Chapter 2

Rayner stood in front of Tessa’s shack, his hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the sun’s heat. He’d only just arrived. The usual riot of pickpockets and women soliciting him slowed him down. Visiting Tessa had become a regular event for him and he truly enjoyed the woman’s company to Axel’s amazement.

She was a severe woman at times, with admittedly prudish and old-fashioned notions. Other than that, she was a very good listener with cute kids. They reminded Rayner of the kids he cared for back home. The kids he ultimately failed to help.

From behind him came a tap on his shoulder and he turned to see Tessa. “You move silently. How long were you behind me?”

“With the way things are going in town, I have learned to move quietly and with a sense of haste.” She moved past him to open the door. She muttered and clasped her hands in prayer and the rickety door swung open. “You could have let yourself in.”

“Don’t I need your skill for that, what was it called again? ... Closed Entrance.”

“Yes, it is not very useful though. It locks doors but does not make the door itself any stronger than a proper lock, just difficult to break in silently.”

“Why not bless the shack?”

She smiled indulgently. “Not even Alta’s petty gods would bother blessing such a place. That whorehouse does get blessings though.” Her face twisted as she spoke of the brothel.

Stepping inside the well-managed room and taking a seat on the blanketed floor, Rayner stated the reason for his visit. “Madam Grace wanted me to ask you if you could convince the refugee women to stop selling themselves. We know you disapprove.” Tessa was nodding in agreement. “And because of your position as representative of the caravan’s refugees, you could step in and—I don’t know, preach to them or something.”

“I would hate to do that woman a favor but I do owe her for letting me stay at her den of sin for as long as she did. The problem is I have already tried to show the ladies of the streets a different path and they have chosen whoring instead. Also, I am no longer the representative for the refugees.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Tessa.”

“I’m not. I could do very little in the position as events settled down. More competent leadership took over.”

“If that is what you want, then great. But why no luck with the streetwalkers?”

“They owe money and the thugs control the ones who don’t using violence.”

“You mean pimps?”

She sat confused. “I don’t know that word. But if you mean women like Madam Grace, then yes.”

“Madam Grace thinks we can do something about the crime, about everything. Axel doesn’t want to and I don’t think we could help even if he wanted to.”

Their talks always came to this. He would ask her about her troubles but he really wanted to talk of his. She didn’t seem to mind in the least. Rather, she gestured to her lap for him to rest his head.

As the back of his head laid on her thighs, she wiped the sweat from his forehead and spoke gently to him. “Just because people do not speak of you two as openly as before does not mean they have completely forgotten what you boys did. They know that when you left and came back their situation improved. But they do not know how.”

“Everyone had a part to play,” Rayner said humbly. “Besides, I can’t fix systemic poverty and entrenched crime.”

She idled before responding, then stopped wiping his sweat and began to brush his blond hair. “When you left Ridgehill so soon after aiding me and the others, did you do so in order to save Ridgehill?”

Blinking at her question he answered, “No, we got hired to escort Fred Copper’s wife and daughter from the Alea region to Ridgehill.”

The mission had truly gone off script, ending with a fight with a dragon. Fred’s wife even ended up being used as a living flame shield by Axel when fighting off a Coalition bandit mage. He struggled not to judge Axel’s brutal choice.

“Exactly, and yet you saved Ridgehill because you moved forward.”

“So, people just want me to try.”

“What else is there but to try. If we fail,” Tessa shrugged, “then we fail. This is the way of life. We are blessed and cursed by the whims of the gods.”

He took her nugget of wisdom to heart, clutching it like a child. He could try. It was the very least he could do. Because unlike others of this world, he was Faithless. A title that prevented him from worshiping gods.

He couldn’t rely on them. He didn’t have to.

Rayner heard an insistent rapping on the door and calls for Tessa to open up. Rising from her lap, he motioned for her to stay behind him.

Rayner greeted the men outside. “Hello, can I help you with something?”

The two men staggered back, shocked. They expected a mother of two, not a youth with bulging muscles and a hard face. “W-we are here to offer you protection but it’s expensive to keep all the men happ—”

Rayner connected his fist with the man’s nose. The man staggered back, clasping his bleeding nose with his hands. Eyes of shock and fury glared back at Rayner. Instead of waiting for the man to spew out threats, Rayner attacked again with a blow that would have broken the man’s jaw, if the attack landed. To the thug’s credit, he expanded the distance between them rather than charging in anger. Too bad.

Closing the distance, Rayner bore down on the man, hauling him up till his legs dangled off the ground. The display of strength halted the other thug who stood positioned to stab Rayner with his knife. Perfect.

Rayner chucked the man into his partner in crime, leaving them a heap on the floor. Then, clapping?

Others had gathered outside of Tessa’s shack to watch what they thought would be a beat-down. They found the thugs being handled like squalling babes instead.

He felt like giving them a bow but showed them his blushing face instead.

Then he took in his actions. These men didn’t work alone. Their partners would make life harder for Tessa now.

Far from helping her and being the hero, he’d put her life in danger. And dear lord what of her young children? Turning to apologize he saw Tessa, beaming.

“All we can do is try.” She patted him on his broad shoulders. “Too often people use the excuse of not wanting to start trouble to mask doubt, fear, or lack of ability. They will come back after they licked their wounds. I will use that time to prepare. Thank you.”

Rayner wanted to hug her.

Then came the screams from all around the town. He looked to Tessa.

She nodded. “Go, Rayner. You are needed.”

Rushing into the convergence of blood and steel, Rayner took in the scene outside of Ridgehill. The camps, all three armies of them, were under attack by kobolds. Their volcanic skin covered lean muscle and they swung swords of steel. They wreaked havoc throughout the camp.

These kobolds were unlike the ones he fought before. They were armed with proper swords instead of clubs and short-bows rather than rock-throwing slings.

He didn’t have to wade into the battle. The kobolds came for him. Grabbing the hammer Madam Grace supplied for him to replace his own, he met the monsters. They had nice swords but didn’t know how to use them. The kobolds chopped at their enemies gleefully, using their swords more like a hammer or an axe. These were children playing with new toys.

Rayner would show them how an adult played games.

A kobold swung his sword down, aiming to cleave Rayner in half and was halted by his powerful hand on his wrist. Digging his fingers into the kobold’s hot skin, Rayner smashed his hammer into the sword with the strength carried by his Force Hammer skill.

Following up his attack, he activated Force Hammer once more and drove the kobolds head down as if it were an offensive nail. The luminous green light of his skill covered the blood on his hammer and it made the other kobolds circling him hesitate.

If they would not come to him, he would come to them.

Skill still active and mana reserves fresh, he flooded down on the monsters like a waterfall. Hammers and swords clashed, with swords coming out the loser.

A wild-eyed kobold came at him from behind, forcing Rayner to turn his back on two downed kobolds before he could finish them off. This one had a skill of his own and his sword glowed red as if fresh from a blacksmiths forge.

Not wanting to introduce his blade to the unknown skill Rayner pushed more mana into his skill, Force Hammer. The green glow brightened and its range extended just enough for his weapon not to make direct contact with the kobold’s sword. Their weapons collided, red and green sparks erupted at the point of contact.

But when the kobold stepped back from the force that carried through the blade, Rayner had stepped forward and into the kobold’s space. Rayner sensed that the two kobolds had risen behind him. He threw the kobold into the others.

The last thing they saw was his smiling face as he bludgeoned them into the other world.

Yet still more came. Another group of three targeted him with their swords and their bows. The two with bows stayed back and loosed arrows upon him, covering the third’s approach. These kobolds used their weapons properly, not like toys. Underestimating them would be unwise.

He used Roar, sending out an air-distorting force tinged with green. It startled them into a moment’s incapacity and pushed away their arrows. By the time the kobold team of short-bow users re-steeled themselves for battle, Rayner had already killed their partner, letting his blood fertilize the ground.

Panicked at the proximity between them and the muscled teen before them, they retreated.

They had turned their backs on him. Big mistake. Their final mistake.

He let out a Roar at their backs and they fell to the ground next to each other where he ended their lives.

An arrow whizzed by his nose. By sheer luck or the kobold’s lack of skill, the arrow missed him. Either way he was alive and aware of a new enemy.

Rayner should thank the kobold. It gave him no time to think about how much he enjoyed the brutal combat.

Turning to the threat, Rayner saw the kobold drawing another arrow, unafraid of his murderous attentions. The reason for its bravery was the large snake it rode like a horse.

Its scaled skin was an earthy yellow and its eyes a green reminiscent of the glow given off by his own skill, Force Hammer. It bore its fangs at Rayner.

Another reptilian monster for him to fight. Big deal.

Rayner was of the barbarian class and had fought a dragon. He’d smashed its skull in until the durability of his hammer broke. What was this baby snake to him?

The creature must have sensed his confidence for it shrank away, curling in on itself like the pathetic creature Rayner believed it to be.

Unfazed, its rider had continued to loose arrows in Rayner’s direction, but by then, men in of the militia came. They wore no uniform, only a drab brown sash around their head. The snake slithered off to avoid the varied weapons of the militia soldiers.

Rayner was somewhat upset that they had driven off his kill but then accepted the interruption for what it was: cover. “All of you, make sure those short-bows stay directed at anything other than me. I will handle the rest.”

They gave him tepid nods of acceptance. Rayner and Axel had helped organize the army. But, it was at its center a hodgepodge of men and women armed with whatever weapons they could find and not all of them knew him personally.

They were without a truly charismatic leader and so would take orders from anyone who stepped forward at the right time. Right now, that was him.

To give them a boost, he let out a bellowing Battle Cry with enough force to rattle the rocks and dust around him. The militia soldiers around him straightened their backs and fingers eagerly grasped their weapons. With eyes motivated and vigor filling their bodies, they followed behind him as he waded deep into the battle.