《Outlander》Chapter 12

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I opened my eyes and found myself looking at a vast expanse of nothingness. Well, white nothingness. Below me was a white floor and it looked like I was in a giant white room. At first, I was greatly confused, but that quickly turned into panic when I remembered what I was doing. Was this some kind of trap? Did I let my guard down? Where am I?

“Calm yourself, Braith, you are in no immediate danger,” the disembodied voice of the Spirit of the Thousand Bolts spoke. “You have merely passed out. You should be mostly recovered when you awake.”

“No immediate danger?” I asked, with a hint of anger, part of me unjustly blaming him for almost falling under Destiny’s powers.

“Yes,” the Spirit answered simply.

“Well, care to explain why I’m here if nothing is wrong?” I asked impatiently.

“I did not say nothing was wrong, just that you were in no immediate danger.”

“Enough of the nuances, just get on it. Why did I pass out and why am I here?”

“Your body is not used to my powers yet; you have simply passed out from exhaustion. Eventually, this will become much less of an issue. As for why you are here, it is because I have a few things I must discuss with you.”

“Couldn’t have talked about it earlier? Maybe back in the altar?”

“I felt these matters needed a bit of time. Also, you seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.”

“Whatever. Okay, go on.” I tried to say this nonchalantly, but this discussion made me anxious. I felt like I really needed to have a serious and important talk for some reason. At the same time, though, I didn’t want any more priorities on my plate.

“First off, congratulations. You kept yourself safe from that woman’s influences.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I could have resisted if I didn’t have your powers, anyways, right?”

“My influence on your subconscious was minimal compared to your own willpower. Thanks to that, I could ascertain that you certainly have the drive and motivation to accomplish great things.”

“Right…” I don’t think I like where this is going.

“Now, as to what those great things will be…” Oh, here it comes. “That will be up to you.” What? I had my mouth somewhat agape in surprise. Then, feeling like an idiot and realizing that I had nobody to even look at, I closed my mouth.

“Up to me? You’re not expecting me to become some great hero or something?”

“I chose you as the vessel for my powers because I liked your character, not because I wanted you to live out my aspirations. I am not here to control you or force you to do something.”

“Well, how generous of you.” I was still feeling pretty doubtful about something that happened to reside in my mind.

“I am serious, Braith. I will not manipulate your actions. In fact, this exchange we are having right now will likely be one of our last. My thoughts will fade away completely from you soon enough.”

“If you are so insistent on not being so intrusive, then why bother having a talk with me at all?” As virtuous as the Thousand Bolts was trying to seem, it seemed obvious that there was some ulterior motive.

“As I said, I gave you my powers because I liked your character. I hoped that this little talk could reassure me that I was not wrong about my initial impression.” I gave a short laugh, feeling a bit stupid as there was still nothing around me.

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“A bit too late for that, don’t you think? You said earlier that you couldn’t change to someone else until I died. If I went on a murdering spree tomorrow, then there’ll be nothing you can do about it.” I felt somewhat sick immediately after using that example.

“True, but I was hoping you could at least do me the favour of having this talk.” I sighed. The current back and forth wasn’t going anywhere, anyways. He had something up his sleeve, but I still owed him.

“Alright, I’ll stop complaining for a moment. Go on.”

“Thank you. Now, Braith, I want to hear it from you clearly; what is your most important goal?”

“Finding Tasha’s parents.” I answered without hesitation.

“To what lengths would you go to accomplish this?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Even if it requires you to kill again?” I instantly felt like calling him a bastard. He had to know all these emotions I was going through after this day of seeing all this death. He says he won’t influence me, but someone living inside my head should know better than anyone else how hard I was trying to not dwell on that.

“If…someone would try to kill me or Tasha, I would kill them first. Simple as that. Nothing to regret,” I answered more to myself than to him.

“No regrets?”

“Yeah, no regrets! What, got a problem with that?” I found myself suddenly pacing forward, as if trying to corner the Spirit. “I’m going to use your powers for these selfish kinds of reasons. If someone ends up suffering because of that…” I pushed Dennis out of my head, “then that’s that.”

“If that is what you believe in, then I have no complaints.”

“Oh, so my answer was good enough for the great and powerful Thousand Bolts?” I knew I was acting childish, but I couldn’t help it.

“Any answer would have been fine, Braith, as long as you had one.” The white nothingness suddenly started to darken. “Just don’t forget the answer you have given today.”

“Oh, so you are going to hold me to that now?!” I yelled out, as everything around me turned black.

“No, just don’t forget.” The floor beneath me fell away and I found myself falling into the shadowy void.

*****

The next morning, the camp packed up and prepared to head east as that’s where most of them came from. The men who could not accept Destiny’s reality either broke down but let themselves be restrained, or ran off earlier in the middle of the night. The men offered to escort us, and even properly compensate us once they returned to their villages. However, we could not make such a detour, especially after receiving an additional piece of information from them. About two hours before we arrived, a group of people claiming to be merchants came in with a wagon trying to sell some goods. Their descriptions were rather vague but I was certain this was the group that killed and robbed Dennis. This was because one of them was described as wearing a green hat. They left the camp rather quickly, perhaps sensing something was off, and headed in the direction of the Nature Clan.

The men held a short funeral service for Dennis in the morning as well. Surprisingly, I did not feel sad as we buried his body and prepared the rites. Instead, I only felt the intense drive and motivation to seek those responsible. My promise with Tasha was the main priority, but this was not something I would ever forget. Afterwards, the men gave me some traveling gear and supplies before leaving. Something noteworthy among those items was a moonstone lantern. It looked like an unhooded lantern, but in the clear glass container was a translucent blue stone. They said that it would radiate blue light under the moon’s glow.

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We parted ways and we continued on our journey to the Nature Clan. It was not exactly in the direction of the Dridam Plains, but it was important to travel through as many towns and villages as we could for shelter and supplies. That, and for gathering information. Well, that would be the plan, but the map I had wasn’t the most detailed, seeing as how it was a map of all of Midgard. It noted major landmarks, the territories for the Clans, and what I assumed were other major cities. I also noted that Deimos was marked on the map. I know Dennis wanted me to pass on his words to Zalae in order to track down his killer, but I had to postpone fulfilling his request. Even though he didn’t ask for it from me, I wanted to personally take my revenge, and the detour, as well as the time in finding this man I never heard of before, would only allow them to get further away.

After leaving Reapers’ Pass, I planned our next stop to be the closest place marked on the map, which was called Bronze Territory. Bronze Territory was just southwest of a large mountain range called the Western Iron Wall. There was also an Eastern Iron Wall, and between the two was the kingdom of Brennan. To the Bronze Territory’s western border was the Nature Clan’s territory, which accounted for all of the forests on the western coast of Midgard.

We travelled for a few days uneventfully. It was nice not being suddenly attacked, and the flat ground made it easy to spot anyone approaching from a distance, which helped me be a little more at ease. However, seeing nobody else the whole time did start to seem a bit suspicious. I didn’t tell Tasha about what I was thinking about during this time, but I assumed she had some idea. We talked with each other, but not about anything important, both of us skirting around what occurred recently. It was fine this way, though. We just need to move on.

In the middle of our fifth day of traveling, we saw something large and made of stone in the distance. As we neared it, I recognized it as being the ruins of some kind of fort. There were the dilapidated remains of towers, one of which had actually collapsed, and much of the walls had been knocked down. There were many piles of rubble scattered on either side of the broken walls. As we neared a particularly large gaping hole in one of the walls, I saw a large plank of rotten wood poking out from stacks of stone debris. Perhaps this was where the main gate used to be? I was very curious about this destroyed fort, and wanted to investigate it further, but I stopped myself just before stepping through the broken wall.

“Why did you stop? Is something wrong?” Tasha asked.

“I was thinking about why there was a destroyed fort here.”

“Fort? That’s what this is?” I furrowed my eyebrows at her question. It then quickly dawned on me that I never did explain forts to her before. I explained to her what war was, or at least, the aspects of the war I heard from Lars, but it did not cover things such as tactics, fortifications and other such specific things that had occurred. Just general war stuff. Like death on the battlefield. Not the best things to teach a young child, but…no, I guess I can’t really think of a good excuse.

“Yes, a fort. They were built to, uh, help defend against attacks.” Tasha nodded. “The walls make it difficult for enemies to get in, and those towers provide vision for sentries and archers.” I took a closer peek inside the fort, still not stepping through. “And they usually have some sort of residence or keep past the walls for living in, but that’s usually only important if the enemies breach the walls. Well, strategically speaking.” Tasha just kept nodding, but I wasn’t sure if she took all of that in. I took another peek inside of the fort and made out the leveled remains of the residence. The destruction seemed far too thorough to have occurred from the normal course of battles. Whoever won the battle must have really hated their enemies.

With trepidation, I finally decided to enter the fort and Tasha followed close behind. With the exception of a few towers and parts of the base of the walls, everything had been demolished. I did not expect to find anything noteworthy so I decided to just check out the towers before moving on. As we made our way over there, I heard the sound of shifting stone, and a piece of rubble suddenly sprang towards me. I dodged it just in time and I drew my weapon to deflect a second piece that came at me from another direction. The clanging sound of stone on metal was a good mimic for how my arm felt after taking that hit. I clenched my teeth and felt a bolt shoot through my body. I trained my eyes and ears and noticed several of the rubble piles shifting simultaneously. Five stone bricks came shooting out from different directions and I dodged out of the way of three of them and deflected a fourth with my sword. Tasha took down the fifth.

“What’s going on here?” Tasha asked, as she positioned herself to be back to back with me. Stone bricks continued to throw themselves at us.

“Not sure. Maybe this fort’s haunted?” I said, not really meaning it.

“An angry ghost? You think maybe we can just talk to it?” I wasn’t entirely sure if she was being sarcastic.

“Okay, let’s give it a shot.” I took a second to clear my throat. “Hey, if that’s a ghost attacking us, please stop!” I yelled out as I continued to dodge and block the flying stones. Instead of stopping, even more stones started launching themselves at us.

“Maybe the ghost thinks you weren’t asking nicely?” Okay, pretty sure that was sarcasm. From the corner of my eye, as I was dodging, I noticed that Tasha looked to be making an effort of knocking down as many stones as possible instead of dodging. I smirked a bit at how she was making a game out of this attack. In all honesty though, this wasn’t that hard to handle with the two of us. Just as I was thinking that, the stones suddenly stopped coming. It was calm for just a moment before I felt the ground start to shake. The earth between the two of us suddenly split and a wave of dirt and stone suddenly erupted outwards. We jumped back to either side and an entire mound of stone bricks suddenly came flying towards me. I just barely dashed out of its pash as the stones smashed into the geyser of earth that came out of the ground. I looked back and saw that Tasha wasn’t attacked by such a barrage. Well, it would be a bit scary if whatever was attacking had that sort of power and control.

“Tasha, we need to get out of here, start heading back to where we came from!” Without knowing what exactly we were fighting against, this simply wasn’t worth the risk.

“What? You’re just going to let this ghost push us around?!” She said with a mix of outrage and glee as stones started launching themselves at her again.

“This isn’t some game, Tasha!” The ground beneath me shook again and I preemptively jumped to the side. The ground shattered, but no wave of earth erupted outwards this time. Instead, another massive barrage of stones suddenly came flying towards me from the direction I jumped towards. It was too close and sudden to completely dodge so I brought myself low to the ground and just focused on shielding my face. A few stones smacked against my chest but the leather armour did a reasonable job of dulling the impact. After the stones shot past me, I quickly got up and made my way towards Tasha. The ground shook again, but this time, it felt like the ground all around us was shaking. I scanned all around, trying to figure out where the ground was going to break this time. Tasha did the same, with an expectant look on her face.

Suddenly, the ground stopped shaking. I then expected another sudden barrage of stones but that didn’t come either. Tasha continued to scan her surroundings, but after a while, I saw her put on a disappointed look.

“Really, that’s it?” I cautiously went up to Tasha, and the fort remained silent. “Well, that’s a bit of a letdown,” Tasha said to me as she casually put her arms behind her back, sword still in hand. I smacked her lightly on her head. “Hey! What was that for?!”

“Tasha, I told you to run for it and you didn’t listen. In fact, you’ve never listened. Don’t you realize how dangerous it is for you to keep ignoring me like that?” I tried to say this as angrily as I could without actually raising my voice.

“Huh? Oh, come on, you just keep overreacting. What’s a few stones going to do? And besides,” she began, putting on an upset expression herself, “it’s not like you always listen to me, either. You think it’s impossible for me to tell if something feels dangerous or wrong?” She had a point there, but this wasn’t about that.

“Tasha, even if the situation turns out okay in the end, that doesn’t mean that will always be the case. If these attacks, or those other times ended up getting worse…who knows what could have happened. Those risks aren’t worth taking.”

“What risks are worth taking, then?” Tasha asked. That question caught me off guard as I had no idea what she was getting at with that.

“I’ll know when it’s worth it.” My answer was clearly not to Tasha’s satisfaction, but I was putting an end to this discussion. “Come on, let’s get out of this fort before it starts acting up again. Tasha let out a ‘hmph’, but she complied.

We were almost at the hole we came in from when a mound of rubble started to shake. Tasha had a glint in her eye as she readied herself for another game of defense. I took a few steps away from her so as to not get in the way should she actually decide to dodge. It was a bit strange though, the mound continued to shake without launching itself. We continued to stare at the shaking mound but a few seconds went by and still, nothing happened. For the tiniest moment, I looked a bit over to the side at Tasha, preparing to say something to her, when I saw a stone brick flying towards her from behind. Due to my surprise, I wasn’t sure whether to dash at her or tell her to block. Obviously, I should have done both, which I did, but it was a split second too late. From the change in her look, I knew she heard my voice, but the stone hit her in the back of the head before she could move. She let out a gasp and the sword dropped from her hand as she fell forward. The shaking mound then launched itself towards Tasha. I grabbed her as she fell and tried to jump out of the way but a few of the stones struck my legs.

“Tasha!” She looked back at me, disoriented. Good, she was still conscious. I prepared to pick her up and run past the broken walls, but the mounds of rubble from outside of the fort suddenly shifted themselves to block my way. I turned back around and ran for the wall on the opposite side of the fort after sheathing my sword. I carried Tasha under one arm and forced another bolt through my body. Along the way, I picked up Tasha’s sword, and the mounds of rubble scattered across the fort began shaking again. To reach the other wall I would need to go to either side of the residence, but those paths were narrower than the grounds we were fighting in earlier. They also had no shortage of rubble mounds. Taking a gamble, I ran straight into the leveled residence itself. On the far side, parts of the second storey floor were still intact, and vaulting over that seemed like a better prospect.

I ran past the broken walls of the first level of the residence and I forced another bolt through both my legs as I prepared to jump. Once I felt I got close enough, I made my jump, and successfully landed on what remained of the second storey. Unfortunately though, the floor could not handle the impact and immediately broke away. I plummeted back to the first floor and I rolled onto my back in midair just before crashing into the ground. Tasha’s body shuddered from the impact but her head didn't hit the ground and it didn’t seem like anything was broken.

I looked above and saw the open sky and what little remained of the floor above. The floor looked like it was shaking and I looked to the side, only to see a wall, I knew that there was little room to escape from another attack here. I got back up, Tasha’s sword tightly gripped in my hand, prepared to give my all to defending another barrage. However, the shaking very quickly stopped and no attack came. As I thought about it for a moment, I think the shaking from above was probably just from most of the remaining floor breaking apart from me falling through it. I heard Tasha groan as I continued to nervously wait.

“Tasha! Are you okay?” She blinked a few times and held her head. Since she still had her helmet on, I didn’t actually know how bad the hit was. However, after another couple of quick blinks, her eyes suddenly looked very alive, if not a bit confused.

“W-where are we? How did we get here?” After she asked the question, she winced. “Oh, right…I remember what happened now.” Her cheeks flushed. “I-It was a cheap shot.” Even in this rather dire situation, she could still feel embarrassed. She picked herself back up into a seated position and looked around for her sword. I returned it to and she prepared to stand back up but I stopped her.

“Hold on, not yet.” She looked at me quizzically. “Listen, ever since we got here, the attacks have stopped.”

“How do we know it’s not just another trap?”

“I don’t, but there wouldn’t be much reason for another one, would there? We are basically cornered right now.” Tasha took a closer look around as well. We were literally next to a wall and on the other side were the remains of the residence. There were piles of broken pieces of wood and stone and beyond that were the open grounds we were fighting in. To our sides were the other walls of the residence, intact up to the floor of the second level.

“How long have the attacks stopped for?” Tasha asked.

“Um, for about a minute now, I think.”

“What do you think they could be waiting for? What could they be planning?”

“Who exactly are they?” I asked, the spark of an idea suddenly going off in my head.

“Uh, I don’t know…”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“No, I mean, they.” Tasha just looked at me as if I had gone crazy. “We don’t know who they are, but they are definitely there.” Tasha was completely lost. “What I mean is that someone or something has been attacking us, and their moves have been very deliberate. They shot stones at us, but when that wasn’t good enough, they started breaking up the earth to surprise us. When that didn’t work either, they laid a trap. This attacker clearly saw how we reacted and made changes in accordance, trying to finally get us.” Tasha nodded with a look that showed me that she thought that was completely obvious. “No, don’t you get it, Tasha. The attacker can see how we reacted. But here,” I said, throwing my arms out wide towards the walls and partial ceiling above us, “it hasn’t made a single move. It can’t see us here.” I walked towards the corner of the residence.

“But, what is attacking us?” I closed my eyes and tried to remember the layout of the fort. After a moment, I smiled. “You figured it out, dad?” Tasha asked excitedly, standing up. I quickly went over to her and pushed her against the wall.

“Don’t do that!” She looked at me with worry. “Ah, sorry.” I turned my eyes back towards the corner. “Whoever is attacking us has this part of the fort as a blind spot, which could only mean that they are in that tower on the other side of this wall. If they were in a tower over there,” I said, pointing out towards the open ground, “they could still see us. But here, we have this bit of ceiling and the walls. Also, only one of the towers on this side hasn’t collapsed, so we know exactly where they are.”

“But, we still don’t know who they are.” I thought for a moment longer but couldn’t come up with a definite answer.

“Well, I don’t know exactly who they are, but they will be very sorry once I find them.” I reached for my sword. “Alright, are you ready to head out again?”

“Of course!” I pulled my hand away from my sword and reached for her head out of concern, remembering that her answer was far too obvious.

“I’m serious, here, Tasha. This is a blind spot so we can take a bit of time to make sure you’re feeling okay. In fact, maybe we could even stay here to lure them out, or even wait for nightfall.” She brushed my hand aside.

“I’m fine, dad! Also, do you really think you can just tell me to wait after hearing you figure everything out? Come on, let’s get them!” I relented. There wasn’t going to be a way to stop her, anyways.

“Okay, here’s the plan.” I struck at the wall with the pommel of my sword, and it caved in slightly. I nodded. “We are going to break through the wall. Right after we do, you can bet that those mounds of rubble are going to start attacking again. We will make our way towards the hole in the wall, and this will make our opponent focus their efforts in blocking off the path again. Right as the exit’s about to seal off, we change direction and head towards the tower. Now, I’m not sure if they’ll figure out that we are actually gunning for the tower, and not just to backtrack our escape route, but that shouldn’t matter. The rubble attacks should be much more predictable, since they won’t want to launch any stones at the tower itself. And if they do anyways, well, that’ll work out for us fine as well. Be prepared for stupid, I guess. Anyways, one of us will go into the tower. Even if the opponent’s a little stupid, there’s no way they’ll be reckless with attacks inside the tower. The other one of us will stay behind to make sure they don’t escape. Alright, got all that?” Tasha nodded. “Okay, so, I will be the one to go into the tower, and you make sure they don’t get away, okay?” Tasha vehemently shook her head.

“I’ll go into the tower. I’ll take care of whoever is inside.” I was rather surprised by how adamantly she said this. However, I believed that going inside the tower was more dangerous since we were unsure of the full extent of the enemy’s power and there was the possibility of them getting desperate. “I don’t care, I’m the one going into the tower,” she continued, as if hearing my thoughts. I clicked my tongue and sighed. She clicked her tongue back at me.

“Okay, you’ll be the one to go into the tower. Just be careful.” She was taken by surprise earlier, but I’m sure it would have gotten me as well if I was the target. I just needed to have confidence in her, and remember her performance at Destiny’s camp.

“Relax, I’m always careful,” she lied without hesitation.

“Right.” I struck the wall again, a bit harder this time. I would shoot another bolt through my body for good measure, but I was already starting to sweat as my heart rate continued to climb. I silently prayed that I could hold out. “One more thing, though, Tasha. If I tell you to run, do it this time.” She gave me no definitive answer. That was probably the best I was going to get from her. I tensed up my muscles and prepared to smash through the cracked wall. “Ready?” She nodded.

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