Bere had left me alone ient, and I was just sitting there w what the hell I was supposed to do for several minutes before I drew my sword, and swung it a couple times to test its weight. It alleviated some of my boredom. The sword was still pretty o me.

  I left my inal one back at the Squirrel. This one was listed as ‘dwarven sword’ in my iory. It robably a timeter or two shorter than my inal one, but much better banced. The steel shoh substrates of lines across it like the se, and the crossguard was a little short but thid sturdy. I supposed it was kind of like the ‘Damascus style’ knives my dad liked, but instead of swirl patterned, it was incredibly even lines perpendicur to the edge.

  I didn’t know one way or the other but Dwarves were known for their craftsmanship, right? I’d only ever used it against the skeletons and that was mostly just to keep them at distance, so who knew?

  “Nice sword,” said a man I hadn’t noticed e in.

  He wasn’t very tall, maybe half a foot shorter than me, but his bearing radiated fidend petence.

  His pierg red eyes seemed to shine in the dim light, and he had long braided hair that flowed like a dark river down his babsp; He gleamed io toe pte armor, like the guards out front, but I could tell this armor was supposed to indicate a higher rank. It was heavily embellished with colorful enameled flowers.

  The handles of two swords jutted from his belt.

  He smiled. I sheathed the dwarven sword.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling the mo of my poud putting it in, “I ’t see very well without this thing.”

  The monocle dispyed his name as Taldinar -- Knight of Flowers, and then had two skull-and-crossbones o it, with no further information. So, that’s what that looked like then.

  “I’m sure,” he said in a way that told me he wasn’t vinced, but was too polite to call me out on it. “My lieutenant tells me a oke our code word, and said she had something of great importao speak to me about.”

  “Right,” I said, pocketing the monocle.

  “I’m not sure what to believe about that, but I am very curious where she learhe codeword. It’s information privileged to Kingsgaurd and not something bandied about just to gairao one camp.”

  He stepped closer. I got the feeling he wasn’t very happy about this turn of events.

  “What you tell me about this woman?”

  Bere walked in at just that moment.

  “Captain Taldinar,” she said. “I was just looking for you.”

  Suddenly she became very small, and very pitiful looking.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, genuine crossing his face.

  “I’m so scared,” she said, approag him. “They said that you were the only ohat could help me.”

  “My dear girl, who said?”

  Bere stumbled forward and Captain Taldinar caught her. She reached her hand up to cup his face.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.

  “What I do?” he asked.

  A fsh of mplight was all I saw of the dagger as it came up. She drove it through his jaw to the hilt. He staggered back, whimpering but uo scream, blood p from his mouth.

  He drew his two swords. I drew mine.

  Bernie, what the hell did you get me into?

  She ducked just out of his reach as he sshed at her with both swords — his movements incredibly precise and elegant, one sword following the other. Bernie had a long dagger in each hand and only parried when she absolutely had to.

  I rushed in and attempted to shove him to the ground with my shield, but he settled his stanbsp; It was like running into a brick wall. I could not move him. He hooked a sword over my shield and stabbed me in the neck.

  Immediately, my chest ran slick with blood under my gambison.

  “Focus on defense!” Bernie hissed. “I’ll finish him off!”

  He immediately whirled on her, sshing. The mirth of a trick well pyed lit up her eyes. A smile hid at the er of her thin lips.

  Whoosh went my Adrenaline Rush skill as soon as he turned.

  I leapt forward, and stabbed into the open space behind his knee, feeling the point slip betweee and punch through mail. His legs buckled. Bernie pushed forward with a kid he toppled backwards.

  I stabbed down into his face over and over until he stopped moving. My ability expired after he did.

  Berood over him. She looked to him first, then to me and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  The victory fanfare pyed and a ding echoed from my ste.

  I dropped my sword and fished it out. Two small notifications were dispyed.

  The first said that I only had o point remaining. The sed said that I was now level 3.

  “Yeah, I leveled up,” I said.

  “Good!” Her face softened in relief, and she sheathed her daggers. “Now drink that potion.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because,” she said, loading a crossbow bolt into the bread pulling back the k. “Reinforts.”

  She traihe crossbow oent fp and yelled “help!”

  I had never been more angry at a person in my life. I could feel my face start to get all splotchy.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.

  I could hear otion outside and shouts of ‘fire’ and ‘get the buckets.’

  “I think I get you to level four.”

  “Why these people?!”

  “We weaken the King in the Wood; it takes pressure off of Caleb.”

  I could hear the roar of a fire close by, whiswered my question about what she had been doing while I was alone.

  The potion bottle was tiny in my hand, more like a vial, and I tossed it back like I was taking a shot. It was cool a down smoothly. Slightly fruity. The wound in my neck itched.

  Bernie yelled again.

  “Help! Something is wrong with the Captain!”

  I fished one of Taldinar’s swords from the ground just in time to see an elven man run in. The loud thwunk of a crossbow cracked through the air. A bolt turned his fato a mess and he crashed to the grouo his captain.

  A sed elven man ran in and I pierced his neck with a lunge. He crumpled.

  A ssh opehe tent from the opposite side.

  “Attack!” the man screamed as he saw the bloody mess. “Assassins!”

  Bernie leapt atop the table and kicked the mp, spshing burning oil all across the man as it exploded across his armor. He fell into the tent and suddenly it was abze.

  Two more ran in from the inal opening, and I dashed babsp; I turhe first sword swing aside with my shield, and parried the sed with my new sword. A crossbow bolt smmed into the face of one. The other backed away from me.

  “I don’t evehe backstab bonus on these guys!” Bernie yelled above the sound of the fire r behind her. “Just tie them up, and I’ll pick ‘em off!”

  Four more arrived. I backed up to give them just enough ground. As soon as two fell behind I rushed forward, keeping the pressure up with swipes of my sword but not really going for the kill. Three knives nded into the soft exposed parts of their bodies oer the other.

  Two fell immediately. I stabbed through the neck of a third. The fourth turo flee. A crossbow bolt sunk into the base of his spine and he fell.

  recious seds. I dug the mo and shoved it in pce over my eye. Turning back to Bernie, I saw her drop down from the table and rush to me in front of three more advang elves.

  She was bleeding from her shoulder and had 10 hit points.

  I was still mad at her, but I didn’t like that.

  Fully half of the tent was on fire. I didn’t like our odds out of the tent and into the open, but the longer we stayed here, the greater ce of us breathing in that smoke and that could be deadly on its own.

  “Not today,” I said to myself, the activation phrase I had entered for ‘sed ce.’ I could feel the healing magic doing its work on me. “We gotta move!” I yelled as she reached me.

  She just nodded and ran out of the fp ient. I followed with the three men not close behind.

  Outside was chaos. A full unit of eight mehe froranbsp; So, that was a no-go. Other men ran to and from the three fires she had started in addition to the tent behind us.

  Bernie pointed with a dagger back toward the os and we ran. I had left my pa the burni so I was actually able to keep up for once.

  We rushed into the first tent we could see, a man in a state of undress as its only oct. I stabbed him through the chest and kicked his body to the dirt, before whirling aing the three that had followed us.

  Bere moved like a poung cat, leaping back to avoid a swing and diving in to drive the point of her fighting daggers into something soft. That was one down.

  I was starting to get the hang of fighting two men at onbsp; But I was starting to gas out. I’d never done anything as stressful as fighting oer the other like this.

  The two me weren’t particurly strong, having the titles of ‘guard’ and 7 hit points a piece, but trying to keep up with both was difficult. I generally just focused o a time, keeping my shield up and hoping it did its job, as I focused on parrying just the guy in front of my sword hand.

  Bernie ran her dagger over the throat of one. The ot through my sword hand and punched right into my stomabsp; He’d overextended. I stabbed him through the eye and he crumpled.

  Gng down at my stomach, I saw that the mail had dos job, barely, as he’d made it through the but not the gambeson. Who knows how many hit points I had left but it had to be few.

  We didn’t have time to breathe.

  I was just able to see an elf with a bow from the open fp. The head of an arroeared from Bernie’s chest. She dropped the crossbow and crumpled to the dirt.

  “No!”

  I stabbed my sword into the ground point first, grabbed the crossbow and fired the bolt she’d loaded. It struck the elf in the chest, and he fell.

  I closed the tent fp, ao my knees, pulling her into my arms. She had zero hit points left. Blood soaked into my pants and pooled around us.

  “No, no, no,” I heard myself say. “Where’s your potion?”

  “Gotta travel light,” she said, sardonically.

  “Shit.”

  “I don’t want to die, Zachary,” she said, eyes wide with panibsp; “But it hurts.”

  “You’re not going to.”

  I returhe monocle, and fished my ste out of my pocket.

  “Don’t let go,” she said. “Don’t let me go.”

  “I got you.”

  I pulled her in tight with one hand, and swiped to my character sheet with the other. I smmed my finger on the plus sigo my name. It took several tries. Blood smeared on the s.

  A list of possible css levels I could take appeared. At the top was fighter. Through the blood, and panic I struggled to see another. First was barbarian, grayed out with a ‘STR 13 required’ o it. Then was bard. Then was cleric, also grayed out with a ‘WIS 13 required.’

  I mashed on the cleric listing but nothing happened.

  “It hurts,” Bernie said, really quiet.

  “I’m gonna fix this,” I said, my voice quivering as I shook. “Just wait.”

  “It hurts so much,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut and her face t in pain. “Momma please — momma — it hurts.”

  “Goddamn it,” I cursed.

  I mashed the bard listing. A ding rang from the ste. My character sheet ged. I had spells now.

  Bere's face went sck.

  I scrolled through my spells. One of them was called Healing Phrase.

  It said ‘a simple sung phrase that lifts the spirit, aores vitality.’ It listed it as a first level spell, whatever that means. Just like Sed ce, it had a spot to type in an activation phrase. I typed in the first thing that came to mind, through the panic, through the fear.

  I took a breath. I sang the words.

  “I need you.”

  Bere’s eyes flung open. She sucked in a breath that caught. She tried again, but couldn’t seem to breathe.

  I grabbed the shaft of the arrow stig out of her chest, and pulled. She screamed. I only got it half way out. I yanked upwards again, pulling it the rest of the way out until I saw bloody feathers, and tossed it aside.

  “Get up,” I said.

  She coughed blood until she could breathe again.

  “I ’t!” she said.

  “We gotta get out of here. I need you to get up.”

  “I ’t,” she sobbed. “I ’t. It hurts”

  “Yes you ,” I said.

  Then, I cleared my throat and sang, again.

  “I need you. I ’t do this without you. Please don’t go.”

  I heard, actually heard, the flesh in her chest knit together. She sat up.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said.

  “We have to move.”

  “Okay,” she responded, “follow me.”

  ast fmis and soldiers helping each other into armor. Arrows whizzed past us.

  Soon we reached an opening in the palisades. The two guards in front of it first crumpled to my sword, then tgers. We slipped through.

  Our feet pounded on the forest floor as we barreled through brush and piles of leaves. We weren’t being stealthy. We just needed distanbsp; After what felt like an hour of running, but couldn’t have been lohan minutes, Beropped.

  I crashed into her but ed my arms around her so I didn’t dash her to the ground.

  “Get off me!” she hissed.

  I let her go.

  She fell to her knees.

  “I ’t keep running,” she gasped. “I ’t. I ’t keep —”

  I looked around to see if we had been followed. We hadn’t.

  I put my back against a tree, and pulled her into my p.

  “Don’t let go of me,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

  “It’s okay, Bere, I got you.”

  “Don’t let go.”

  She cried, hard. I fished a b out of her satchel and ed it around us. It was all we had since I’d left my pack behind like an idiot. We were both soaked in blood, and the b helped fight off the chill.

  “It’s adrenaline dump, remember,” I said.

  “No it’s not,” she said through the tears. “I died.”

  “No you didn’t. Death saves remember? Remember the game? Zero hit points is nothing.”

  “So, I was dying and you bought me back.”

  “Yeah, I took a level in healer.”

  She stopped sobbing, and looked up at me with those huge brown eyes.

  “You really do have a nice voice.”