The woman looked up to the clear blue sky above her head. She then examined the yellow-hued clouds forming to the west- the direction the soft mid-day breeze was blowing from. Perhaps due to the insane temperatures scorching the central parts of the Great Desert, such winds often caressed its adjacent Black Lands.

The woman noticed she had recently been paying more attention to the wind than the temperature or weight of the air. Perhaps this was a sign she was growing older. But not old enough to start feeling the weather in the bones she consoled herself.

“A sandstorm’s brewing. Perhaps it will reach the town’s outskirts.” she commented to nobody in particular.

She kept observing the patterns of the winds and clouds for a little while before nodding in agreement to herself. Then, without moving her gaze from the sky, she raised the cold tea she was holding to her lips.

“Puah! This is the life!” The strong flowery flavor left a refreshingly sour aftertaste. This was her favorite drink - such a woe for its rarity!

Cok! Cok-cok! Flutter.

The sound of chicken scurrying around and occasionally fluttering their wings drew her attention. She looked down just in time to watch a large one chasing a smaller into almost colliding with a small wooden fence. The fence restricting the chicken to half of the stone building … if a structure with a fully collapsed roof could be called a building at all.

The thought mingled with the relief of escaping her last mishap three days ago. She wanted to giggle.

But the thought of a woman her age laughing from chicken-watching was embarrassing. So, she tried to keep herself sober and ended up chocking on the tea. Not wanting to spew the flavor out, her shoulders shuddered once in a suppressed cough.

“Infuriating little demons, aren’t they?” an expressionless voice stated behind her.

“Kyah!” She jumped forward in surprise, almost falling across the short fence and into the midst of the chicken. Worse, she came close spilling the precious beverage out of its metallic container.

She quickly regained her balance and span around. This made her look straight into the blue apathetic eyes of the old blacksmith that had been housing her. He was standing perhaps too much inside her personal space, but she knew he had been that way for a long time.

“Sorry. You startled me.” She apologized. Although he would probably not understand the emotion.

“Ah, did I interrupt your plans on how best to punish the creatures? I feel that partaking them is simply not enough to bring terror to such mindless beasts…“

Something in the depth of the blacksmith’s eyes gave a terrifying quality to his old yet clean-shaved face. She wandered what the emotions hidden behind the alternating apathy and viciousness were. Regret? Fear? But she didn’t like scratching others’ wounds.

“… Something like that.” she lied. “By the way, how did you come across this flavor?” she changed the subject by moving the metal tea container between them.

The blacksmith stared back, not comprehending the question at first. Then, his features relaxed and he averted his gaze.

“A friend … sends me some … from time to time.” He mumbled.

“That reminds.” The blacksmith’s glacially blue eyes resumed their former apathy. “Someone is looking for you.”

“Should we run away now before I cause you trouble?” she asked.

“No, depts must be repaid. Also, someone is looking for you.” He turned around and walked out of the building with steady steps.

He probably made a lot of sense to himself. But not to her.

And there were more pressing things to focus on.

Perhaps someone’s trying to round up the escapees of the Mayers guy.

Since these were Black Lands, this was probably it. Damn, I shouldn’t have gotten comfortable after learning of the violence ban between civilians. Could I not be one? But there are no registries here!

In the end, she decided that, despite a master backing the statement, it had too many loopholes and she had been a fool to rely on it.

She followed the blacksmith while thinking fast. It would be better to deal with underlings sniffing around before someone strong or important or -worse- both came for her.

She didn’t tag for long. The blacksmith nonchalantly crossed the empty street and disappeared through his workshop’s perpetually half-open door twenty-some strides away.

The woman stood before the door apprehensively, gripping the pair of daggers the blacksmith had gifted inside the one-size-larger-than-her cloak.

She closed one eye to prepare for the shady interior– a handy trick if one knew of it. Then, she made sure the hood covered her face and crossed the threshold.

The blacksmith stood behind his anvil, rummaging through his tools and murmuring under his breath. This was his usual behavior. The low glow of the coals in front of his waist cast ominous shadows, but she had been used to it, as she had been sleeping in the back room of the smithy for a couple days now.

More concerning, however, was the figure sitting on the floor, resting its back on one of the beams supporting the right wall’s weapon rack. There was a large sack next to that figure.

Her closed eye snapped open and she could see who it was.

“Gasp”

It wasn’t someone in the “strong” category. It wasn’t someone in the “important” category either. Unfortunately, it was someone that was “both”.

“Did you come here with an old man wearing an eyepatch?” Without preamble or caring for her stiffening, the figure spoke. Its eyes were closed, giving a false impression of calmness.

“Y-yes!” She dared not breath a false reply.

She felt a tiny sliver of killing intent that quickly faded away. Or perhaps it didn’t go away but was reigned under her perception’s rather coarse threshold.

She wasn’t talented enough to understand other people’s martial aura. Nevertheless, even what little she felt scared the wind out of her.

But she didn’t move. Well, even if she wanted to, she doubted her body would listen.

Why, yes, she could feel it the same as last time she had laid eyes on it. There was something more under that skin, something that would give her nightmares if she so much as got a proper glimpse.

Clang!

The blacksmith, oblivious to their exchange, used the anvil to hit a strange metal ornament once. However, he seemed dissatisfied with the deformed outcome and tossed it aside. He went back to rummaging through his stuff.

“Is it true that the Mayers brat killed him?” the figure ignored the interruption and asked another question.

“… yes.” the woman prayed that the truth would save her. At any rate, besides resetting the mood, she doubted the blacksmith would be of much help. Given his …peculiarities… he could probably mind his business even if a mass execution played in front of him.

“Chuckle” the figure gave an audible indication of its mood.

“So, my old enemy, a wanted killer from the Flower kingdom, a youngling of the Veil family and an unknown woman were traveling together and three croaked it. I say, my men getting greedy gets much better results than them getting ambitious.”

The figure chuckled softly again. She thought the description should be of her adventuring group, but it was slightly inaccurate.

“The Veil family?” She asked back without meaning to.

Perhaps that Johan guy they had tried selling away. But she only knew of the Veil family from womanly gossip of unknown meaning, such as Don’t fall in love with men of the Veil and similar nonsense. What she confused her the most was that … weren’t they supposed to have, like, violet hair?

“Yes…”

The figure answered in a bored manner and opened its eyes. Their grey gleamed in the shadows ominously. The woman was no stranger to staring death in the face, but it still took effort to control the trembling of her limbs.

Meanwhile, the figure plunged its hand into the sack at its side and pulled out a …

“In the name of the light!” she softly blurted out. That was a human head!

The figure grabbed the head by its hair and raised it to show her. It did not seem to mind the blood dripping from the severed neck onto the feet of the weapon rack.

Sickened, the woman realized it was the head of the youngster she had been traveling with. He wasn’t the most likeable one, but the guild master had requested to watch over him if possible. Then a thick smell of blood from the severed neck assaulted her nostrils and she fought the urge to throw up. Even seeing the Beheader smash his own head had been less grueling – at least then she had been free to keep her distance while the one-eyed and the brute pilfered the corpse.

“Yes, a youngling of the Veil. It’s easy to tell, even with the wrong hair color.” The figure smirked.

To the woman’s surprise, the youngster’s eyes moved inside the socket and his blood-drained mouth opened and convulsed. She got the impression that he was trying to scream, although no sound came out.

“Kyah!” She could hold it no further and jumped backwards, gripping tightly the knives inside her cloak for comfort.

“Hey.” the blacksmith’s apathetic voice cut into the proceedings like thunder in mid-summer; completely unexpectedly. “Don’t scare my benefactor.” He seemed impervious to the gruesome scene. In fact, he went back to rummaging through his stuff, comparing the diameter of various metals to a new circular ornament he was holding.

If the figure took note of the blacksmith’s words, it didn’t let it show. Nevertheless, it put the convulsing head back inside the sack.

“Well, my men can tell right away if someone’s got a story to tell and a purpose to live.” The figure said. “Well, for those of the Veil, I immediately cut it dry.” It added with savage pleasure.

The woman didn’t know how to reply.

“But my men didn’t find anything about you?” The figure added inquiringly.

“…” the woman’s heart missed a beat, but she remained silent.

“Chuckle! You don’t need to say it. After all, the Sandmen put an enormous bounty on your head, right?”

The woman’s blood drained from her face and she tensed despite herself. How the hell did he figure me out?

As if having read her thoughts, the figure explained itself.

“Few know me in the east. And I was also there, a dozen-and-a-half winters ago, remember? Even through the priestess’s haze, you reacted the same when we opened the necromancer’s laboratory.” It sounded pretty smug in its deduction.

“Well, that time’s promise still stands. I won’t trouble you. And nobody’s allowed to mess with free people in this town without telling me.” This gave her pause, she hadn’t really expected the monstrosity to abide by its agreements.

“However…” it trailed on the word and this poured a cold bucket on her feelings. ”If you can survive once you step outside the gates… Well, that’s another story. I bet my men have some reason looking for you.” The figure’s eyes narrowed down into slits, its grey glimmering in the darkness.

Yeah, they think I’ve no backing if someone dared capture me once. The woman complained inside her head. It was not like she could parade her backing though, given that the Sandmen would also come calling. They were much ­­-much- worse than death, disgrace or ending up at the mines of Lifidich.

As for the conversation, the woman had to admit that the not-so-veiled threat was rather effective. If no disciples came after her, she didn’t fear most of the town’s guards. After all, immature use of martial aura could be fought with good old-fashioned technique. However, even masters were sure to fall if sufficiently outnumbered.

The woman weighted her options, arriving at the inevitable conclusion.

“What do you want?” she asked dully.

The figure used its torso muscles to stand up, grabbing the sack and a large broadsword that lay underneath it. It seemed to have been waiting for her words.

Skullsong’s graying hair came into sharp relief once his figure left the weapon rack’s shadow.

“Work for me; I’ll put you on top of the food chain.” He offered. “It’s better to command than being surrounded.”

Johan was surrounded.

That was not to say that the guard squads chasing him all over the town had done a particularly good job. He had just stumbled into a circular opening among ruined buildings in which many of them were taking a breather.

Actually, he could have avoided the encounter by diving into some of the irregular shaped side-streets. But he feared he would have gotten lost. Instead, he chose the way that required the least mental effort – which was to duke it out.

“Attention! Form a circle! Weapons at the ready!” a deep male voice reverberated throughout the clearing. The hooded figure that gave the command wasn’t particularly distinguishable compared to the others.

However, he was using a dusk-colored jewel to keep together the laces of his hood. The jewel wasn’t too eye-catching, but sat comfortably in the middle of his chest, probably supported by an adequate mass of muscles underneath. By now, Johan had come to associate the ornament with those higher in the command hierarchy of the guards.

One after the other, the randomly positioned guards scrambled to array themselves around Johan. As they did, they pulled out various weapons, most common of which were broadswords: similar to but smaller than the female disciple’s Johan had previously clashed against.

Johan could have tried to do something before their enclosure reached behind him. But he figured he’d let them thin themselves away from the direction he was going.

Well, their numbers were worrisome, but his intuition told him he could break through before he became bogged down against rounds of assaults.

Johan trusted his intuition. Or, to be more accurate, he habitually gambled his life on his intuition. Up till then, this seemed to have been working.

It’s not that I can logically calculate the odds. He shrugged to himself.

“Surrender foreigner!” The one giving orders decided to interrupt Johan’s woolgathering. “This town’s a deathtrap to you. If you surrender, perhaps you will be spared.”

“Yeah?” Johan smiled an easy-going smile. “Work on your arguments better next time. See you!”

Without leaving room for reply, he gathered martial aura on his legs and sprinted forward in a speed that hinged on the limits of a normal human’s reaction.

Whoosh – whoosh – whoosh!

Several arrows were fired from the nearby rooftops, but the distance was large enough for Johan to notice in time and evade by jumping left and right during his sprint. Their small metallic heads created little sparks against the cobblestone-ridden street.

Arrows fired at such boring speeds couldn’t affect Johan’s course of action; he proceeded as planned and slammed his side into the first guard barring his way. The guard could be said to be well-trained, because his reflexes allowed him to roll with the motion and lessen the impact; Johan’s motion had been telegraphed enough for even an auraless person react that much.

However, Johan was no slouch. He took advantage of the additional force and grabbed the laces of the guard’s hood to somersault over his head and over the next two ones.

The whole process was fast, but not fast enough for nobody to attack him in mid-air.

Whoosh-whoosh-whack

While airborne, Johan stretched his body to make two arrows that came from opposite directions pass below his navel and over his back. He then covered his palm with martial aura to collide with a whip that was smacking towards the middle of his face.

The whip stung a little -an indication that its owner had infused it with enough martial aura to challenge the amount he had used- but it rebounded away. Then, Johan’s palm collided with the stomach of the female owner of the whip, flooring her underneath his weight.

He also used her pressed body as an axis to caution his fall with his arm strength and rolled to the ground. During the instantaneous encounter, he felt her body cave in a little, but she managed to shift her tiny bit of immature martial aura to protect her organs.

Whatever she did though was none of Johan’s business, because in the middle of his roll he lounged himself in the opening between the last two hooded people barring his way. These two smashed at him with their broadswords, but Johan wouldn’t be hit with such slow movement…

Whoosh-clang

Another arrow flew with pinpoint accuracy and timing at the opening between the broadswords Johan was sprinting through. Noticing it at the last moment, Johan used his katana’s scabbard to deflect it before passing under the crossing weapons.

Although Johan managed to swat away the arrow, his back became drenched in cold sweat; if there had been a disciple infusing it with martial aura, he could have been dead then and there. He warily glanced to his front left -at the direction the arrow came from- only to watch the flutter of another hooded robe jumping lithely behind a building.

What an amazing archer… Whoever it was, they were substantially better than the previous attempts of their peers. That precise and deadly skill reminded him of the weather-beaten hunter that often came to visit his martial aunt.

If not extra vigilant out of habit, I’d be injured or straight up dead.

Shrugging off the detached realization that he just had had a brush with death, Johan cursed under his breath and sprung forward. Skilled archer or not, he had broken through.

“What the- !!!” Only now did most guards in the clearing realized that he had practically escaped from their midst.

Johan didn’t blame them. Before his own aura had started enhancing his bodily functions, he too had had trouble following the more experienced disciples of his school – and he was supposed to have good kinetic vision to boot.

But there’s an equal or larger gap between me and Skullsong…. Gah! Johan complained in frustration. Forget learning some space-offsetting or whatever techniques through vague instructions; bridging that gap towards becoming a master was an even more important step towards obtaining revenge.

Red. Black. An echoing war cry. Johan’s eyes hardened at the memories.

Stifling his anger, he sped onwards, towards the direction of the next slavery he had mentally marked for crushing – one that often bought children for who knows what purpose. Perhaps it would be the last one before the stronger guards also committed to the intense game between the cat and the biting mouse.

“After him!” Several voices exclaimed.

The guards lost all semblance of order and sprang after his wake. However, their previous encirclement made their charge hard to gain momentum; the ones at the opposite side of the circle picked up speed faster and came to push the ones yet turning around.

“Stop it, freaks!” the deep voice could be heard over the commotion. “Just make a good solid file!”

Hearing the calm order that was fading behind him, the sprinting Johan frowned. Something seemed off…

Worried, he tried to actively engage his intuition. Although he didn’t really know how or why, he did have a knack for sensing even deliberately withdrawn martial auras.

It was lucky he did so.

He felt five lumps of martial aura concealed behind a wall. The wall protruded outwards from a left corner, behind which the current alleyway branched. The way it blended between the uneven buildings made it an ideal ambush spot – but only if one knew where to look.

The auras felt similar in quality and quantity to the wardens employed by the one surnamed Mayers; strong enough to cause trouble but not strong enough to overwhelm him in a frontal confrontation. However, if Johan had been ambushed, he may have had a lot of trouble extricating himself.

Johan skidded to a halt in the middle of the alleyway and placed his hand warily over his katana’s hit.

“Come out if you have business with me!” He called impatiently. He could hear the unorderly thumbing of dozens of people far behind him that slowly but steadily grew louder.

He waited for a couple of breaths, considering whether he should just charge into the ambysh if they didn’t reply. After all, a known ambush would be almost the same as a heads-on confrontation.

“All five!” He pressed.

Five people carrying broadswords walked from behind the wall in an orderly fashion. Although they wore the well-familiar guard uniforms, they had chosen to not hide under their hoods. Having seen only few of the guards going around with their features exposed, Johan guessed this was some kind of proclamation; that they didn’t mind their faces been known or such.

“Hehe. Meddlesome he might be, but Crick’s intel’s often reliable.” The one that stood a little bit behind the other four addressed Johan directly. He wore a mischievous -one could say crooked- smile. What puzzled Johan though was that he felt by far the weakest of the five.

“Martial brothers!” He addressed the other four in front of him. “He’s the one responsible; get him!”

The other four guards had stern looks in their faces. They took up similar stances; broadsword hilts held over their shoulders, their tips pointing at Johan.

They didn’t move though.

“Sharrup. If it wasn’t to avenge our poor brothers, we wouldn’t be working with you.” One growled. His weather-beaten dark-colored face had an austere expression.

The crooked smile of the first guard went away for the most fleeting of moments, but immediately returned. “Don’t forget master Skullsong’s orders. You need listen to me. But fine, I won’t meddle any further.”

What a weasel! Johan was impressed. The man had created an excuse for not actively engaging.

Well, none of my business.

With his hand grabbing his sheathed katana’s hilt, Johan walked forward. He would be surrounded, but with a weapon at hand it wouldn’t matter, unless they were four times as many.

“Out of my way!” He ordered calmly.