A Soldier's Life
Chapter 224: Rat Problems

Chapter 224: Rat Problems

I blended into the morning crowd and paced myself back to the barracks. I would have liked to spend the remainder of my day inside the dreamscape training and reading, but that would not be safe unless I rented a room elsewhere in the city again. Cato fell in step beside me, and I figured my indecision had taken me on the obvious route to the barracks, giving him a chance to catch up.

“If you are the first one back, you will be able to keep the blood compass,” I looked over, surprised. “We only have six to give out.”

“Six? Konstantin only gave out five,” I said, doing the math.

Cato chuckled, “Yeah, Konstantin has one with Castian’s blood in it. He made sure the pup would be following him today. A blood compass can be used to know where your enemy is as well as to avoid them.” I nodded in understanding, and it had me thinking as we walked.

“It works on animals as well?” I inquired.

Cato nodded, “I’ve tracked injured creatures before. The issue is ensuring you clean it between samples. If it isn’t purged well, the signal becomes much weaker.” He handed me a vial of clear liquid. “This is alchemist distilled alcohol; it never spoils. You’ll get one from Konstantin, but you can have mine. I’ve stashed away a few.”

I took it and sniffed it before storing it. There was no smell, and it could be mistaken for water. A few alchemy recipes also used this in their processes. “Thank you. I am going to retire to the barracks.” My hope was that Cato had to be elsewhere and wasn’t planning to stick with me.

“I am going to help Hearne frustrate the pups following him. Don’t forget you need to be first to claim the blood compass.” Cato continued off toward the lower city. I didn’t rush as I walked through the back alleys and explored the city a little on my way back.

A rat scurried away from rotting vegetables, and I snagged it into my dimensional space. Even though the creature was small, it still bottomed out my aether. Shaking my head, I wondered how much I would have to increase my aether pool for that to stop happening.

I eventually found myself in the barracks before lunch. No one else had returned yet, so I had time to experiment. I heated the blood compass and cleaned it with alcohol. I summoned my rat and restrained it, cutting it with my dagger and soaking a small piece of cloth. The feisty rat tried to bite me but couldn’t penetrate my spider silk gloves. I sent the rat back to my dimensional space.

I dried the cloth on the thermal stone and activated the compass with the new sample. I frowned when the compass pulled strongly in my grasp. Then I realized I had gotten some rat blood on the floor, and it was reacting to that. I walked away, and the compass pointed to the blood on the floor, not my dimensional space as I had feared. I poured a little distilled alcohol over the blood marks on the wooden floor, and the compass calmed and was silent. Success, I could hide a person in my dimensional space to cheat the blood compass.

My last test was killing the rat and tossing it out the window. The compass still pulled toward the corpse of the dead rat, so I assumed you could find recently dead people as well until their blood dried. It really was an incredible artifact.

I spent my afternoon training in the small yard leading to the barracks. Val was the first person to return, but two city guards ushered him to the barracks in manacles. With his head hung low, he told me his fate, “Got caught tracking a decoy. Been locked up all day.” The guards released him with everyone in good humor and left.

The others returned one by one, dirty, smelling foul, and hanging their heads. When everyone was back, the smug Hounds stood before us, Konstantin in the center. He looked exhausted as well but wore a smirk of self-congratulation. “Do any of you pups have a yellow scarf?”

I produced mine and held it up. This got me envious and angry glances from the others. Cato admitted my victory with a note of concession, “The pup successfully infiltrated a merchant’s villa and caught me off guard with a ruse.”

Konstantin nodded and announced my prize, “For being the first and only pup to find success with the compass, you can keep it. The rest of you…” Cato walked among the other pups and collected the other four compasses.

Konstantin grunted, “Only one of five. Horrendous success rate. The worst part of today was the city guard stopped every one of you.” I remained silent as none had accosted me. “The first stage of your training in the city will be how to remain unseen.”

For the next two weeks, we practiced blending in with locals, city stealth, tracking with the blood compass, entering buildings, and surprising our targets. The Hounds ran the training in two seven-hour shifts, a day shift, and a night shift. During this time, it became a game with the local guards to catch us.

If they caught one of the pups breaking the law and apprehended them, Konstantin gave them a silver for each pup. Since they only made four silver a week, they were highly motivated. It was actually an ingenious plot on Konstantin’s part to recruit the guards, as there were normally a lot more Hounds involved in the training process.

Several pups were stupid enough to fight back and were subdued forcibly by guards and required healing. Healer Lithe had arrived in the city and tended to their injuries and the guards were not punished.

I wasn’t perfect in my training. I got caught sneaking into a warehouse, scaling the city wall, and spying on a woman’s bathhouse. The last was Konstantin giving me a blood sample of one of the women. I had tackled her, thinking it was one of my trainers in disguise and she let out a shrill scream. The lesson that day was never to assume anything. I replied with, “Yeah, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” Which, of course, didn’t translate well into Latin.

It also didn’t help that the Hounds and city guards always knew we were coming, putting us at a huge disadvantage. It helped us learn the craft of disguise for ourselves. Using clothes that could be turned inside out, simple charcoal makeup, interchangeable hats, and even wigs.

Bacchus took the best to disguising himself and even went as far as to have a quick change into a believable old woman. His spell form allowed him to leave behind an image of himself, so he honed his skill by changing his appearance, creating an image, and then changing again.

Hearne also continued creature lessons, focusing on those that frequently infiltrated cities. The things that went bump in the night could also devour you in seconds. Thankfully, I didn’t need much sleep because the few hours that I did get were filled with nightmares from the lessons.

After two more weeks, we moved on to skills that could only be described as assassination training under the guise of killing your enemy before they can react. It was, of course, turned into a game as Konstantin had six pairs of Hounds boots to hand out for the best of us.

These Hound boots required the wearer to be able to channel aether into the feet to activate them. The boots eliminated all sound in a small radius but only the right boot had the runic workings in it to save coin for the Empire. Two of the pups who won the right to boots couldn’t channel their aether effectively, so Konstantin awarded them to others who could.

We were all exhausted from the endless training, and the only reprieve was that we were given a silver a day to purchase our own food in the city. When I was alone, I was always on guard against Castian and his lackeys. From their whispered huddles and side-eyed looks, I could tell they were plotting something against me.

I always used my single silver coin at the same two vendors in the lower city. The two frail old women who looked after orphans and abandoned babies. From my understanding of our brief conversations, they had nearly twenty children in their care. I would always order something small, such as a baked cracker with melted cheese for a copper, pay with the allotted silver, and then tell them to “keep the change.” At first, they didn’t understand the phrase, so I had to explain it.

The two old women, Cantina and Acilia, had lost their husbands to the army a long time ago. They were cousins and moved in together to support their six children together. When their children grew up, they began an orphanage, taking in abandoned and unwanted children. The Telhian culture valued women less than men unless the woman had a strong enough magic affinity. So, most of the children the women looked after were young girls.

Most of what the old women received to care for the children was donated by their grown children who still lived in the city. It was barely enough to survive, and it was clear they were stretched to support themselves by the thin children who hovered around their cart all day. I figured the silver a day could feed twenty mouths. In return for my generosity, the children were willing to act as my agents in the lower city, giving me tours and letting me know when the Hounds or other pups passed. I always slipped them a copper for good information, and they were eager to help.

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I was walking with a limp, using a heavy cane, and had a ragged cloak pulled tightly around me as I made my way down the street in the lower city. My blood compass was concealed, and today I was tracking Moxie. He was fairly terrible at hiding as he liked to find one spot and rarely moved from it. Since we had been allowed to use our spell forms, he always attacked with his lightning dart spell form when found and then ran. The compass led me to an abandoned hovel. As I passed, I activated my earth speak spell form.

I had received both pairs of new boots from the cobbler. They worked well after I cut a hole in my socks around the big toe. I had scuffed up one pair to make them look worn and aged, and the other pair of earth drake hide boots were in my dimensional space. The boots were extremely comfortable, and he had done an exceptional job with sizing the boots and breaking in the leather.

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I examined the feedback from the spell form as I walked, pulsing it over and over as I went. Moxie and Kasper were sitting together at a table across from the only entrance to the room. That meant Gaius should be showing up soon as he was tasked with tracking Kasper. I turned into the narrow alley and went to the back of the building they were hiding in. The back door was nailed shut, and they assumed they were safe.

With my dimensional space, I focused and cut each nail, one at a time, listening intently to see if I alerted them. There was only a muffled conversation between the two quarries on the inside that I could barely make out.

“Can’t believe I got Eryk again. Konstantin must despise me,” Moxie’s voice echoed. “Thanks for the help. Are you sure Gaius will wait until after we knock him out?”

“Paid him two silver to wait till after the midday meal,” Kasper responded. Although no one had asked me, it was common for the Hound and Rabbit to agree to terms on the hunt in private, giving us some rest from the grueling schedule. I shook my head; if they just found their quarry quickly and got the yellow scarf, they could rest the remainder of the day.

When all the nails were removed, I pulsed earth speak again to confirm their locations. I got lucky as Kasper got up to piss in the corner near my door. When he passed it, I shouldered it hard. It was slightly stuck from warping, and it gave him some warning. When it finally released from the frame, it slammed him to the ground. Kasper rolled and pointed his hands at me. I pulled my cloak in front of me as the flames of his spell form washed over me.

For all the impressiveness of his flames, he could only use them in short bursts, and the only real danger was to your eyes. If you squeezed them shut, you would lose your eyebrows and hair but come out relatively unscathed. I tossed the cloak away and slammed my cane into his knee.

“Giant’s piss, Eryk,” Kasper wailed in pain as I shattered his kneecap. He had just tried to roast me and was complaining?

A bolt of energy slammed into my hip. The electric charge expelled into my body, weakening my knees. I always hated getting hit by this spell form. Not only did it burn your clothes, but it also spasmed and locked your muscles. I did a better job than others in recovering quickly from the shock, but it had to do with my constitution and not my ability to heal myself.

I raised the cane to strike Kasper again, and he yelled, “Yield!” That was the signal the prey would be compliant. I couldn’t blame him for the quick surrender, as I was not known for being merciful.

A second bolt of energy slammed into me, and my heart raced awkwardly from the strike. With two fist-sized burn marks, these clothes were ruined. Moxie was standing with his blade drawn. He only had enough aether for two bolts, so I waited until I felt in complete control of my body before having a stiletto appear in my hand.

I could read Moxie’s eyes. He knew I was a better fighter than him, and he was deciding if he wanted to put up a fight, get injured, and then healed. He tossed his weapon on the floor and gave me a conciliatory “Yield,” in a meek voice.

I took both yellow scarves as I wasn’t going to give Gaius a chance to collect his from Kasper. Kasper took his lesser healing potion, and the two decided where to get lunch. There would be some punishment tonight from Konstantin for failing, but for now, they could at least enjoy the day.

I exited the back of the building after checking with an earth pulse for an ambush. Konstantin never played fair, and every once in a while, one of the hunters was also prey, so you needed to be aware of both hunting and being hunted.

To their surprise, I paused by the two old women to hand off the charred cloak and purchase a second cracker today. I felt I should be doing more, but Hearne warned me that giving them too much silver would only make them targets. I made my way back to the barracks, thinking I would get in some spear practice later.

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Another week passed as we all made progress in city training. I always operated independently, mostly because I didn’t play well with others, by Konstantin’s plan.

One eventful hunt required me to retrieve a blood sample outside the city while being hunted by Castian, Gaius, Moxie, Val, and Savino. I didn’t like having to offer up a blood sample to them for the hunt, but I didn’t have a choice.

As I left the city gates, I activated my compass and swore, “Harpies' tits, Konstantin.” I had learned to judge distance by the pull of the compass over the last few weeks, and this pull was very faint, much fainter than the longest distance I had tracked before of three miles. I was guessing it was at least twice that distance.

It was an unusually humid and sunny day for so early in spring. As I jogged into the dense woods, I decided to retrieve my blood sample, hunt the Hounds, and destroy my sample in their compass.

When I judged myself halfway to the target, I paused to drink from my canteen in my small Hound pack. Immediately, a familiar feeling spread through me as my muscles relaxed and I lost control. I stumbled a few steps and did my best to brace for my fall, anger welling within me. I had filled the canteen myself, but someone had spiked it with our Hound paralytic—a lot of our paralytic arrow poison.

It only took seconds before I was picking myself off the ground, purifying myself from the poison. Was this Castian making his move to obtain the dreamscape amulet? His time was running out as it felt like the training was coming to a close soon.

The only way he could retrieve the dreamscape amulet from me was if he killed me. Or this could be Konstantin testing me. No, he wouldn’t do that as he didn’t know I had a spell form that could deal with poison. At least, I didn’t think Konstantin would put me in unnecessary danger.

I let my anger clear my head of revenge. I started running again, cutting my hand and leaving drops of blood deep inside trees. I zigzagged through the woodland, depositing blood in inaccessible locations and making their blood compass useless.

When I felt I had thoroughly confused my trail, I hid and awaited the pack of Hounds following me. I should have had a fifteen-minute lead on them, and that was roughly how long it took before two of my pursuers appeared.

Gaius and Val were jogging side by side. Val was clearly using his spell form to locate an object, and he must have anchored the spell to something on my person—probably the canteen if this conspiracy was a group effort. I didn’t see anyone following yet, so I decided to remove these two from the equation.

Val’s spell form didn’t tell him how far away an object was, just the direction, so he was startled when I sprang from behind a rock. He didn’t even have his weapon drawn when my fist impacted his nose, shattering the cartilage into a bloody mess. I heard Gaius draw his blade and curse at me from my right. I had already interposed an air shield.

I punched Val twice more in rapid succession to make sure he was dazed and knocked out. Gaius was coming around the air shield, and I drew my own weapon. Panic welled in his eyes as he could tell I was furious. A quick parry and a slash through the tendons on his forearm had him angrily spat, “What in Pluto’s Hell, Eryk!” We typically didn’t cause such severe injuries to each other.

I ignored him and tackled him to the ground. I was soon forcing water from my canteen down his throat. By his panicked reaction, he knew the poison was in there. His body slackened, and I repeated the action on the unconscious Val. My canteen was still over half full, plenty for the other three.

I hid the bodies and waited for the others. Castian appeared next, with Moxie screened out on the left and Savino on the right. I wasn’t surprised to see that Castian was holding the blood compass. He considered himself superior to the others and their de facto leader.

I let Castian approach the gulley where I had rolled the bodies. As soon as he saw them, he became alert, his blond hair whipping around as he searched for me. Moxie was closest to my position, and I actually liked the young soldier, so I was easy on him, but I still knocked him out before Castian and Savino could reach me.

Castian was angry now; three members of his pack had been neutralized. I let the pair approach since no one had brought bows today; otherwise, they would have probably attacked me from range.

Castian put on his fabricated aristocratic smile. “It looks like you got the better of us today. Shall we just call it your victory?”

I didn’t trust him, and I had other ideas. “Open the blood compass,” I stated flatly. He grimaced but did as I asked, destroying my sample and making it impossible for him to track me with it. I tossed him my tainted canteen. “Drink this,” I ordered.

He caught the canteen with his free hand and made to drink it, but instead poured the contents on the ground. I shook my head, disappointed, “I guess you want to do this the hard way.” Both men tensed for combat.

Savino moved to my right to flank me, but I focused on Castian. He was good with a blade, but not a match for me with my spell forms, superior speed, strength, and skill. I quickly stabbed through his bicep of his dominant hand, forcing him to switch to his off-hand, which he was terrible with. He was spitting curses at me the entire time, but I was apathetic.

After a second deep strike on his quad, he was mostly immobilized, and I turned to Savino, who had not been able to get close with my air shields hampering him. He thought better than fighting me and turned to run, but I chased him down in short order. I forced a vial of paralytic I had kept in reserve into his throat and returned calmly to Castian.

He had already consumed his healing potion and was searching the unconscious Moxie for his. Both wounds I had given him were deep and did a lot of damage, so he needed a second lesser healing for a complete healing. His wounds had closed but the muscle and tendons were not completely healed by his struggling movements.

Castian took Moxie’s blade and made to defend himself again, this time alone and hampered. “You know you are a pixie prick,” Castian spat at me.

“Was this ordered by a First Citizen?” I asked coolly. His eyes only hardened, and he wasn’t going to tell me. “Fine,” I muttered.

I left all five pups in the same ditch with the paralyzing agent in their system. The dose was heavy, so I figured it would be three or four hours before they could move normally again. If a hungry wild animal found them in the meantime, so be it.

I followed my blood compass to the jar with the pig’s blood sample and returned to the city to report to Konstantin. After explaining what had happened, I tossed Castian’s blood compass on the table. Konstantin was grinding his teeth in uncharacteristic anger.

In a tight tone, he spoke, “This is my fault. I didn’t think they would be so bold. It is good that you didn’t kill them. It would have complicated things,” he said, and I replied with a Konstantin grunt. “This is why I hate being in charge,” he muttered. “I will send Hearne out to collect them and keep them out there for a few days as punishment. In the meantime, I will contact Cornelius and see if things can be accelerated even more than they already are.”

I wasn’t quite satisfied. “Do you think they planned to kill me?”

Konstantin considered the question. “Possibly. More likely, they planned to torture you until you relinquished the dreamscape amulet. My guess is three of them were part of the ploy…” He started to drift off in thought—most likely planning some retribution for me. It felt wholly unsatisfying to me, but I trusted Konstantin to dispense justice on my behalf.

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A few days later, after another rabbit victory in the city, I stopped in for a victory cracker from the old women before returning to the barracks. Upon reaching the barracks, I froze. Centurion Cornelius was sitting at a table with another man, going through stacks of paper. The other man was much younger, with fine clothes, greasy dark brown hair, and a pot belly. He didn’t look fit and ready for action like Cornelius. I assumed this must be Centurion Sergius, the commander responsible for the Western Hounds.

“Which one is this?” the unfamiliar man asked with derision. I could already tell I was not going to like Centurion Sergius.

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