Chapter Six

As the knight dropped his sword, then turned in retreat, I paused to consider my actions.

It was bullshit, nearly every word of it. I didn’t have anywhere near the power to confront a serious incursion into the forest, even if the compass could serve as a somewhat impractical warning system. I’d be leaving before the night was through, before the young man even got back to civilization. They'd spend days searching for me when I was already long gone, which suited me just fine.

Yet just like the name, Reaper, I was surprised how readily those ‘lies’ came to my lips. If I had ambitions on hunting down Gerard and his brothers-in-arms, then I would need a base of power. I would need land, resources, and minions to do my bidding. I could do worse than establishing myself as a threat, a reputation as a force to be reckoned with, even if it was only through fear and superstition of some Devil-Marked prowling the woods.

Or are those all just excuses because you wanted to let him live? I wondered. Killing a child, even a child who was himself on the prowl for my blood felt… wrong. I knew what I wanted, and the price I had to pay to reach the heights I aspired to, but I’d already spent enough of my own soul, quite literally. I would not become one of the blood drunk Devil-Marked sung about in legends, so lost to their mark that they were little more than barely-sentient monsters.

As I walked back towards the bodies of the two men I had killed, I had plenty of time to ponder the distinction between wanton murder and righteous vengeance.

Fortunately for my already frayed moral compass, I did not have to make a decision on the subject of cold-blooded murder that afternoon.

Of the two men I had killed, the first had expired from the injuries my knife had inflicted, while the other had blessedly bled out after trying to free himself from the trap, saving me from having to engage with that particular moral quandary for the immediate future.

I honestly wasn’t sure what I’d do when it came to it, because I knew it would come to it eventually. Killing a man in a fight was one thing, slitting his throat while he tried to free his leg from a steel trap was quite another.

Another worry, for another time.

I fled the forest in the aftermath of the battle, but not before drawing the souls of both men. Not for the first time, it occurred to me how horrific, or perhaps how silly my morality might have seemed to an outsider. I might agonize over whether or not to kill a man who had come into the forest with the express goal of spilling out my insides for the crime of poaching, but when it came to devouring his immortal soul, I barely blinked an eye.

A question of perception, I supposed. I could see a man suffering, the fear in his eyes. To me, a soul was nothing but energy. Hell, I wasn't even entirely sure that what I did with my power caused any sort of measurable harm. For all I knew it was akin to wringing the water out of a dishtowel.

I could be very good at rationalizing bad behavior when I wanted to.

My flight carried me out of Greenhills, but not out of the forest entirely. I would be at considerably more risk over open terrain, which made sticking to the concealment a priority.

The issue was, my poaching could not continue indefinitely. Most of the woodland area within a realistic distance for travel was crown-land, owned by the Protectors and the Governors, all of whom were ultimately responsible to the new Lyrani Empress, a young girl with particular distaste for the Marked. While I could hunt a few animals here and there for food and power, any considerable consumption would draw the ire of the local lord, doubly so if my message passed beyond its original recipient.

And of course, it was only a matter of time before the Knights came looking. A rumor of my daughter healing a town was enough to bring them down on me, no doubt the butchers would be chomping at the bit to track down a Devil-Marked who had done some actual damage.

"Should have killed him when I had the chance," I growled under my breath, stepping over a thick root that threatened to take my legs clear from under me.

It wasn't all bad. His companions had significantly increased my overall reserves and expanded my growing arsenal of magical knick-knacks.

Equipped Items – Spectacles of Revelation, Compass of Animal Detection, Steel Trap of Animal Attraction, Piercing Dirk, Arrow of Paralysis +1 (x2), Cloak of Minor Hiding.

Devil-Mark: Soul Mark (Class I)

Milestone: 3/100

Soul Reserve – 189/323

The cloak had been a harder 'purchase'. The idea had come to me when I'd been considering my strengths and weaknesses. I'd stripped the leather armor from one of the men I killed, but saw little value in enchanting it. With luck, I'd have replaced it with something more substantial before I saw the wrong end of a blade again. If not, I doubted the slight increase in deflection would be the difference between life and death.I hadn’t hummed, nor hawed for long when it came to imbuing the dirk or two more arrows. Whatever lies I had told myself about being able to stay under the radar had been proven false, and there was a certain dry irony about using the souls of my would be attackers to defend myself in the future.

No, my current strengths lay in plotting, in stabbing, trapping or shooting those unaware of my presence. Something to help me hide held infinitely more value than something that might deflect an errant sword strike or a loosed arrow. If the enemy ever managed to attack me directly, I was doing something wrong. It would be useful in my hunting, in reconnaissance, and in planning similar ambushes in the future.

In practice, the cloak had actually proven to be even better than I'd expected, granting a full additional level to my Stealth skill. While it did nothing to muffle my sound, it slimmed my silhouette and helped me blend in better with my surroundings. During my testing I'd managed to get within arm's reach of a deer, albeit a particularly absentminded deer, before a snapped twig had alerted the animal to my presence.

With the expanded repertoire at my disposal, I had made quick work of a few small swaths of animals during my travel; just enough to give me a small buffer of energy in the event I needed to empower something in a hurry. Unlike before, I took some care to hide my tracks and had spaced out my sprees to make them more difficult to notice or to track. If anyone had followed me from Greenhills, they would hopefully lose my trail sometime shortly after I had crossed the Saigen river.

A week of eating well and moderate exercise had done much to refresh the damage my near death experience had inflicted on my physique. I felt stronger than ever, in fact, though I knew that strength was deceiving. For all my power, I was one bad encounter away from my doom, and since almost any engagement would involve multiple armed men, I would start every life or death encounter with a significant handicap.

I needed allies, and as much as I had wished to avoid the obvious, I knew exactly where to find them.