The axeman came around the blind corner whistling, his axe resting on his shoulder like a farmer’s hoe. Ray stepped from the rock’s shadow close enough to smell onions on the man’s breath before anyone spoke.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen, I’m here about... a purse," he said, so mild and level that the whistling died on the axeman’s lips.
The axeman’s knuckles went white on the haft, jerking the axe off his shoulder in a clumsy, panicked arc.
Ray caught the haft with his left hand and the collar with his right, pivoting into a judo reap. The axeman’s legs left the ground entirely, his back slamming onto the trail hard enough to empty his lungs.
He followed the man down, trapping the axe arm across his hips as he leaned back into a sambo armbar.
The elbow folded backward with a wet crack, the scream bouncing between the rocks like a coin down a well.
"Aghhh!"
"River’s teeth, what kind of devil are you?" the archer yelped, fumbling an arrow from his quiver as he backed up the path.
’The archer goes next, before he remembers that a bow works better with some distance between us.’
Ray crossed the gap in two strides, slapping the bow aside as the arrow skittered into the scree. His elbow snapped down onto the archer’s collarbone in a short silat strike, the bone breaking like kindling.
The archer dropped to his knees clutching his shoulder, his mouth opening on a scream that refused to come out.
"You never even drew a blade," he wheezed, staring up through his tears, "so what are you supposed to be?"
He kicked the bow down the slope, "I’m a man with a long list of people who were slower than you."
The lanky knife man came in low, his blade hooking toward Ray’s ribs in a cut meant to gut him. He was the best of the four, so the edge kissed Ray’s forearm before the hand behind it was caught.
The cut never earned a glance, Ray’s hand clamping down on the wrist while his face stayed perfectly blank.
He rolled the trapped wrist outward until the joints popped, stripping the knife free as the man howled in pain.
A sweep took the knee from the side, sending the man skidding down the scree on his back. Stones hissed around him the whole way down until a boulder stopped him with a dull, final thump.
"Gah, my knee, my knee is bending the wrong way!"
Three men went down in less time than the axeman needed to finish his first scream.
He tossed the knife over the edge without looking at it, letting it rattle down the slope after its owner.
[ TARGETS DISABLED ]
[Disabled: 3 of 4]
[Fatalities: 0]
[Contractor Damage: Minor Laceration]
Rogan waited sword in hand, purse at his belt, the satchel he took from the knife man over his shoulder. He was the only one who stopped walking the moment the screaming started, making him the only one worth watching.
He did not charge, though his back foot slid half a step toward the far end before he planted it.
"That thunder back in the gorge was you, wand-boy, explaining why the goblins went quiet so fast," Rogan said slowly.
"They went quiet by dying, the same way quiet usually works in my experience."
"No mage throws thunder without a hymn, while no fighter drops three men without drawing steel, so what the hell are you, then?"
He rolled his neck once, "I’m the man you forgot to check for when you skipped the high ground, Rogan."
Rogan’s knuckles whitened on the grip, his point drifting a finger’s width off line before he steadied it again.
"You can set the sword down now, though the offer closes the moment I take the next step."
Rogan answered with a real swordsman’s thrust, the point driving straight at Ray’s throat without a wasted inch. He slipped outside the blade, catching the sword wrist as he drove a shoulder into the open armpit.
A sambo shoulder lock folded the arm up behind Rogan’s back until the joint left its socket with a pop.
"You freak, you broke my sword arm!"
"I dislocated your shoulder, which is a very different invoice... though I understand the confusion," he said, the grin sliding back as if it only stepped out for air.
The sword clattered onto the trail as Rogan went down on his face, spitting curses into the hot grit.
Ray picked up the fallen sword, sighting down the blade with real interest, "Now this one is actually decent, with a good temper and a straight spine, meaning you definitely stole it."
Ray knelt on his spine, stripping off the purse and satchel with all the calm of a man collecting laundry. He pulled his own belt free, lashing the good wrist to the bad one while Rogan howled into the dirt.
"Thanks for carrying my fee all the way up here, considering I really hate climbing with luggage."
"You’ll hang for this, wand-boy, seeing as we’re licensed escorts with guild papers out of Kelford!" Rogan snarled, thrashing against the knee in his back.
"Your guild papers can explain the jar of swamp bait to the watch, then," he said, patting the man’s cheek twice.
"Can somebody please tell me whether I still have an elbow?" the axeman whined from the dirt.
"You’ve got two of them now, one more joint than you started the day with."
Hooves scraped on the switchback below, followed by the indignant snort of a mule that resented the whole climb.
Yuzu came around the corner with her rapier drawn, the mule’s rope wrapped twice around her wrist as she panted. She stopped dead at the sight of four moaning men, then at Ray sitting on their leader like a bench.
"Doc, I distinctly remember telling you to wait in the goat hut until—"
"I heard screaming, so I came to see whose it was," she said, cutting him off without slowing down.
Her gaze moved from the men to the blood on his sleeve, then back to the men, counting them twice.
"They’re all breathing, every last one of them, exactly the way the client ordered," Ray said, lifting both hands in surrender.
"Breathing is a generous word for the one whose knee is pointing at the sky."
"You told me crooked was fine, Doc, so I took that as artistic license."
She knelt by the knife man anyway, splinting his leg with his own scabbard while he sobbed apologies she ignored. Then she grabbed Ray’s arm without asking, pressing two fingers to the cut until a pale light sealed it shut.
"Hold still, since knife cuts in goblin country fester by sundown," she ordered without looking up.
He held still, mostly out of surprise, while the sting faded into a dull itch beneath fresh pink skin.
"You’re patching up the same guys who tried to feed you to goblins this afternoon?"
"I heal people, full stop... what they do afterward is the watch’s business," she said, tying off the archer’s sling.
’She’s the first client I’ve ever had who bandages the people who robbed her, which makes her either a saint or a terrible businesswoman.’
He opened the purse on a flat rock, counting silver into stacks of ten until he reached a hundred.
"That’s my fee paid in full out of your own purse, which leaves forty for the clinic rent," he said, sliding the rest back.
"Hmph, my own money just paid you for the rescue of my own money."
"That’s called a closed loop, the kind of thing that makes accountants weep with joy."
She sighed at his open palm, pulling the note from her sleeve to slap it down, "Take your promissory note, vulture."
Ray tore it in half, then in half again, letting the wind carry the pieces down toward the knife man.
[ CONTRACT CLOSED ]
[Contract: Xua Rescue]
[Payment: 100 Silver Received]
[ FEAT RECOGNISED ]
[Feat: First Contract]
[PER: 16 → 18]
[Blueprint Points: +5]
[Shop: Unlocked]
The far ridge sharpened around him until every pebble on the opposite slope stood crisp enough to count.
"Holy hell, I could count the pebbles on that ridge from here," he breathed, shading his eyes with one hand.
"You’re squinting at rocks like they owe you money."
"Everything owes me money until proven otherwise, and right now those rocks are looking real suspicious."
’Every job I close pays twice, once in silver and once in whatever this System decides I earned.’
Yuzu hugged the satchel to her chest, checking every vial by touch as her shoulders loosened with each one. Sunleaf paste and fever tinctures sat snug in their straw nests, without a single stopper cracked on the climb.
"Everything is here, which means eleven people get their medicine on time," she said quietly.
"Then the clinic keeps its roof, your eleven patients keep breathing and I keep my spotless record as the friendliest vulture in Xua," he said, sweeping a little bow toward the mule.
Rogan spat dirt, twisting his head far enough to glare at both of them with naked hatred, "This isn’t over, wand-boy, given that I’ll find you and your pretty little healer again, then make you pay for every bone you—"
"You’ve got one working arm and a date with the town watch, so pace yourself, champ," he cut in cheerfully.
"Leave his grudge to the watch, since they get paid for it," she said, swinging the satchel onto her shoulder.
’He means every word, which makes him the most dangerous kind of broken man, so I’ll keep one eye on him.’
Ray hauled Rogan upright by his collar, steering him toward his moaning crew while the mule watched with open contempt.