Master of the Sword
Master of the Sword
"Please don't make it hurt."
A clear, ringing voice. Aslan read the emotion flickering in the speaker's pink eyes and met her gaze. The feeling inside them gradually shifted, settling into anticipation.
Bare anticipation, and a quiet satisfaction at having her gaze met. He read it all, and Ereta smiled faintly.
"You don't mean that."
"Hmm? I don't like pain."
"As if."
Despite her words of denial, Ereta didn't bother hiding her eagerness. Her face was flushed, as if she were a little excited.
Her eyes drifted to Aslan's left hand.
"Are you sure your left hand alone will be enough?"
"Why wouldn't it be? You just do it. Why?"
"You look right-handed."
"I am. Still... for sutures, a little improvisation goes a long way."
As he spoke, he swept his left hand across Ereta's exposed abdomen.
The skin and muscle beneath his touch were unusually soft — the flesh of someone who had never trained.
"If you were a priest or built like Angie, it might be impossible. But for a normal human, it's not difficult."
As if summoned by the sound of her own name, Angie stirred in her sleep by the campfire and mumbled something unintelligible.
Aslan glanced at her. Ereta followed his gaze, then spoke.
"A priest or Angie wouldn't have needed sutures in the first place."
"True."
He agreed so readily that Ereta fell silent. Then, as his hand continued to move across her skin, her breathing grew subtly unsteady.
A strange elation settled over her.
"Being touched feels... strange."
"Does it?"
"Yes, a little... ticklish inside."
She rubbed her thighs together as she spoke. Aslan watched the motion for a moment, then looked at her face.
Was she trying to provoke him? There was no sign of it.
She looked confused, as if she didn't understand her own reactions.
If this wasn't deliberate, did she really not know?
Aslan recalled where his fingers rested — very near her lower abdomen.
She genuinely didn't know. If anyone else had acted that way, he would have assumed manipulation. But with Ereta, he could believe it.
She had spent her whole life inside a cult, raised as a priest. There was no chance she'd ever received any education on human reproduction or sexuality.
Meeting her eyes now, Aslan saw the bewildered expression she wore, a beat too late.
'She really has no idea.'
Better that way. Aslan had no interest in the complications of personal entanglements anymore, and he had no desire to cloud his judgment with messy romantic attachments.
What he wanted was Victory and the footholds to achieve it. He let the moment slide.
"It's just physiology. Don't read too much into it. Skin contact does that."
"Really...? Human bodies are fascinating."
There was something profound in hearing that from a woman who had not been human until recently. Wordlessly, Aslan withdrew his hand and picked up the needle.
"I'll keep the pain to a minimum, but it will hurt. You should bite down on something."
Ereta hesitated briefly, then docilely accepted the strip of cloth he'd torn from her own habit and held it out as a gag.
Aslan wiped his hand clean of her saliva and threaded the needle.
"Don't move."
After that, only stifled moans and whimpers filled the air. Aslan's hands worked briskly, so precise in their movements that it was hard to believe he was using only one. He stitched the wound closed with steady care.
He tore bandages, drew the thread through the gash visible through the rent in her habit. Cold sweat traced down Ereta's forehead and cheeks and dripped onto the ground. Every now and then, waves of pain made her squirm.
"Hnn."
She seemed to be struggling with the instruction not to move, so Aslan climbed on top of her.
He straddled her and used his own weight to pin her down. Skin touched through fabric, and Ereta flinched, her face flushing oddly.
In that position, he finished the sutures. The wound on the left side of her lower abdomen was finally closed after several dozen minutes of meticulous work.
When it was over, Ereta pulled the gag from her mouth and panted, thighs rubbing together.
The motion produced a wet, slick sound, but Aslan resolutely ignored it.
"It's been a long time. I wasn't sure I still had the touch, but that went well. You did good."
"Nnnh...."
Ereta's breath came out heated. She let out an exhausted sigh.
"I'll remove the stitches in two weeks."
"...Will it hurt then too?"
"No."
Her disappointment was naked. Aslan gave a dry laugh and pulled away.
"Lie still for now. Once you've recovered a bit, we'll move."
"Yes."
She settled herself down obediently. Aslan rose to his feet.
Standing, he draped his cloak over her bare legs. It didn't take long for her to fall asleep.
Ereta's habit hung on her in tatters, barely more than rags. Aslan himself wore a gambeson that was frayed and scorched.
His leather breastplate and the plate cuirass had both been wrecked in the fighting — neither was usable anymore.
They looked like beggars in rags.
Angie was better off, but not by much.
Her injuries were the lightest and her clothes less damaged, but she still looked just as ragged as the rest of them.
They'd had to flee Kardi in a hurry. There was no helping it. But a faint regret lingered in Aslan.
Even after twelve years of wandering, some modern habits were hard to shake—like wanting to wear decent clothes, at least.
Aslan tossed a few branches onto the campfire and watched the wild grass swaying in the wind.
They were in Baron Werbid's domain, not far from Kardi.
To be precise, they were on the border between the desert and Randy Gorge — a place where scattered trees dotted the landscape.
Clusters of thick grass grew here and there, which made it popular with beasts.
The spot had no proper name, and there were no villages nearby.
Only grazing animals roamed.
There were no pursuers, no sign of priests. But they couldn't afford to let their guard down.
Aslan knew Randy Gorge well. It had once held several villages, but it had been overrun — turned into a cursed land by swarming monsters and savage beasts.
He breathed in the rank odor riding the wind and sifted through the rumors about the gorge.
The usual tales: a king of monsters behind all the creatures, or the vengeful spirit of a hunter wrongly driven from his village.
The stories were framed in ways that strained credulity, but they carried fragments of information.
At the very least, the part about monsters being numerous was certainly true.
Beyond the rippling darkness, the wind wailed like a keening voice. Listening to it, Aslan felt Luck prick him with a warning. Someone was out there.
He didn't dismiss the alert. He raised his slack left arm and pulled the flail from his belt.
The green flail with its four heads unfurled with a soft metallic rattle.
Then the distant brush shook, and something burst out.
Something small. Roughly the size of a child, its outline indistinct in the shadows — but its frame was small.
'Not a Dwarf... then what?'
Not one of the mountain-dwelling, savage, dim-witted Demi-humans. The Dwarves in this world were like those from any fantasy game: thick-bodied, hostile, and quick to form packs.
Dwarves would have opened fire with slings from cover before showing themselves.
This was solitary, slender, and showed no hostility. Its hands were empty.
There were a few monsters that took the shape of children, but most haunted the Southern Continent. Aslan couldn't place it. He kept his weapon ready and waited. The silhouette advanced through the shadows.
"Wow, a person! Hello!"
An innocent greeting.
The moon slipped free of the clouds, and the shadows receded, revealing the speaker clearly.
It had the form of a child.
Dressed in rags even more ragged than what Aslan, Angie, and Ereta wore.
The child's body bore subtle curves — a girl, or so she presented herself.
Her eyes glowed green, and her brown hair was cropped short at the shoulders, the roughly hacked ends gleaming.
But the most notable detail was at the very bottom.
Bare feet chained with a broken shackle.
Even through her guileless expression, the mark of a slave was unmistakable.
Aslan understood what the girl was.
Those who walked the earth barefoot, took the form of young girls, possessed no natural lifespan, and could not die except by violence.
Only one race in the world matched that description.
Blood-kin of the God of Nature and Creation, and the race most commonly sold into slavery.
The most harmless — and least trustworthy — people in Geladrion.
Elves.
But Aslan did not put his weapon away.
Luck was stirring.
Not toward the Elf, but toward the brush and shadows behind her.
He understood the situation. The Elf girl smiled.
"My friends want me to come check you out! Is that okay?"
Friends. The brush behind her rustled faintly, as if in response. A clumsy response.
Whoever had sent an Elf to make that request clearly wasn't a seasoned operator.
Subdue them, then extract information.
Aslan had been ready to kill whoever emerged, but he adjusted his approach.
"Sure. Tell them to come out."
He returned the flail to his belt as he spoke.
The Elf nodded readily, turned around, and shouted.
"He says come out!"
She was smiling brightly. The brush shook. Two men emerged from the undergrowth.
Men in fur-leather armor, carrying crude weapons.
As they stepped forward, one of them kicked the Elf. She crumpled with a thin cry and rolled across the ground.
Aslan looked at the men and anticipated exactly what they would say.
"Well, fuck... figures. I'm an idiot for trusting an Elf. Hey, you one-armed idiot. Stay quiet and...."
"Hand over everything we've got. Leave the women and get lost. If we do, you'll let us live — is that it?"
"Sharp little bastard, aren't you? Do that and...."
"Then you kill us anyway. Right?"
"...Oh, you've been robbed before? Or are you in the trade?"
The man chuckled, and his partner joined in. Bandits.
The kind who moved in when the villages of Randy Gorge collapsed under the flood of monsters.
Aslan could piece together exactly what had happened.
With an Elf in the mix, there wasn't much to think about.
"Can't say I've ever been a slaver."
His voice was cold. Grins spread across the men's faces.
"Heh, look at this guy. Sharp, but no damn sense of fear."
"Guess he really is in the trade. Look, just bad luck. Come along quietly and...."
"A cripple missing an arm isn't worth much, so you'll club him from behind and kill him. No value."
Aslan finished the sentence for him, and the bandit's smirk vanished. Being read so precisely unsettled him, and he forced down his unease with bluster.
"You mouthy little shit, keep cutting me off like that. You got a death wish? Want me to kill you right now?"
He raised his voice and advanced, trying to intimidate. As he closed the distance, he rested his axe on his shoulder.
Aslan watched the axe settle into position — ready to swing at any moment — and let out a sigh.
If the man had at least held the weapon out, thrust toward him, it might have taken a full exchange to end it, he thought idly.
"My line."
"What? What are you—."
Crack!
The bandit felt his entire field of vision lurch.
Not just lurch — his insides heaved, his eyes rolled. His pupils flipped back of their own accord, consciousness dimming. The fierce pain arrived a beat late.
The slave-trader bandit crumpled. His companion's eyes flew wide.
"The fu—?"
It had been a spinning kick.
A spinning kick too fast to follow with the naked eye.
It caught the bandit square in the jaw, and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The other man had seen every frame of it. Sweat beaded on his skin.
They'd picked the wrong target.
But the regret came too late, and the outcome was already decided. When the stunned bandits came to, they were tied.