Chapter Fifty: Ambush

Chapter Fifty: Ambush

What?! Where is he? Val asked, her voice thick with urgency.

Hes about five minutes away, coming from the north east.

Tom. She grabbed him by the shoulders, searching his face with wild eyes. Listen to me. You have to run. Ill delay him as best I can.

What? No! I wont! he said, affronted. Theres two of us and one of him. I wont just leave you!

You dont understand! she hissed at him, verging on panic now. Hes a monster. Go! Run!

Memories flashed through Toms mind. Gad thrashing on the ground under an orc. Sam, staring at him with lifeless eyes from inches away, dried spittle on her blue lips. His father bullying him, torturing him, making him wish he could be anywhere else. The Lord of Blood, so self-assured, preaching to the Hunters like they were his faithful congregation.

Val must have seen something change in his face. Resolve welled in him. He would not run. He would not leave behind the first person to treat him with unconditional kindness and respect. He couldnt.

Tom stared at Val mulishly. Despair fluttered in the muscles about her eyes, then melted into resignation.

You fool. You damn fool, she sighed. We dont have much time, then. He follows Decay, Blades, and Wounds. Hes tough, and he can put out a lot of damage. No familiars. Watch out for his weapons, theyre ritual skills, and damn powerful. Get ready!

Val immediately began checking her arrows, pulling one and nocking it. Tom checked the axe at his belt, loosened it, hefted his spear. He pulled a pair of Harveys potions out of his storage and downed them. Between his nerves and the taste he almost threw them straight back up.

Skill activated:Sweet Suffering (Passive).

Deathsdrop Poison - negated: Extreme buff to health. Extreme buff to health regeneration. Duration: Moderate.

Wasting Wine Poison - negated: Major buff to toughness. Major buff to coordination. Major buff to perception. Duration: Long.

One minute, Tom said, referring to the information Sere was sending.

Val placed herself behind a tree with Smitten. Scorn immediately climbed it, tucking himself in the nook of a branch a third of the way up.New novel chapters are published on

Tom hid himself behind another tree, taking care that his spear was fully occluded behind it. Sesame was panicking. After a rapid exchange with Tom, he eventually just slumped to the ground amid the corpses and played dead.

Toms heart beat a wild rhythm as he watched Honeyfield approach. The man was a spectre sliding silently through the undergrowth.

His hooded head twitched as he came upon the scene of the fight. He pressed against a tree, peering around it with glacial patience. He seemed to come to a decision, and stepped from his hiding spot and amongst the bodies of the orcs.

His gaze slowly swept around, taking in the carnage. He reached to his hood and gently lifted it away from his face.

Once again, Tom was struck by an undeniable feeling of evil. It rolled off Honeyfield in waves. The mans eyes, circled with deep rings like bruises, stood stark in an otherwise unremarkable face. They burned. They were a flinch before a punch, the moment between pressure and pain, the gut-grip of life-changing bad news.

Tom let out a slow, silent breath. He could see why Honeyfield was so feared. He was terrifying. In the same, indefinable way in which you could be sure a dog was mad and would bite, so too was Honeyfield a picture of evil locked behind unreliable restraint.

Neck wounds are a real bitch, arent they, Carver? he opined. His voice was higher than Tom expected, and made him think of the whine of wasps.

The forest was still.

He settled back into a swordsmans stance, easy and calm, and Tom shivered. If he knew one thing well, it was swords, and Tom could see just from the mans stance that he was surpassing excellent.

Tom cast Agony at him, got no noticeable reaction, and followed up with Misery. The thin pink line connecting them made him feel vaguely nauseous. The last thing he wanted was to be connected to this man.

He stepped in, thrusting his spear, cautious, only wanting to try and create an opening for Val. Honeyfield deflected the strike without even looking, and as the sword came around on the backswing, Tom shuffled to ensure he was nowhere near its range.

His eyes widened in shock as the blade extended another couple of feet. It was heading straight for his chest. It must have been some innate ability of the weapon, which meant it was one of his ritual skills. It was the only explanation, with him Silenced.

Luckily, he had expected a similar trick, and slid further, leaning at the same time. Upon hearing Honeyfield followed the Ideal of Blades he had prepared himself to face similar skills to his fathers. It turned out to be a prescient move.

Val was not so prepared. She saw the greatsword extending, about to cleave Toms chest open, and threw herself at Honeyfield in a fury. She couldnt have known that his father would have such a similar skill, that he was already prepared for it. And for her love for Tom, she suffered.

Honeyfields greatsword vanished as soon as Val committed to the attack. Proper daggers appeared in each hand, blades black and gleaming like oil. He parried her thrust with preternatural quickness, and stabbed her in the gut, deep, and again, and again.

Tiny, soft noises left her throat with each strike. Then she crumpled.

Tom stabbed at Honeyfield, completely enraged. He assaulted him, came at him like a storm wind, thrusting, whipping his spear in graceful arcs, trying to box the man in. He parried every strike with infuriating casualness. Slipped and slid around those he could not. Tom cast Agony on him twice more, as soon as it was available, and felt like he was throwing wet rags at a brick wall. Nothing seemed to have any effect on the man.

He just simply wasnt fast enough to hit him. Honeyfields three Ideals must have been at least Supreme, by his best guess, and the difference in body tempering was simply too great a gulf. He had to find some way to level the playing field.

Sere pinged him with images of Val, her lying doubled up around her stomach on the ground. A filthy, sick, greyness was spreading slowly up her neck, washing the colour out of her face. She was shaking uncontrollably.

Tom slowed and stopped. Honeyfield hadnt even bothered to try and attack him, merely dodging everything Tom threw at him. He kept his spear levelled at the man, and cast another Agony at him for good measure. It had to do something eventually.

He realised he was waiting for the Silence debuff to end, and that he wouldnt be waiting long. Any minute now Honeyfield would be free to use as many skills as he liked, aside from those rituals he could summon and subsume at will for no mana cost.

Tom prepared to attack again. He would not go down easily.

As rushed forward leading with his spear, but as he thrust, he cast Wild Boar Strike. It caught Honeyfield completely unawares, and he stumbled backwards, but didnt fall, a testament to his poise and strength.

Green beams of light lanced from the treetops again, and Honeyfield was forced to resummon his greatsword to deflect them. As he turned to do so, a great, black shape rose behind him.

Sesame roared, the pure bestial note completely at odds with the metallic clashing that had been ringing through the woods. Honeyfield was bombarded with shards of rock from his blindside, but Sesame wasnt content with just that.

The bear smashed his paw into Honeyfields back sending the man sprawling, skidding on his front through the earth. He fetched up on an orcs corpse, his greatsword disappearing.

Tom turned, and found Val standing again, colour in her face, only looking slightly out of breath. Two halves of a broken wooden mouse tumbled from her fingers.

The mouse! Tom thought, jubilant. She still had her own one!

Tom reset himself, moving to flank Honeyfield. Val took another angle, her sword in hand, Smitten at her side. Sesame completed the encirclement, a low growl issuing from his barrel chest.

It was just then that Toms buff from the deathsdrop poison guttered out. His heart began to race. It put them on a timer, a very short one.

Because his Silence debuff was about to run out too.