Sam’s hand on his shoulder brought Dan back to reality. She was looking at him with concern and, frankly, Dan wasn’t sure that he could blame her. His cheeks were flushed and he was sure that his eyes were glassy. He wasn’t sure how long he had stood over the downed mage, but when he came to, the rest of the team was in the midst of binding their prisoners and looting the dead. He’d clearly stood, breathing raggedly over the prisoner for some time.
As soon as she had his attention, Sam stepped away, unable to meet his eyes. Coming to terms with what she had done to everyone on the project had to be rough, but he refused to make that his problem. Deep down, the part of himself that wanted to please others at the cost of himself was making excuses for her, but Dan wanted no part of it. Sam would approach him and talk about what happened or she wouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault that her unacceptable actions toward him made it awkward for her.
Below him, his prisoner looked a bit worried as well. A small amount of blood stained her robe where he had slowly pushed the tip of the blade through it in his trance. Dan coughed, embarrassed, and sheathed his sword. He reached down and picked the cloudy crystalline spheres off of the woman’s waist.
After inspecting the sphere, he grunted with appreciation. Each of them had runes tightly inscribed on them, allowing a user with mana control but without the ability to shape spells to use it to cast a weakened version of a spell. As far as he could tell, they functioned as rechargeable spellshards. Each casting burned out a portion of the runes, but someone capable of inscription could, given adequate time, reinscribe the sphere.
He reached down and helped the woman stand up. She was still eyeing him warily, but without access to her spells or anything sharp, Dan wasn’t terribly afraid of her.
“Which farthen queel trained you?” She questioned, brushing the mud and debris from her robes.
Dan smiled helplessly. Time to let the System work on vocabulary again. “Sorry, but it will take a bit for translations to kick in.” Dan walked over to the male caster and frowned, cauterizing the stump of his right hand and removing the spheres from his belt as well. “If you keep talking, the runes I’m using will learn the language, then we can talk.”
“Talk dissa quet learn?” She looked at him quizzically, confusion on her face.
Dan sighed, wishing that he had a helmet with a translation rune. Their team brought a fair number of them to Brazil, but in the confusion to escape the camp during the attack, no one remembered to grab one. Interrogation would have to wait.
He pantomimed putting her hands behind her back to the caster. She looked worried for a second before consenting, and Dan tied her hands behind her back. Of the twenty Imperial soldiers, only seven survived the attack. Two of them, including the male caster, were so badly injured that they needed their companions to carry them.
The walk back to their camp was tense. Dan’s squad had roughly the same number of men as their captives, and Dietrich was recovering from a nasty spear wound, so he likely wouldn’t be able to fight. Still, after the female caster said something to the surviving troops, they glanced at Dan worriedly and behaved themselves. He did his best to walk near enough to them that his System would pick up on their occasional whispered comments in an effort to improve his System’s vocabulary.
They arrived at the camp without much fanfare. Raoul was already there and waiting for them, pacing back and forth nervously. He hurried over to the group and helped guide the prisoners carrying wounded to an area that had previously been cleared out for working out and spell practice. Both of the injured men didn’t look like they were doing all that well, being carried over someone’s shoulder through a jungle not being the recommended treatment for blood loss and shock.
Dan approached the female caster as she looked down on the wounded worriedly. He coughed lightly to get her attention.
“Can you understand me a little better now?” He asked once she turned around.
“Yes. Can understand now.” She nodded. “Who train you? You not use magic like human, you use like elf.”
“An elf called Daeson trained me,” Dan replied with a shrug. He saw no harm in divulging the detail. “We have a way to let humans learn magic like elves. We aren’t going to let them take our planet.”
“Many say that.” She smiled bitterly. “My great grandfather fought against House Amberell when our world was colonized. Legend say he was strong man. Big as an Auroch and almost as strong. A ranger took his head in the first minutes of battle. Then they came and burned our family’s land and forced us to work for them.”
“That hasn’t worked on us,” Dan looked her in the eyes. “We’ve destroyed two of your three beachheads, and the only reason you’re able to hold out in the jungle is that we can’t find where your bases are. Even now, the rest of the world is finally treating you as a threat and they’re preparing to invade in force. The Tellask Empire won’t be on Earth for much longer.”
“Fine,” she responded ruefully. “Maybe you win, make Tellask leave. Then Orakh come. Eat all life on planet. Even if you are powerful, your planet is only one. The Orakh horde has billions.”
“We have billions, too,” Dan clasped his hands behind his back as he looked past her into the jungle. “You landed in an unpopulated region, but my country alone has 10 cities with more than a million people in them. From what I’ve seen, most of the Tellask Empire’s magic is focused on military and art. Here, we use our technology for everything, including farming and medicine. Without magic, our people easily live into their seventies, and we have enough food for billions.”
“I think translation bad,” she frowned, tapping her ear in pantomime. “You say your planet has billions. Like a thousand million?”
“Yes,” Dan said, simply motioning for her to sit down. “I hope now you understand that your attack is doomed. My government doesn’t have a problem with humans, but after that last attack the elves pulled, I think that peace is going to be difficult. We frown on the use of biological weapons because they’re vile and indiscriminate.”
“The death bloom is a weapon of terror.” She nodded unhappily. “But what can we do? The elves have runes on us that sour over time. Unless someone renews them, we die after a month. Our squad needs to be renewed in ten days, or we all die. They are monsters, but we don’t want to die. If we fight long enough, the elves let us go back to our homes when we are too old to fight. That is what we hope.”
“I can runescript.” Dan smiled reassuringly. “The same elf that taught me to cast spells taught me how to inscribe runes. I just don’t have any gold to do it with. Maybe we can help each other. We’re looking to capture an elf. Our government wants to know where to strike, and we think an elf will have that information. If you can summon an elf or get us to one and help me source the materials, I would be happy to help you break free from your runes.”
She held her breath for a second, head cocked contemplatively. She glanced at the rest of her contingent, then turned back to Dan.
“My name is Tessa,” she said more formally. “I am a caster of the Third Rank. In most things, I can speak for the rest of the soldiers, but in this I would need to get their opinion. Even though the Tellask army allows me to lawfully give them orders, I can hardly order them to mutiny.”
Dan nodded his approval, and Tessa walked over to the rest of the captives. Jennifer approached him from behind and stood next to him.
“Do you think we can trust her?” She asked, indicating Tessa with a jerk of her head. “I’m all for helping people out, and I have a bit of a soft spot for ‘enslaved super soldiers’ at the moment for some reason, but this seems like a bit of a convenient ‘damsel in distress’ routine to me.”
“I’ve been learning some harsh lessons on trust,” Dan replied, his chuckle a little more bitter than he originally intended. “I’m not trying to come off as an edgelord or anything like that, but in my experience, it’s awfully easy to make a promise. It’s a bit harder to follow through on it. If Tessa says she’s going to help, well, we aren’t going to get that far without someone helping. Doesn’t mean I trust her.”
“Do you trust me, Dan?” Jennifer asked, her voice much quieter.
“Yes.” Dan turned back to her, a hint of a smile on his face. “You’ve always been straight with me. I’ve come to realize that what I considered a ‘normal’ friendship was a bit abusive and toxic. You haven’t done that. Still, I’m not willing to be blind about this anymore.”
“So if there were any big secrets, I should probably let you know, right?” She was smiling but it didn’t really touch her eyes.
As Dan turned to reply, Tessa approached, ending the moment. Jennifer withdrew, stepping away from him, doubt flashing across her face.
“We agree.” Tessa spoke calmly. “Our squad was based out of a forward supply base. We were sent to plant a clutch of Kerrn eggs near the edge of the forest so the vermin could serve as a buffer between our forces and yours.”
“Kerrn?” Dan asked, glancing thoughtfully at Jennifer as she walked away.
“The small reptilian monsters that spearheaded the attack on your army.” Tessa spat on the ground, distaste evident in her voice. “They’re little more than rats, but the archmages said that they would be effective against your people’s battle wands, so we plant their eggs and let their numbers grow. When it comes time for an attack, we herd them toward you. They panic and charge. Even if we win, they breed fast and will create an almost-impossible mess for us to clean up on this world. They’re almost as bad as the death bloom.”
“Another biological weapon.” Dan frowned. “Great.”
“The base is one day’s walk from here,” Tessa replied, pointing north. “There is always an elf on duty. Sometimes two. Usually two to three squads of humans. More importantly, there is a warehouse full of goods brought from the void ship and harvested from the jungle. If we can capture it, we will have the gold you will need to free us, and you will have your elf.”
“After all of your years in their army, you would just turn your back on them like this?” Dan asked quizzically, cocking his head as he looked at Tessa.
“I volunteered, but they treat me like cattle!” She spat on the ground again. “I offered to serve of my own free will, but all I see are tools of control, and all I hear are stories of my inferiority. If the elves want to fight the Orakh and defend their Empire, they can do it themselves. The minute they put the control rune on me, I decided that I would escape if I could.”
Dan looked at her contemplatively, weighing his options.
“Your night is coming soon,” she continued, turning and walking away from him. “I do not want to get turned around traveling at night. I will guide you to the supply base at first light.”
