Jacob

A warlock? Jacob thought, puzzled, though only for a moment as his senses returned, catching the two strangers' eyes boring down on him.

Jacob struggled with the knife, quaking under his grip, doubting if he was holding it correctly. It was the first time he had pulled it out of the leather sheath since his grandfather gave it to him back in the basement, a little heavy in his grasp. It was long, broad, and pointy, bigger than the length of his hand, and he could already see the two strangers sizing him up with it.

At the corner of his eye, he could see his reflection on the steel, and there wasn't much to look at, just a stupid scrawny little kid, dirtied and scruffy, who could barely brandish the blade as he trembled in his boots. Jacob had never attacked someone before nor tried to stab them, and he doubted he would ever have that kind of bone in his body. He had never punched another kid ever, let alone tried to start a fight in school.

The Polar Bear, narrowing his gaze, gauged Jacob's threat as barely an inconvenience. Jacob could see it in the way the bear took a tentative step forward, how he loosened his grip on the sword's handle, his shoulders slumped, his gaze more focused on Jacob than the blade on his hand.

Jacob knew the mean bear could swipe the dagger out of his grip in a single stroke, and he feared it would pull his arm out of his sockets with it. The bear was huge, the top of Jacob's head barely reached the middle of Harken's belly, and if he would smash his massive paws on his head, it would surely burst like a pulp.

Jacob took his surroundings for a quick second. The river was behind him, only a few paces away, and in front of him was the woods. Jacob thought he could never run back, and he didn't want to risk running across the river again. He thought he heard cracks when he stepped foot on it, and he didn't want to find out how cold the water was underneath the ice. Jacob swallowed a whimper, reeled back, and saw an opening to the side of Harken, wide enough for him to slide off and sprint into the woods.

He needed a distraction, but he was at a loss of what to do.

Running out of time, he knew he had no choice.

"Ahh! Ahh!" Jacob roared, tried to be intimidating, but his voice ended up like a shrilling shriek that a little toddler would make. Max's eyes shot down to look at him with worry, helpless, unable to move in his translucent cage.

The strangers didn't flinch, and he swore he saw a little amused smile creeping on the lizard's face.

Jacob glanced at the dagger in his grasp for a split second. He had seen it in movies many times, how the action heroes always threw the knife at the bad guys. Acting quickly, Jacob grabbed the dagger by the steel, not minding how clumsy it felt between his fingers, following his vague recollection of how they did it.

He flung the knife toward the giant bear, but the blade wavered in the air, didn't take into account the wind, the distance, or the strength of his throw, arching wide toward the bear. The butt of the knife thumped on Harken's leather armor, just above where his private parts were supposed to be, and the blade clattered to the snowy mound beneath Reema's feet.

Reema barked a laugh as Harken tried to shield that area with the back of his paw. His eyes told Jacob everything he needed to know that the bear didn't appreciate the move one bit.

Jacob bolted to the right, toward the tree line, out of the river's bank, never mind that his legs hurt so bad he could almost cry with every step he made, the undergrowth and the rocks beneath the snow making it harder for him to run correctly.

But he never made it that far.

A hard blow to the back of his head, his foot caught on an uproot, toppled him over with only a thick mound of snow breaking his fall. He might've rolled twice, maybe three, down the river bank until his foot cracked the icy borders, the streaming waters trapped around his exploded ankles, and feasted on his flesh like piranhas.

Jacob let out a screech, panic seizing his throat as he scrambled up the embankment, away from the icy waters. He felt his foot went numb, but he was too distracted with what was happening that he didn't notice a hand grabbed the hood of his cloak, dragging him off the bank.

The next thing he knew, he was hauled toward a tree, and then came face-to-face with Harken's sneering glare right close to his own.

His body went rigid, felt the bark of the tree scraping his back. Reema and Harken crowded over him from both sides. There was nowhere left to go. His mind swimming with images of his mangled corpse, and Jacob, shaking profusely, crumpled into a heap, hugged his knees close to his chest, and forced to close his eyes.

"Please don't eat me!" Jacob squealed.

Reema barked another laugh. "Oh! We're not going to eat you—!" She stopped, her voice almost cracking, stuck in her throat.

Every sound seemed magnified. Their boots crunched over the snow, halted mid-stride, waiting. Jacob tried to think of anything aside from the coming blow of the bear's blade or the strange red lizard's unnatural flying flames. None of it came, but he could still feel their presence looming close.

"Did he just speak Ruvarik?" Reema asked, flummoxed.

"No," Harken said, "I heard Kiri."

Jacob dared to open his eyes, curiosity urging him on. He could feel his fear seeping away, but it was still there, warm and roiling, uncontrollably trembling his muscles. Jacob felt like suffocating.

He saw the two strangers shared a doubtful glance, obviously mystified by what they heard, but Jacob swore he spoke English. They spoke in English. He didn't know what made them stop all of a sudden.

Suddenly, Harken turned to regard him once again, crouched lower, and sniffed him with his stubby black nose. From this close, Jacob could see the mucous coating it like a dog.

"Speak," Harken ordered, a low rumble in his voice.

"I…" Jacob's lips quivered, trying to scramble his brain. "I don't know what you wanted me to say."

Harken reeled back, his expression remained in a curl, shooting daggers at him. "Its too fast. They've only been here for less than a week," he said.

"Finding an Adherer certainly speeds things up," scoffed Reema.

"I didn't find him," Jacob crowed.

"So, the Adherer found you? Ha!" Harken huffed. "See? Worse than I thought."

"But to see the tether reached out so quickly…" Reema mused, tilted her head to the side as if to observe him carefully, only making it worse for Jacob to think that he was fast becoming a lab rat for these two.

Their posture seemed to change. Reema wasn't guarded anymore, gazing down at him curiously while Harken's grip on his sword relaxed a little bit. Not like the ones they made when they found out he was a Warlock, whatever that meant. Jacob still couldn't wrap his head around a talking Polar Bear and an upright lizard that could make fires out of her scaly hands.

"Faustus will want this one," Harken said, "the things we could do, what we could achieve."

Reema nodded, thinking. One of her upper two limbs held her staff in one hand, and her chin with the other, the lower two both pressed on her hips, a posture Jacob knew too well when his mother was considering something heavy, sometimes usually a big punishment for not doing his homework in time.

"There's only one slight problem I see with that plan, Harken. The humans will come after us," Reema said.

Harken snorted. "If they can keep up. We'll be long gone."

"You don't know their tenacity."

"And neither do you."

"I've read books. It's enough to paint a pretty picture."

"Well, these aren't like your pretty books."

Reema scoffed spitefully. "You should try one for the first time in your life, Kyrian. Oh, right. I forgot. Education is beneath your kind."

"Watch it, Ruvari. Red flesh is still meat," Harken said, spreading a toothy grin.

Reema took another huff. "Hmph! Have it your way, then. It's your human, your call."

It took Jacob a few seconds to realize what she meant, and the mere thought of abandoning his father and the rest almost made him want to burst into tears, wanting to lash out and cry as far as his voice would take him, across the river, up the mountains, and through the woods. But he sat frozen on the ground, legs too wobbly to make a move, his head clouded by his fizzling spine to act.

"I am not a Warlock…" Jacob whimpered, trying to make his case, wanting to convince them that they shouldn't bring him with them to whoever Faustus was.

"Quiet," Harken snapped.

"But what about the mission?" Reema pressed on.

"Let it go…" Harken groaned.

Reema ignored him. "We still have to lead them south away from The Dark."

"Well, I just changed it," Harken said, shrugging.

"You can't do that!"

"I just did. My human, my call, remember?"

"I didn't mean to also change the main mission."

"They have a Warlock now. That changes everything."

"Too green."

"Still dangerous."

"How can you be so sure? It barely put up a fight with that flimsy dagger of his." Reema sauntered toward the blade sticking out of the ground and picked it up, studying it closer. "Looks expensive," she mused.

"Have you forgotten already what a Warlock can do?"

"Give it a rest. It's been two hundred years!" Reema hissed. "You weren't even born yet."

"And now an Adherer has found him in such a little time. I hate coincidences, Reema. This little pup goes with us to Faustus. Last I checked, he wasn't camped too far along with the others."

"But the other humans—"

"They'll survive for a week or two without me. They'll manage. I've seen it."

No! Jacob mustered the strength to sit right up. No matter where they were taking him, he didn't want to be there, whoever Faustus was and what he would do to him. He shuddered to imagine how far he'll end up away from his father, Connor, Eli, and the rest.

"I'll be good!" He found himself saying, "I'll be good! I swear! I won't tell anyone that I' m—uh—a Warlock! I don't even know what that means!"

"Oh, you will, little pup. When a Seeker finds you, you will. And I can't let that happen," Harken said.

"I'll be good! Just let me go! I'll be good! I promise!" Jacob cried out desperately, scrambling to get back up to his feet.

They argued for another minute or so, and Jacob wanted to keep telling them that he would be good, that he can be useful, hoping they could see clearly that he wouldn't even tell his father and the others what he had seen, what Reema could conjure out of her staff and that ugly sneer the bear made every time he looked at him. He wanted to let them know that he was stupid, and that he made a mistake wandering around the woods like an idiot, and that they shouldn't fear Max since he's a good friend who helped them every day, not some monster they believed he was.

I am not a monster! I am not dangerous! He wanted to scream, but his fear overflowed like a tub rapidly filling with water, drowning in his thoughts as the two ugly creatures debated what to do with him.

Finally, Harken cast the last blow. "Make another block on the Adherer," Harken said to Reema. "We can't risk it running loose. We got lucky last time."

"On it."

Jacob couldn't think straight as panic seized, his eyes covered by tears welling across his periphery, blurring the woods, blurring his only way out. He wiped them off, and he swore he caught a little pity coming from Reema as her gaze landed on him.

She lightly tapped the bulbous top of her staff on the orb that imprisoned Max in the air, frozen in half a snarl. The weightless orb glowed for a split second, swirling some thin green mass around it—a block, which Harken had mentioned.

Harken approached Jacob with the hulking stomp of his boots, crunching under his massive weight, and he sheathed his sword back in its case as he drew close to him.

"This will sting a bit, little pup," Harken said before he brought the back of his fist down and connected at the side of Jacob's temple.

The world wavered and turned, dark clouds converging from the periphery.

[First Encounters]

[You Met Bardos Harken, The Kyrian]

[You Met Reema Fa-Kameed, The Ruvari]

[Lore Achieved - Level 1]

[Skill Unlocked - Melee Combat]

[Skill Unlocked - Out of Sight]

Not again, Jacob groaned, trying to slap away the popups flooding his vision.

But as they faded away into the gloom, another one slowly replaced it. Once the words became more evident, his eyes widened.

[Kill Them]

Jacob awoke with a start, but darkness was all there was.