Benjamin Vryce

He glanced down at Grace. She was doing her best to administer first aid to herself. That made him angry, he should have done a better job keeping her safe. He had let his mind wonder and it had cost her.

He bared his teeth at this new wolf. It was bigger than the others. Benjamin thought the first few looked like regular wolves he might see on TV, only the size of horses. This wolf by contrast was the size of a draft horse, and looked like a left over from the last ice age.

He looked over its thicker frame. Covered in fur, a dirty white color that was longer and shaggier than its companions. Its muzzle was also shorter and it had two long canines, reminiscent of a saber tooth from home, flush with its bottom jaw.

He flexed his blood-soaked claws. Glad for the wolves’ blood covering them, it helped hide the teeth marks slowly healing on his left forearm. It was the second wolf that had gotten him. It was sneaking up on Grace and he had prioritized speed over caution when dealing with it.

The injury was manageable. He flexed his hands again; he already had his full range of motion back. That was good, this foe was going to take his full strength. He continued to look the beast in its ice blue eyes. Not wanting to leave Grace unprotected, yet needing to end this threat.

The prehistoric wolf took the decision from his hands as it darted forward. Every instinct Benjamin had, told him to leap to the side and avoid the initial charge. With Grace behind him that wasn’t possible.

Instead, he moved forward to meet the charge. They met with a meaty thunk that, to Benjamin, felt like it should have rattled the leaves in the trees around him. It didn’t, but it rattled the teeth in his head.

He was bowled over backwards, ridden to the ground by the huge slobbering beast. It got its teeth into his shoulder and was worrying it like a dog with a bone. It wasn’t unscathed however. Benjamin had sunk his claws as deep as he could into the wolf’s ribcage.

Wrapping his fingers around a pair of ribs inside its body, he pulled. He was quickly losing the feeling in the arm that had been bitten into, but his healing ability was keeping him from bleeding out, even if it couldn’t heal the damage yet.

The wolf let out a muffled howl, as two of its ribs were pulled away from the connecting Cartlidge. It bit down harder on his shoulder and it was Benjamin’s turn to howl in pain. Holding on to the dislocated rib with one hand he shoved his other hand into the beast’s chest. Claws working madly, trying to find something vital to rip out.

This wasn’t a fight anymore; it was two monsters locked in a death match, one that was likely to claim both of their lives. Neither caring, as long as they took the other with them. Benjamin’s hand dropped out of the ice age wolf’s body. The shoulder wound having gotten deep enough to cut off his use of the arm.

As it fell away, he pulled himself up with his remaining arm and sank his teeth into the wolf’s neck. His fangs were too short to hurt the beast through its thick fur, but coupled with the maw wrapped around his shoulder they helped hold him in place.

He used the beasts own hold on him as leverage, to shove his remaining arm into the chest cavity. He ripped and tore at its insides, the beast was as good as dead from blood loss, but it looked like it was strong enough to finish Benjamin off before it succumbed.

For the second fight in a row, it was Grace that saved him. Still injured beyond when she should have considered fighting. Once she got the bleeding semi under control, she grabbed up the bearded axe in both hands and brought it down on the wolf’s skull.

The effort was all she could manage however. After her swing came to a stop in the beast’s head, her wounds reopened and she fell to the ground. The wolf, now in its death throws, scrabbled about releasing Benjamin from its jaws, as it rolled madly on the ground.

Benjamin was hurting, badly, but he set that aside as he rolled over to his companion. He hadn’t gotten any further on his seal, but he thought he might be able to heal her anyway. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the creation core of a dire squirrel.

Concentrating he pulled the power out and immediately funneled it into Grace. He couldn’t access his core properly, but he had already proven that he could use these cores as a stop gap. It worked, her wounds slowly closed and her breathing smoothed out.

Once he had completely healed her, he used the remaining essence to work on his own wounds. It didn’t heal all the way, but his body would take care of the rest. Besides, he didn’t want to waste the creation cores if he didn’t have too.

Rolling himself onto his feet from the first fight in a while that hadn’t rendered him unconscious. He went to work immediately, extracting the patterns and cores from these wolves. He had watched the white wolf flee, and didn’t want to risk still being here if reinforcements came.

“Grace,” he called to her as she stirred on the ground. “Grace, are you alright? I’m sorry to do this to you but you need to get up and ready to move. It’s not safe here.” He said, claws digging furiously into flesh as he harvested.

The goblin girl looked around, testing her shoulder. When she found it was no longer injured, she looked to Benjamin.

“Grace understands, thank you for healing her. She will get ready to travel now.” That said she climbed to her feet and started repacking her ant bag. It really was cool, he hoped they would be able to make something nice from the ant carapace when this was all over. Job done they quickly packed the patterns in leaves and moss for protection and set out again.

* * *

They continued to run for hours. The sun was still high in the sky. Not moving, it was dim down here from the leaves filtering it down. Benjamin had been vigilant since the wolf ambush but hadn’t seen anything, he decided he could risk a question.

“What’s up with the sun? It’s only been night time once since I’ve been here and it was way shorter than the day light.” He asked his companion. She looked better than she had before, he thought it was due to the soul essence he had fed into her to heal her wounds.

“From what Grace understands, Lord Erlking put this whole forest here just to train souls.” She said voice coming out labored. “It’s not a natural place so nothing can be treated as natural. Grace remembers one twenty-four-hour night for every six twenty-four-hour days, but she just cannot be sure.” She finished.

That was helpful. He didn’t want to bother her anymore while they were running at her top speed so he did some mental math. Great, unless he was mistaken than they would have half a day of light left when they reached their destination, before darkness fell.

Benjamin looked to his companion again. The inconsistencies in her memory worried him. He didn’t think she was in danger of losing herself or going insane. He just didn’t like how much it was weighing on her, she had struggled with it the whole trip.

He wondered if there was something in her pattern that he could tweak to help her. That made him wonder if messing with her pattern was ethical. The thoughts spiraled down from there. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now anyway. Once they got this trip finished, he would work on it.

The lack of attacks worried him. He knew the Erlking had to be aware he wasn’t working to finish the trial anymore. Yet he allowed him to go off course like this. He understood that the Erlking wasn’t all powerful or all knowing, just someone like him who had had millions of years to refine his powers.

That was enough to terrify him. He had grown so much in a matter of days, what would he be like in a million years? From what he understood he was immortal now, unless the corruption he was sent to fight could kill him for real.

He still didn’t have a clue what that even was. He could only guess that he wasn’t strong enough yet because they wouldn’t tell him about it at all. His thought continued to bounce around as he ran. He never let his eyes glaze over again though, that had been a close call before and he wouldn’t let it happen again.

After several more, long and boring hours. They were finally within sight of their goal. The pair had managed to shave a little time off their initial estimate, Grace had run faster after her healing then she had been able to maintain beforehand. They stopped short of running in, to rest and get ready.

“Are you ready for this?” Benjamin asked at last, after they had both had time to recover. She was eating a piece of boar jerky, while sitting on the hard shell of her ant pack. She looked up at him, a conflicted expression on her face.

“No, Grace isn’t ready for this…but… Grace thinks it is a good idea. Even if it does not work, she wants to try.” She said at last, resolutely.

He nodded his head at her in understanding. He didn’t really want to do it either, but thought that, in the long run it would be good for her. Looking inside himself, he saw the ant and wolf fights had depleted his soul essence a fair bit. It seemed like it might be slowly refilling on its own. He couldn’t be sure, but it would have to be enough.

“Alright. Then when we get in there, point me in the right direction and then keep watch while I work. It’s going to be dark soon,” he said taking a deep breath.

After the brief conversation, they gathered their belongings and headed into the remains of Grace’s clan home. It was a burnt ruin, houses and…other things…thrown into a giant pile to burn. They passed that area, looking as little as they could manage. Just keeping their eyes out for enemies.

They entered a square, which seemed to have been untouched by the fire. There in the square was a small row of graves, there were nine of them in total.

“These were all that Grace found, whole enough to bury. She couldn’t even recognize them all because of the fire. She will go watch now, maybe she will find usable supplies.” With that she turned and walked away. Leaving Benjamin to his grizzly work.

Once she was out of sight, he turned back to the row of graves. Benjamin couldn’t give a direct answer why he felt like they had to rush. He just knew that their time here would be limited. The white wolf that got away added to the feeling but hadn’t caused it.

He dropped to his knees before the first grave and started scooping dirt away with his hands. He didn’t have a shovel. He had thought about using a board or something from nearby but in the end his hands were stronger anyway.

His plan had been simple, get here and retrieve the goblin’s patterns, before monsters ate them or the Erlking came back for them. He seemed to have been in time, but this was such a waste. If the Erlking had crafted each of the hundred plus goblins individually, for them to all be destroyed like this, it was sad.

He couldn’t focus too much on that, he was about to steal those few that remained, after all. He was conflicted on his choice. He didn’t want to steal from the Erlking, but these were Grace’s people. Even if the memories were implanted, they were clan.

The fruitless thoughts cut off when he reached the first body. It was better preserved then he would have thought, until he remembered there weren’t any bugs here to help decomposition. Turning the head, he pulled out the pattern. He could tell at once that it was damaged.

He set it aside anyway, perhaps he could still make use of it. Then he quickly dug into the poor creature’s chest. He ripped a section of the shirt away to wrap the creation core in. he hadn’t risked touching one with his bare hands since the dire boar.

He had been using leaves or bits of his coveralls to handle them. Not wanting to risk absorbing the essence before he was ready. That done, he quickly dragged dirt over the grave and moved on to the next one in line. He hoped he would have better luck there.