Chapter 10: Castle Urcia

I didn’t sleep well that night. I tossed and shifted, and the adrenaline never really left my body. My injured shoulder made it worse. Whenever I shifted, it stung, and I wished I could’ve had a healer like Hild to repair the injury, even if it would’ve itched.

My instinct was to rap on the side of the wagon with my fist until that Lady Sage came out and healed us, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would’ve been ever so slightly too rude, and I had just enough self-preservation instincts to hold myself back.

When the sun began rising, I sat up, lifting my head and nursing my shoulder. Ticks, Shave, and the others were already awake. They sat around the embers of our campfire, and they each tossed a copper sceat into the ash before muttering a story about Trench.

I walked up behind them slowly, but I didn’t say anything. I just joined them in the circle.

“…when he hit the scarecrow straight in the chest with a spear,” Romance said. “The most perfect throw I’ve ever seen. The thing toppled over and rolled down the hill, and only then did the crows finally stop pecking at Farmer Dungail’s spilled grain.”

I didn’t know Trench all that well, but I still bit my lip. I regretted not having a copper sceat on me to throw in the fire.

When Shave saw me searching my kit bag, he nudged me and said, “Don’t sweat it, lad. If we burn the bodies, their souls cross the great void-strait to Welkinmere on their own. But if we don’t get a chance to burn our brothers’ bodies, then we toss some coins in the fire. It’s the fee for the ferryman to hunt their souls himself.”

I wanted to question it, to ask if they knew if any of that was real. I couldn’t exactly tell the difference between myth and an established fact in this world. But that sounded disrespectful, and really, how would anyone know?

When Luiger woke up, we kept moving. The rest of the journey passed without incident. Slowly, the fields of dandelion fluff transitioned back into regular grass plains, then into farmland. Rolling hills, sparse trees, valleys with dark green woods trapped in them. Lines of trees separated plots of land, and the wheat was beginning to go yellow as summer drew to a close. By the time we reached Castle Urcia, the trees were beginning to show hints of yellow in their leaves, but only near the very top.

I never actually saw Castle Urcia when we arrived. We stopped outside a border fence—technically, a fieldstone wall, but it was only as high as my waist, and it was more of a demarcation of the castle estate than anything.

There were two guards. They were Dupes, and they looked about ten years older than I was. Both held spears in their hands and carried an unstrung longbow on their backs. Instead of chainmail, they wore heavy plate armour, so polished it glinted white in the sunlight. Their helmets seemed relatively standard, but they wore a waist cape of scale mail painted with orange and pale blue stripes, and a broad pauldron clung to their left arm, emblazoned with the raven sigil of Gate.

“Those are sappers,” Romance whispered to me.

The longer I spent in their presence, the greater their pressure weighed on me. I couldn’t explain it well, but it felt as though I was swimming near the bottom of a deep pool, with the water weighing down on my eardrums. Something tingled in my gut—and it wasn’t just that I was hungry.

“They’re Titanium-tier,” Shave whispered to me.

Both of the sappers crossed their spears in front of us, blocking an opening in the border fence. Resonance skills rippled around their spearheads, and one of them manifested a round wooden shield out of nowhere. It just appeared in his hand.

He must’ve had a Skill merge and gotten himself an Art. Some way to manipulate space and pull out a shield from nowhere.

From what I’d gathered, the Arts that us Dupes were capable of were more of ‘invisible’ powers. We weren’t going to make a flashy show of raining a firestorm down on our enemies, but we could harness some forms of magic if we put our minds to it.

That was exactly my plan. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gotten any new Skills along the way—not yet—but I’d been practicing my archery with Shave. Although I knew I had to be realistic about it, I was focusing more time and energy into learning a Skill than I would’ve been able to back on Earth. I didn’t have to worry about university lectures or wasting time with public transit, nor did I have to worry about driving to the ski-hill.

Sure, we were escorting Lady Sage, but there was plenty of time for me to practice my spear grips and my stances, to work on hastily stringing a bow as we walked, and more. I definitely wasn’t going to specialize in archery, at least I hoped not, but as a secondary weapon, it would be incredibly useful.

The sappers clacked their spears together, drawing me out of my thoughts. “State your purpose,” one of them said.

Shave pulled off his helmet. “We’re escorting Lady Sage. We were told she was expected.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Did you see action?” the second sapper asked.

Shave nodded. “Fell-fox riders. A few days back along the Urcia Road, at the fenland boardwalk.”

“They’re getting bolder,” the first sapper said. He pulled his spear back then nodded. “Good work, soldiers. But it seems like you have been travelling with a druid, and yet you are still injured.”

Luiger stepped forward, puffing his chest. “Lady Sage doesn’t have to—”

“Silence, freeman.” The second sapper marched out to meet Luiger, but he didn’t even flinch. “A squad has six Dupes. Yet I only see five. One has died.”

“Who are you to command me?” Luiger reached for the hilt of his sword. “I would cut you down where you stand, Dupe. Show our lady and her guards the respect you ought to.”

The first sapper glanced at Shave, then said, “You were under his command?”

Shave nodded. “Correct.”