By dawn, Julian’s men were sawing the Tyrant apart in the shallows, the smell of scorched drake hanging over everything. Ray sat shirtless on an overturned goat cage while Yuzu rewrapped his ribs, ignoring the sour glares from every guard.
"Three ribs are complaining now instead of two, which puts your Moonwalkers in my satchel for a full week," she said, yanking the binding tight.
"Gah, hell, easy on the merchandise, considering a week out here is a lifetime and those shoes recharged overnight!"
"Then they can recharge in my satchel."
She tied off the knot without looking up, her fingers stained with last night’s mud and someone else’s blood.
’She kept seven men breathing under her ward and then stitched them all night without sleep, yet she still has the energy to bully me before breakfast.’
"Three cracked ribs at a healer’s rates must cost more than this whole swamp is worth, though I’d appreciate it going on my tab," he said, rolling his shoulder carefully.
"Your tab is already longer than my arm."
Across the shallows, a guard peered into the Tyrant’s blasted chest before sprinting for the ruined pavilion.
Yuzu watched him go, wiping her hands on a rag, "They found the hole where the core used to be."
"Then we’re about to have a very expensive conversation with a very angry man while I’m still missing my shirt."
"Don’t shoot anyone before breakfast, since I’m down to my last clean bandage."
"No promises, though if it comes to that I’ll aim for somewhere cheap to stitch," he said, easing one arm into a sleeve.
While he wrestled the sleeve, Yuzu picked through the flattened pavilion’s edge, tucking a mud-stained ledger book into her satchel.
Julian arrived a minute later in fresh sea-green silk, Cleat a step behind him with his scarred mouth pressed flat. Six guards trailed them at a distance, though the young guard Ray dragged from the mud was not among them.
"My core has simply vanished from my magnificent beast, peasant, while my men swear you were the nearest soul when it fell."
"I was the nearest soul, my lord... given that I’m the guy who blew it up."
His lordship held out one soft, ringed hand, "Then you will return it at once, before this grows tiresome for everyone involved."
"You claimed the corpse last night, which I let you keep with the smell included, though the core rolled out by itself to land right at my feet."
"Every scale, tooth and glorious drop of that beast belongs to House Amamiya, as my father will happily explain to the magistrate!"
Ray buttoned his shirt slowly over the binding, "Then House Amamiya should have killed it instead of feeding it goats for a month."
Julian’s smile slipped for the first time, leaving something small and mean underneath it like a stain.
"Cleat, take it from him."
The grin left Ray’s face all at once, his fingers going still on the last button of his shirt.
"I’d leave that sword in its sheath, sir, if you’d like to keep the hand that holds it," he said quietly, fastening the last button.
Two of the six guards found the mud at their feet suddenly fascinating, their spear points sinking low. Yuzu stopped rolling her last bandage, the gauze unspooling across her lap while nobody in the camp moved.
Somewhere behind his eyes, an older version of himself stirred, the one frightened men once learned not to wake.
The scarred swordsman drew anyway, his steel flashing as he closed the distance in three long strides. He was fast and well drilled, driving the point straight at Ray’s throat to end it early.
’Step inside the point to take the wrist, staying square for the ribs while the hand opens on its own.’
Ray stepped inside the thrust, his left hand catching Cleat’s wrist as the blade hissed just past his ear. He rolled the joint hard against itself until the fingers sprang open, then plucked the sword from the air.
It took less than a second, the point of the swordsman’s own blade resting a finger’s width beneath his chin.
"You were fast, sir, though fast was never going to be enough this morning."
"You’ll give back my sword before this goes any further," the swordsman rasped, holding himself very still against the point.
"You’ll have it back once you’ve learned to ask for things politely."
"Do you know who you are pointing that at, you filthy peasant?" Julian shrieked, his voice cracking high.
Ray never looked away from the man at the end of the blade, "I know exactly who, my lord, which is why the point sits under his chin instead of yours."
Julian’s mouth shut with a click, his ringed hand drifting to his chest as if the steel turned toward him.
Ray flipped the sword around, driving it point first into the mud until only the crossguard showed.
[ CONTACT RESOLVED ]
[Hostile: Disarmed]
[Contractor Damage: None]
[Rounds Expended: 0]
Cleat stared at the hilt jutting from the mud, though he made no move to pull it free.
Yuzu folded her arms, "Was that strictly necessary, or were you showing off for the guards?"
"A little of both, since my ribs really needed a win this morning," he said, the grin back as if it never left.
She pressed two fingers along his left side, frowning at the binding, "You twisted on that catch and the third rib is grinding again."
"I stayed perfectly square, Doc, like a very angry cupboard with excellent reflexes."
None of the six guards moved, their eyes flicking between their lord and the man who saved their friends.
"You will regret this, for nobody humiliates House Amamiya in front of its own retainers, nobody!" his lordship hissed, his voice shaking with rage.
"I’m not humiliating your house, my lord, I’m just declining to get robbed by it before breakfast."
He flung a fat purse at Ray’s feet, coins spilling across the mud like seed, "There are your wages, so pick them out of the dirt and crawl out of my camp before I find men with sharper swords."
He crouched slowly with his back held straight, weighing the purse in his palm while the coins clinked.
’He thinks this purse is an insult, but I know exactly whose pocket it belongs in.’
He turned toward the goat cages, where a dozen survivors were bleating at the smell of the carcass.
Three farmers stood at the edge of camp, a father, a grey-haired woman and a girl clutching a rope halter. Their muddy smocks carried the very same notch stitched on each sleeve that marked the ears of every caged goat.
"Are you folks from Cypress Bluff?" he called, walking stiffly toward them with the purse.
"We are, sir, though his lordship’s men took our whole herd last month to use as bait," the woman said warily.
"Did anybody pay you for them?"
"Not a single copper, sir, so we walked all night to beg for whatever is still alive."
He pressed the purse into her hands, closing her fingers around it before she could refuse.
"That’s for the ones that got eaten, ma’am, while the goats still breathing are yours to take home."
She loosened the strings to peek inside, her mouth falling open, "This is more than the whole herd ever fetched at market, sir... far more."
"Then buy a taller fence with the change."
The father finally found his voice, pulling off his cap with both hands, "Bless you, son, for the river always pays back the hands that feed it."
The girl squinted up at him, the halter rope wound around her fist, "Are you the man who blew up the big lizard?"
"Guilty as charged, kid, though in my defence the lizard started it."
The girl was already sprinting for the cages, yanking the pins while the guards watched without lifting a finger. Her father stood frozen beside his wife, staring at the purse like a man watching the sun rise twice.
"Nobody touches my bait without my express written permission, you grubby little—"
The first goat out of the pen barrelled straight between his lordship’s legs, spraying mud up the silk.
"Ugh, my silk," his lordship wailed, holding his dripping hem at arm’s length, "do you peasants have any idea what this cost?"
Not one guard stepped forward to help, though two of them suddenly found the treeline very interesting.
[ FEAT RECOGNISED ]
[Contractor: Ray K]
[Feat: Debt Repaid]
[Act: Wronged Party Compensated]
[Stat Changes: None]
[New Skill: Hunter’s Focus]
[Effect: Marks One Target, Tracks It Through Cover]
[Status: Activates on First Mark]
’The System pays me in skills for handing out a jerk’s money, meaning karma apparently runs its own exchange desk.’
The skill settled into place, the HUD narrowing around a single reticle that waited for something worth marking.
He spent sixty HC on quartz dust while the menu was open, topping up the gauntlet’s empty cell.
[ SHOP PURCHASE ]
[Quartz Dust: 2 Pouches]
[Cost: 60 HC]
[Hard Sell Cells: 2/2]
[Balance: 250 HC]
[MANA: 150 / 150]
[Rounds: 50]
"You have your thinking face on, which means something just happened inside your head."
"Something did, though I need a second to calibrate it before you start charging me for the look."
Yuzu followed his gaze to the far edge of camp, where a rider in Amamiya livery was saddling fast.
The courier leaned over his horse’s neck, a sealed letter jutting from his coat as he spurred for the road. Ray let the reticle settle on his back, feeling the skill lock home like a key turning in a door.
At two hundred paces he could read the willow pressed into the letter’s wax, which was new.
[ TARGET MARKED ]
[Hunter’s Focus: Active]
[Target: Amamiya Courier]
[Bearing: North]
[Destination Projected: Hunter Outpost Kroll]
’Yesterday’s three points of perception plus one free skill just turned a two-hundred-pace squint into reading somebody’s mail.’
"Where is he going in such a hurry?" Yuzu asked, shading her eyes against the low sun.
"He’s riding for Hunter Outpost Kroll, the same place we’re headed, except his lordship’s letter gets there first."
"What do you think the letter says?"
"Nothing nice," he said, watching the dust rise behind the horse, "though I’d bet my last round it paints me as the shit-heel thief who robbed a noble of his core."
"Technically, you did take the core."
"Technically it rolled to me, making me the luckiest catcher in the whole swamp," he said, patting the lump in his coat.
She hoisted her satchel onto her shoulder, "Then walk fast, since your lucky catch is about to become everybody’s problem."
The farmers drove their goats past in a bleating stream, the girl waving her rope halter at him in thanks.
"You gave away every coin he paid us, so dinner tonight is that eel again."
"That eel has real character... and I’m confident it will rise to the occasion," he said, adjusting the strap of his pack.
’A lord with a grudge and a fast horse is about to beat me to Kroll, so I’d better start walking like I mean it.