Wild Gourmet: Chapter 22

“That’s all I can ask.” The hardness left her face. “I should be thanking you, really. I got up this morning to a supply of smoked meat and vegetables and had a decent breakfast all by myself. That’s all due to your overperformance.”

“I’m just doing my share.”

“That’s not true. Like it or not, you’re turning out to be the lynchpin of this village. It might not have survived this long without you. I don’t say that to put pressure on you. I say it so you understand why I don’t want you dead.”

Brand nodded. He really did understand.

“I have to go.” Moira was already turning back toward the center of town by the time he might have thought of anything else to say. “I have five new settlers to help get settled in.”

“Five?”

“Five. Since yesterday afternoon.” She glanced back at him. “I think some of the travellers who have passed through are getting the word out. People talk, and right now Bell is one of the only places in the region where hungry people get fed.” She paused. “Get ready, Brand. The town is only going to grow faster from here.”

Brand finally made it through the gate without further interruption. He set off at a steady jog, retracing the path he’d taken the day before and paying close attention to the ground as he went. His tracking skill was awake and working, feeding him a stream of information about what had or had not passed through the area.

There wasn’t much to see, really. He’d cleared this stretch the day before, and the signs of monster traffic were old. Any remaining tracks were softened by a day’s wind and a morning’s dew. He caught something fresher here and there, but for the most part there was nothing interesting to see.

He kept moving, letting the run serve as warmup for his legs and practice for his eyes. By the time he reached the point where he’d turned back the day before, the sun was well up and he’d been running at a moderate pace for the better part of an hour.

He stopped, stretched his arms over his head, rolled his shoulders, and took a deep breath of the morning air. Then he started out in earnest.

He was faster now, though not by much. A few more points of skill didn’t make the dramatic difference they had in his first days. He was reaching the part of his growth where each individual point mattered less, where the jumps between levels would feel smaller even as the absolute numbers climbed. Oddly, he suspected he was lagging behind the rest of the town in levels, or at least behind where the crafters were after their furious all-night sessions.

He’d have to push hard to keep up, which was a strange thought for the person doing all the town’s killing.

Even so, he was making good time. The terrain here was open and mostly flat, which made for easy running. He kept his tracking skill engaged as he moved, scanning for fresh signs and cataloging what he found.

He was about a quarter of the way around his new circuit and wondering how the morning had gotten so empty when the grass ahead of him erupted with movement.

They came from a shallow depression he hadn’t seen until they were already out of it, ten lean shapes bursting into the open and scattering in every direction like a school of fish. Brand stopped and drew his knife, trying to get a read on what he was looking at.

The description was accurate to a fault. Within seconds of spotting him, the runners had made distance and spread into a wide ring around his position. They moved much faster than anything he’d fought so far. Some circled clockwise. Others went the opposite direction. The disorienting effect of all the motion was both immediate and deeply unpleasant.

Brand turned to track one and lost sight of everything else in the meantime before he could correct. While he scrambled to get a handle on his tactical positioning, something hit him from behind like a battering ram. He staggered forward, bones groaning from the impact. He caught himself before he went down and dragged his body back into something like a fighting stance.

His health had dropped by what felt like an eighth in a single hit. The runner that had struck him was already gone, back into the swirl of monsters around him, safe as could be from his melee retaliation.