Chapter 79: Chapter 79

Vraxious-Folstein Village

Vrax looked over the beautiful orange and red rows of fruit trees. They rolled all the way up to a quaint wooden fence that penned them in safe from the rather vast milling crowd of cows in the neighboring field. Past that lay a tiny but beautiful village that had been built right along the river's edge. Chapters fırst released on n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟.net

A single cart-rutted dirt road ran past a large livestock barn with a handful of occupied pens in front of it. Past that was a smattering of brightly painted homes, each of which had at least three chicken coops whose owners were clucking their way all over the street. At the very end of the village was a small, slightly separated tavern that looked like it might have a few rooms for rent on the second story.

Vrax squinted from his slight overlook halfway up a rather lonely tree just past the orchard. I need to approach this with some more...tact…than normal, or at least make damn sure there aren’t any civilians in the immediate area. If I let my creatures out. I brought Duchess...but I probably shouldn’t have for this.

Vrax could see one very half-assed watchman sipping on a stein of something with a plate piled high with meat and cheese leaning up against the front gate of the large barn. It was probably one of the bandits based on, well, everything about the man. A chain hauberk was thrown over some grimy clothes, and a pair of short swords were strapped to his hips. Farmers didn’t usually have equipment like that; even a town guard for a place this small shouldn’t be that well equipped to fight.

Torvald called up softly from the base of the tree, “Figure out a way to get rid of them without your abominations eating all the women and children yet?” He said with more than a hint of amusement.

Vrax couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, you asshole, now shut up. I’m scouting. There is one by themselves by the barn that we might go have a conversation with.”

Vrax skimmed by the houses; he could see occasional women and children fearfully darting out to pick things from the modest gardens in the yard. Or go and fill a bucket with water from the river. There was a very noticeable lack of menfolk, though.

Vrax looked at the chickens, a spark of a very bad idea in his mind. He stifled it for now; he could make a man-eating chicken after he saved the village. He had to for the sheer fact that it would fuck with Duchess and her love of poultry something fierce.

Vrax so far counted four men that were certainly not the peace-loving farmer folk. One by the barn and three that had come and gone from the tavern. One with a bunch of food to the barn. Meaning there were almost certainly captives in the barn. He slid down the tree and landed softly next to Torvald, who jumped a bit at his sudden descent.

“Gods man, you have to stop just popping up or down…whatever like that everywhere, it's bad for my heart!” Torvald scolded him.

Vrax made a scrunched face. “Don’t you literally not have a heart now?” He asked in amusement.

“He has an upgrade! It’s much better!” Came Jeff’s slightly shrill input.

Torvald lightly batted at the eye stalks on the back of his hand and looked at Vrax. “Plan, oh great paladin?”

Vrax laid out the “plan” for Torvald. It was less of a real plan and more of a general guideline for how he thought they might be able to clear the villagers out of the immediately eaten danger zone, preferably before everything inevitably went wrong.

Vrax waited until near sunset and began stalking through the orchard towards the man on watch in front of the barn. The trees reached out as he passed, nearly cradling him with their shadows. The last thing he heard from Torvald was, “It really is bullshit that he gets to be basically invisible any time there are any kind of plants; there are always plants…” grumbled quietly behind him.

The barn was a stalwart wooden building with a fresh coat of ruby red paint inexpertly applied across its rough-hewn slats. The enclosure out front was perfect cover for Vrax to slide towards the unfocused guard. He made it within ten strides of the man and then tossed an apple overhead that he had snatched on the way from the orchard. It hit the grass just beyond the barn with a dull thump, and the idiot nearly dropped his cheese platter in surprise, spinning around to see what made the noise.

Vrax streaked towards him at a light-footed dead sprint, spear out and angled from a low stance. He lunged off his front foot at the same time as he let a small smite envelope his spear tip, making sure to hit the man square in the lung. The miasma pierced through the armor and took the man's breath away, literally rotting part of his lung out. Vrax quickly wrapped an arm around the softly gasping man's neck and dragged him around the corner of the barn.

He worked fast, tossing the man's weapons aside and looping a rope around his hands. Before wrenching out two health potions. One he poured entirely into the wound in the man’s back where the tattered remains of his lung were exposed. The other he forced the man to drink. It took a few questionable seconds, but his flesh healed enough that he took a rattling, gasping breath.

Vrax held his spear to the man’s throat threateningly. “I just removed your lungs and then put them back. If you try to call for help this time, I won’t fix what I rot out of you. The scraggly warrior looked at his armored form in sheer, horrified realization as he rattled out one word: “Paladin…”

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Vrax brought his horrifying armored visage closer to the man's face and sucked the life slowly from the ground under them. “Yes, that paladin, Where are the prisoners? How many of you are there...?If you lie, I’ll just save you for later as a hunk of fresh meat for my pets.” The man's already pale face pulled back in sheer terror at that threat.

He raised a shaking hand above his face protectively. “Yes, please, there are three men in the barn, captive husbands from the village. We had ten men, just six now at the tavern; one of the farmers was a vicious bastard.” He coughed, struggling for air weakly; after he got his information out, he looked at Vrax hopefully.

Vrax leaned in even more uncomfortably close. “Did you know you were working for the church?” he whispered, necrotic energy flickering across his finger inches from the man’s face threateningly.

The man's shocked face was enough of an answer for Vrax. “No...no, of course not, just hitting fat merchant caravans. Nothing outside our normal setup except we went farther out to avoid the guard…didn’t know you claimed this road. We…we thought you stayed in your forest…”

Vrax chuckled, although what came from his armor sounded more like a beast gnashing its fangs. “I normally do…” He struck fast, hitting the man questionably hard between the eyes with the haft of his spear. Vrax began hogtying the hell out of him and stuffed a rag in his mouth. Fifty-fifty if this fuck even survives between the lungs and the head trauma. He stuffed him into a pile of hay in the back of one of the cattle enclosures and went up to the barn door.

Vrax didn’t bother to figure out the chain they had across the front, simply channeling smite through his hands and melting half of one of the front doors off. He stepped inside quickly, lunging to the side in case anyone was being clever and trying to ambush him. The only souls in the barn were some very startled cattle and three bound men.

Two of them were tied hand and foot, looking at him in sheer and utter panic until Vrax made a placating hand gesture. The third man was tied very, very thoroughly to a support beam in the center of the floor with a bag over his head. Vrax whispered to the nearest man, “I’m getting you out of here. Gather the folks from the houses and run.” And then slid over, slicing the man's bindings.

He freed the other man, and they looked towards him with equal measures of thankfulness and caution. Goddammit, guys, I'm here to save you. I don’t look that fucking scary, do I? He shrugged to himself and then made his way to the man with a bag on his head; he was cursing something fierce under that bag. Vrax pulled it off him, and his eyes went wide. “You! It's fucking You!” Vrax hissed out.

The weathered man was probably the same age as Vrax, but between the full bushy beard and his leathery skin, he could have passed for closer to forty. It was Jonathan the farmer that had handily defeated Vrax in a botched attempt to rob him a few months ago. “Oh fuck me, really, I’m saved and then very much so unsaved? Please tell me you at least got my ma and sister out of here before you melt me.” Jonathan’s voice held a surprising intelligence and clarity that didn’t match his looks, and he managed to hold Vrax’s gaze without flinching much.

Vrax seethed for a moment before forcing himself to calm down. How and why did it have to be this asshole! He fucking lives here? Of course he does; he was a farmer after all. He just had ungodly skills with that halberd of his...

Torvalds chose that exact moment to darken the doorway with his hulking frame inelegantly squeezing through the normal person-sized hole Vrax had left in the sliding doors. He walked up magnanimously and struck a bit of a pose, hammer over his shoulder, a slight unnecessary flex. “Torvald Bearsbane and the paladin of the forsaken lands have come; remember this day! As it was the day you were saved by…. Holy shit, is that the farmer who almost killed your ass after he tried to rob us…?”

Vrax gritted his teeth. “Yes, Torvald sure seems that way!”

One of the other free farmers rounded on Jonathan. “Jonathan, you fought the paladin before? How? Why?” He looked utterly appalled.

“Yeah, Jonathan, why would you do such a thing?” Vrax quipped.

He pulled on his bindings slightly. “Seemed like a good idea at the time; I did win after all…” He said with a bit of a chuckle. Torvald struggled to hide a snicker behind Vrax.

“You did not win; you ran the fuck away!” Vrax said louder than he probably should have.

Jonathan looked at him incredulously. “You had your dragon eat. A man's FACE. Slowly…”

Vrax shrugged. “It’s what she does. Now I’m going to cut you free because I actually have people to save. Go with Torvald and help evacuate the people from their homes.” Vrax cut Jonathan’s bindings, giving him a “don’t try anything” stare.

Jonathan stood up. “Fuck that, give me a weapon; I’ll help you rout the bastards.” Torvald was beside himself with snickers, and his sarcastic ass actually handed Jonathan a pitchfork. “Really?” He looked at Torvald with a frown that just washed off the big man’s shit-eating grin.

Oh, this is all kinds of fucked up, but I could use the help. I know this guy knows how to fight, and he has a personal stake in this. Vrax grabbed a small potted plant from a corner. It looked like possibly an orchard sapling. He ripped it from the pot unceremoniously and began adapting it to the shock of all the villagers.

Vrax lengthened the thin trunk into a spiraling, round, grooved handle that was nearly as tall as himself, then he intertwined and smoothed the branches over and over. Slowly forging the tree into a seamless halberd with a blade made from compacted branches. He laid it down on the floor and focused again, thinning and hardening the edges of the blade into something that would rival a real blade. Jonathan looked at him in open-mouthed awe as Vrax handed him the quick and dirty tree halberd.

He expertly twirled it a few times and took a pair of practice swings that made the air sing as his blade cut through it. “It’s so fucking light.” Jonathan looked at it with deep appreciation.

“Yeah, and I made it in two minutes with what I think is an apple tree, so don’t club anyone with it. I have no clue how strong that thing is.” Vrax waved for him to follow and nodded at Torvald, who had gathered the farmers and ran out towards the houses.

Jonathan and Vrax slid towards the tavern using the buildings for cover. They paused, crouched behind the final home. Laughter and the clinking of mugs could be heard from inside the tavern. “Is there a plan?”

Vrax snickered. “Sort of. I’m going to walk in and ask them nicely to surrender. If they don’t, I’m going to try and beat them without having to resort to my creatures.” Vrax hesitated for a moment, then plucked a blade of grass with a sigh, shaping it into a mark of Vurune for his temporary ally. “No guarantees I won’t have to summon my critters though; this will at least stop them from immediately eating you, but if they come out, this village is going to need some reconstruction.” Vrax begrudgingly handed him the mark of Vurune.