If that last attribute, physical attack, had been higher, Tailyn would have tried to stand up for himself. It determined how hard he could hit with his bare hands. And yes, if he’d had a club, his attributes would have increased his attack strength, but who was going to give a nameless parasite a real weapon?
Suddenly, Tailyn heard the sound of rocks falling. He froze, straining his ears. While the city of the ancients had long since been explored from one end to the other, weirdos occasionally did show up to see if they could find something valuable.
“Careful!” called Dort’s annoyed voice. Tailyn pressed himself against the rocks in an effort to disappear. It was a good thing he’d gotten as high as he did—the elder’s son never traveled alone, and if his guards caught Tailyn, he would be in for a beating. Just to make sure he didn’t spy on them. They’d even take his flowers, which meant he needed to stay quiet and hope they didn’t notice him.
“What’s he doing here?” one of the guards boomed. A boy of sixteen, Meron’s voice had just started to change, making it easily recognizable.
“None of our business,” Dort shot back, and Tailyn practically stopped breathing. The elder’s son was usually polite to his own. But something had happened, he was nervous, and that intrigued the boy hiding among the rocks.
“Hey, you little ruffians, I’m over here!” an adult voice shouted. Taking a risk, Tailyn poked his head up. Just a bit below where he was hiding, there was a man who definitely wasn’t a local. His bonus clothing gave that away instantly. Only Master Isor and Mistress Valanil had access to them, and the voice didn’t belong to either. Tailyn’s stomach tightened—a stranger had shown up in their valley. Did the elder know? What was he doing there?
The hood pulled low over the stranger’s face kept it hidden. Soon enough, Dort appeared riding on Meron’s back. Climbing up the rocks was apparently too great a humiliation for the elder’s magnificent son, though he was annoyed with how the big lunk kept losing his footing.
“We agreed you’d come alone!” the man snarled rudely. Dort begrudgingly climbed down and gestured for Meron to head back where they’d come from. The latter was only too happy to beat a hasty retreat.
“Did you bring them?”
“Father told me to take a look at the goods first,” Dort replied. “That was the deal.”
“Go for it.” The stranger pulled his cloak open; Dort gasped. Tailyn’s curiosity skyrocketed. “Good enough?”
“Y-yes.” The elder’s son had even developed a bit of a stutter. “H-how many do you have?”
“Plenty. What about the crystals? How many did you bring?”
“F-five. Here, l-look.”
Tailyn’s eyes grew wide as saucers when the warm blue light bathed the area. Dort was holding its source in his hands—a translucent crystal. Just owning one was tantamount to treason, a crime punished by death with no chance for appeal.
“Just five?” the stranger asked, dissatisfaction tingeing his voice. “Why so few?”
“They’re c-closely monitored,” Dort replied, though he was quickly interrupted.
“The deal was for ten!”
“You’ll have the other f-five in a month.”
“And that’s when you’ll get the goods! But I’ll take these five now.”
“What?! No!” Dort exclaimed as he hid the crystals in his pocket, though the man’s arm shot forward in response. A rope snaked its way around the boy’s neck. The stranger was holding the other end, and a jerk pulled Dort over to him. Unable to breathe, the boy wheezed. Cold metal flashed.
“Either you hand them over nicely, or I pick them off your dead body.” The heavy voice boded nothing good. Sweeping along Dort’s leg, the dagger blade left a long bloody streak—the boy’s entire protection was gone just like that. He squealed like a pig and tried to pull away, but the man was holding him too tightly for that.
“You have five seconds to… What was that? You were followed?!”
Tailyn’s stomach sank. In an effort to see just a little more, he’d leaned forward slightly and accidentally knocked a pebble off the edge of the ridge. And while it may have been small enough to be barely noticeable, the sound it made as it hit the ground was like rolling thunder. The stranger whirled around, and the boy practically hiccupped in horror when he realized he’d been spotted. Jerking Dort closer, the man growled into his face.
“The crystals! Now!”
The elder’s son squeaked inarticulately as the space around them was once more bathed in blue light. The stranger grabbed the crystals and squeezed his fist closed. Something snapped, and Dort’s body twisted in agony, thrown to the side as the man dashed up the ridge without even taking the time to check the boy’s inventory. He couldn’t let anyone see him there. There would be time to deal with the idiot who came with the elder’s son later—in the meantime, he had to deal with the spy.
Dropping the crystals into his inventory, the man began clambering up the rocks. And while his whip remained ready to pull back anyone he found, there was nobody to be seen. He leaped up onto the ridge, looked around, and cursed quietly. Someone had definitely been lying there. Not long before, even. But while the man didn’t have any tracker skills, he didn’t need them to figure out which way the spy had dashed off. He set off running into the heart of the dead city, finding the spy his only option.
Tailyn ran senselessly. All he could see was Dorn lying broken on the rocks. Behind him, something hissed, and he ducked just in time, a snap above his head eliciting a cloud of rock dust. Sweeping straight through the stone, the tip of the magic rope left a deep furrow behind it. Just a little lower…
That kind of fear had never gripped Tailyn. His reason out the window, he was left nothing more than an animal fighting for its life. He slipped, his body hit the ground, and that was when he heard the next hiss—with another cloud of rock dust, the whip cracked directly above him. His pursuer was barely an arm’s length away.
“Stop right there!” yelled the stranger practically in the boy’s ear. Crazed by fear, Tailyn leaped toward some thorn bushes, and the man’s swing came up empty. He cursed and unfurled his whip yet again. It was time for the final blow. The boy, a nimble little lizard that kept squirting out of his grasp, needed to be destroyed. Nobody could know that a crystal fence had been in the area.
The whip stretched toward its victim and…wrapped itself one more time around nothing but air.
Tailyn could only see what was happening directly in front of him—his peripheral vision was gone. His hearing was, too. The world was a place bereft of sensations, fear having taken complete control of his body. All he could do was run. Straight ahead. Straight—