a library on the subject, and you’re welcome to peruse it if you’re interested.”

“I am,” I nodded, trying to hide my eagerness. History books were exactly what I needed, in fact. They would teach me about this world, the various kingdoms and cities I could visit, and maybe even the types of combatants I could expect to face. The more I learned, the faster I could adapt to this world and discover what was going wrong in it.

“Excellent. I’ll be happy to share it with you – after your training, of course.” He handed his axe back to Serghei. “Now, let’s get that buckler strapped on so we can begin…”

Axe training went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would. I followed Serghei through the steps of a basic form, one that mostly consisted of chopping, stepping forward, thrusting, and retreating. Some of the chops went diagonally, and there were two simple parries in there, but really, it was an easy form to learn. After the first repetition, I knew the moves, and it became a matter of doing them correctly. Even that wasn’t too hard; seeing Serghei perform them seemed to be enough for me to copy them fairly closely, so Vasily spent most of the time working on small corrections.

I repeated the form over and over without pause. I understood that; Vasily wanted me to build up muscle memory, so I could do the maneuvers without thinking about it later. It was why I spent so much time on Earth on the shooting range, practicing my Krav Maga, and working on knife fighting. Once the shit hit the fan, I couldn’t stop to think. I had to act. My body needed to know what to do without my guidance. This was the same thing.

After, I practiced using the buckler to stop attacks. Unlike the ones I’d seen in Renaissance Faires and such on Earth, this one was rectangular, a foot long and eight inches across, and strapped to my forearm and palm. It was basically a slightly curved piece of wood wrapped in leather, padded When Serghei first attacked me with a slow, heavily telegraphed blow, I tried to block it directly, and the impact shivered painfully up my arm. After that, I quickly learned to use the shield to deflect blows instead of stopping them, pushing them past me or down into the ground.

The training was hard, but it was also kind of fun. It was also much easier than I’d thought, and I picked up the movements much faster than I imagined I would have. I seemed to be hyper-aware of my body, and when Vasily corrected the small errors in my form, I adapted to the instruction immediately. Honestly, it was a little bit crazy. I’d always had a talent for fighting, but by the end of the session, I performed the blocks and axe form like I’d been doing it for weeks, not a couple hours.

“That’s the effect of your upgraded stats, John,” Sara explained. “Plus your Weapon Focus skill.”

“Are my stats really all that different than they were on Earth?” I asked dubiously. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Your Physical stats are currently about the same as they were on Earth, but your mental stats are fifty to a hundred percent higher. That’s why you’re getting all this so quickly; your ability to reason and understand is really improved over what it was on Earth.”

“I don’t think I’m any smarter, Sara,” I laughed.

“No? Tell me, John, what’s the answer to this question?” A math problem appeared in front of me, and I instinctively recoiled from it. While I was good at math, I always hated tests of any kind. As I glanced at it, though, I quickly realized that it wasn’t really hard, it had just been written to look ridiculously complex.

“Um, I think it’s pi,” I said a moment later.

“You’re right. Do you really think that you would have figured that out in your head back on Earth?”

“Well, it wasn’t hard. I mean, sure, it looked complicated, but once I saw how much of it canceled out thanks to trigonometric identities…” I paused and frowned. “Huh. I’m surprised I remember those.”

“That’s all part of your improved stats. Your memory is better, you’ll understand things just from looking at them, and you’ll piece together information faster than you used to. Your brain is vastly better at calculating than it used to be, your nerves are better at transmitting information than they were, and you’ve got better body awareness as a result. The skills are just icing on the cake.”

I wasn’t totally convinced, to be honest. As I said, I didn’t feel smarter than I had been; of course, that might have been a function of education over intellect. Just because I could learn faster didn’t mean I automatically gained a library in my head. I’d need to hit Vasily’s library later and see if my improved stats really made that much of a difference. Whatever the reason, though, my training had certainly had benefits, bringing my axe skill up to Initiate 9 and granting me a new skill.

Skill Gained: Armor Usage (Shields)

Rank: Neophyte 3

+1% to defense and -1% to damage per skill rank while using a shield.

Needless to say, Vasily also noticed the ease with which I picked up the axe forms, and he seemed both impressed and a little suspicious. My explanation that my prior training with weapons must have made it easier on me didn’t seem to convince him, but he didn’t argue with me.

We wrapped up the training as the evening meal was brought out, and I watched the villagers as they rapidly set up the long tables, brought food from various homes, and laid everything out swiftly and efficiently. It looked like a huge dance number, in a way, with each person performing their part perfectly. I would have offered to help, but I was pretty sure all I could do was get in the way.

Vasily left me with Serghei, who turned out to be a quiet young man with little enough to say. That was fine; I didn’t really feel like talking, either, and the silence was perfectly comfortable for me. Renica staggered out of the Altar of the Sun while we ate, clutching her head and wincing at the sunlight. She walked over to Vasily, who was monitoring and directing the meal, and spoke briefly with him before plunking down beside me.

“Serghei, do you mind grabbing me a plate?” she asked the young man. “I need to sit down for a minute.”

“Of course,” he replied, setting his half-eaten meal down and rising to his feet.

I glanced over at the young hunter. “How are you feeling?”

“My head is pounding,” she said tiredly. “I’m hoping some food will help.” She looked over at me. “Vasily said you two spoke about the augury.” I nodded. “And?” she asked.

“And what?”

She rolled her eyes and made a rude noise. “Vasily will have to send a party into the Darkwood Heart to investigate. I’ll have to go because I know the forest the best.” She grinned at me. “You want to come? We work well together.”

“Vasily sort of asked me to already,” I shrugged.

“Good.” She sighed. “Any idea what it all means?”

“Not a clue,” I said brightly. That wasn’t true; I had a few ideas about what Viora’s words meant, but I didn’t know enough to know if they were accurate. “You?”

“Nope. Hopefully, the Sorvaraji will wake up soon and tell us.” She took the plate from Serghei as he returned, and we ate quietly. Afterward, I retired to the Altar of the Sun and scanned through Viora’s spell book a bit more, giving Sara four more spells to play with. Then, I went back to reading the book the priestess first gave me, the one on magical theory. I read until darkness fell, when a loud, piercing scream rang out over the village, jerking me from my studies.

“To arms!” a call rang out a moment later. “To arms!” I tossed the book aside and ran out the door, where I found Vasily standing in the village, shouting. Other villagers rushed from their homes, several of them racing toward a large building and emerging moments later carrying handfuls of weapons.

“Arm yourself, Ionat,” Vasily said, his voice grim as he took a heavy halberd from a woman offering it.

I reached over and grabbed a war axe, one almost identical to the one I’d used earlier. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“The hungering are coming,” he said in a flat voice. “And we aren’t ready for them.”