PreCursive

  It must take a long time trow entire limbs, because it had been hours and nobody had e out of the ‘Ironcd’ yet. Most of the people that Sylvia had brought with her, apparently all Order ‘cssers’, had been shooed out of it to mih the camp. It had been a good idea, actually. The former sves of our camp seemed to appreciate the presence of people who were from what seemed to be a well-known group. The caravan had lost an air of nervoushat I hadn’t even realized had been lingering.

  As for myself, I tried to stay out of the way. For once, I hadn’t had any difficulty ireating to a secluded er of our campground. First though, I’d grabbed a bowl of stew from our ‘kit’. Funnily enough, Rachel, Van’s former sve, had ended up as the head cook of the caravan. I’d happily accepted a bowl of surprisingly tasty boar stew from the woman. She’d been too busy for anything more than a hasty greeting, though.

  You know, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Van all day. He’d been a little morose since leaving Addersfield. I think he might have looked up to Orinbar, no matter how much of an amoral bastard he had been. I guess he hadn’t been as fug insufferable as Magnus had been to Azarus, who hadn’t dispyed an ounce of remorse over his death. I’d try and catch up with Van ter, I decided.

  I settled down on a makeshift log bench behind Gren’s personal wagon, where Grey, Azarus, and I had pitched our se of the camp. Thankfully, I was out of view from the rest of the caravan, so I settled down to eat. It didn’t take me long. I was holy pretty starving.

  Now that I was doh my dinner, it was time to get back to work on a couple of my projects. Grabbing what I’d been w on from a pack I’d been using for this purpose, I closed my eyes started to slip into my Aetherial Melding trance.

  However, before I could do so, I was interrupted.

  “Is this seat taken?” I heard a familiar feminine voice say. Crag open one of my closed eyes, I found that Sylvia was standing above me, hands on her hips.

  Abandoning my trance, I made a show of gng down to the grass below me on my right, where my empty stew bowl sat. “Well,” I drawled, leaning bay hands with a slight smile. “It looks like it might be taken by my bowl. I don’t know…”

  Sylvia rolled her startlingly blue eyes at me before nudging the bowl out of the way, sending it and its spoon cttering to the grass below. With a solid-sounding thump, she settled dowo me on the log.

  I spoke before she could. “So, is it done? Does Grey have his legs back?”

  Sylvia nodded, gazing into the small, personal campfire we had. “Yes, father is fine now. He’s still a little tender, so he’s taking the time to speak with the cssers. I think they’re settling on a pn right now. He’ll be along soon, though.”

  “That’s good,” I said, relieved. “I was holy starting to wonder where we were even going. Nobody has even said a word about an actual destination since we escaped.”

  Sylvia hummed, befng at me from the er of her eye. “Did you truly mao create a way to break the sve bond by yourself?” I didn’t bme her for the slight note of disbelief in her silvery voice.

  I shook my head. “God no. Grey had to teach me a bunch about Enting and Abjuration before I could make the Bond Breaker. Even then, I was really reckless in how I made it in the first pce. If I’d made one small mistake, I could have killed myself in the process.” I paused for a moment. “I kinda think the only reason I didn’t is because of my Profession.”

  The Sculpted woman turo face me fully at that. “I don’t believe we spoke much about that, back when I was teag you. I’m…sorry, but I don’t remember what it was called.”

  “It’s alright.” I shrugged. “It’s apparently new anyway. It’s called Aetherial Melding.”

  “Is that what you were doing before I interrupted you? Using ‘Aetherial Melding’?” Sylvia the odds and ends that I had sitting in my p. I moved my hand to y on them, somewhat self-scious.

  “Ah, yeah,” I said, a little embarrassed to be caught out. “I was just going to work on some of my own projects.”

  Sylvia’s eyes lit up at that in curiosity. “Oh? What are you w on?”

  “Oh. Um. Well, first, did you hear anything about a ‘Profession Shift’, a few months ago? It should have involved Clockwork Engineering?”

  “Well, yes,” Sylvia said slowly, before pausing. She looked at me in surprise. “Was that you? Did you cause it to ge into ‘Meical Engineering’?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I didn’t get to keep it long, or eveo use it holy. Aetherial Melding just came along and repced everything for me. I’m not pining about that, mind. But I never fot about Meical Engineering, and wao see if I could do anything in lih it.” I wasn’t even lying. I’d been w with Azarus in the evenings about the basics of how Engineering worked here, and trying to puzzle out the Meical version for my own use.

  “What are y to make?” Sylvia asked me.

  I took a moment to look down at the metal parts lying in my p. There were…a bunch of things, holy. Tubes, springs, bdes, and interlocked metal bits and bobs. I was once again lucky that Azarus had thought to save my little smithing grill and some raw materials from the fire. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to make this stuff. I looked up at Sylvia. “Ah. A couple of different on ideas I had.”

  “ons?” Sylvia said doubtfully, looking at the junk I’d made.

  “Yeah,” I said absentmindedly, fiddling with a small curved piece of iron. “I thought I’d try and recreate something from bae. I don’t know if I’ll be able to, and it’s a long shot, but I thought I’d give it a try. The other thing is almost dohough. That turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.” I handed Sylvia what I was talking about. To yman’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than a dagger with a slightly longer hahan usual. In fact, I had used one of my spare daggers in its stru.

  Sylvia took it from me, looking it over with a curious. She looked up at me. “It…just looks like a knife?”

  “Look again,” I told her with a sly smile. I poio something on the hilt. “Press that rune.”

  Sylvia took another look at the dagger, and found the ruhat I was talking about. My eyes widened, however, when she pressed the ruh the dagger pointed in my dire. With a sudden flood of adrenaline, I dove to the side.

  Just in time for the bde of the dagger to shoot out of the hilt and fly through the air where I had been sitting. A variety of other things flew out of the hand in Sylvia’s hands, as well. Among them were hollow links of pipes and various springs and gears.

  I panted, lying on the grass below. That had been close.

  Sylvia dropped the empty hilt in her hands with a gasp, flustered sihe first time I’d met her. “Nathan! Are you alright? I-I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

  “Y-yeah,” I said, interrupting her babbling. Shakily, I stood up and looked in the dire that the bde had flown. I didn’t have to look far, as I found it embedded iside wall of Gren’s wagon. I took a shuddering breath. Well, at least it had missed the vas. Gren would have been more pissed if we’d torn that. I ya out of the wood and turned back to Sylvia. Walking over to her, I gently took my prototype from her limp hands. “I…I’ll just be taking that back.” I sat back down on the log with a thump.

  We sat in silence for a moment before Sylvia broke it. “Is it…a bde shooter of some kind?”

  Flig my eyes in her dire, I shook my head. “No, it only did that because it isn’t done.” I picked up a few lengths of tubing that had shot out of the hilt. “It’s actually supposed to be a kind of colpsible spear that double as a dagger. I…like the spear for straight-up bat, but I find myself needing to do knife work pretty often. This is my attempt te both of those needs.” I smiled wryly. “I just haven’t got the meism right yet.”

  “Oh, I see,” Sylvia said thoughtfully. “That’s inter-”

  We were interrupted by a small group of people approag the fire. I stood up to greet them, with Sylvia following a sed ter. Seemed to be Azarus, Gren, and someone else that I was happy to see walking around.

  Grey, standing on his own two feet.

  He was shorter than I’d been expeg him to be, I noted. It was hard to gauge the height of someone when they both didn’t have legs, and had been wheelchair-bound. I’d built him up to be this titan in my head, sidering how strong he was supposed to be. But he was an old man, after all. He looked to be maybe only an inch or so taller than Azarus, who was abnormally tall for a dwarf. Both of them were shorter than my five foot eleven frame, so maybe around five foot six or something. He was also carrying a bowl of stew, cupped in his hands.

  Sylvia perked up at the sight of Grey and walked over to greet him with a hug. Grey retur readily, stew bowl around her ba one hand. Separating, Sylvia looked him over critically. “How are you feeling, father?”

  Grey smiled at her wryly. “Oh, the new flesh is still tender, but it’s nothing egregious. The feeling will pass eventually. Other than that, I’m fine.” He looked over Sylvia’s shoulder and me. I retur. “Nathan. I see you’ve beeertaining my Sylvia.”

  “Good to see you on your feet, Grey.” I smiled at my mentor. “And yeah, I was just showing her a projeine.” I left out that she had nearly killed me with it. Gren and Azarus walked past us while we were talking, holding bowls of stew of their own. I exged nods with them.

  “Oh? Whie? The spear or the device for flinging little balls of metal?” Grey asked me teasingly.

  I felt my eyebrow twitch at the now familiar jab, but smiled anyway. “The spear. You know the sed is still just in the cept stage.”

  Grey walked over to where I was standing with Sylvia trailing in his wake. Both of them sat down on the log. I followed suit, notig that Gren and Azarus were sitting on the one across the fire. “So, what’s up?” I asked Grey. “I heard you were deg on a destination with the uys from your Order?” I asked pointedly.

  “Oh, it’s hardly my Order these days,” Grey said, unphased. “I may have fou, but I leave its affairs mostly to my sed. I’ve attempted to step bad leave overall and with him, but he stubbornly insists that he’s not yet worthy.”

  I hummed in though. “You know, nobody has even told me what an ‘Order’ is, you know. If you’re so involved in the running of one of these, I’m surprised you haven’t mentio before now.”

  Grey’s eyebrows shot up in realization before a chagrined look crossed his wizened features. “Oh, my apologies. You’re quite correathan. It simply slipped my mind with how busy we’ve been. An Order, or rather, a Martial Order as they’re correctly termed, occupies a rather unique position withialian society. Not quite an official part of the military, but also not quite civilian, they’re something of an attaché. They are also definitely not a merary force. Rather, they are anizations given charter by the to indepely recruit and train ‘cssers’.” Grey said, making air quotes. “Those being indepes that are serious about advang their Status and reag higher tiers. These Orders still owe allegiao the throne, and still be called to service alongside the military in times of great need.”

  Grey paused for a moment to take a bite of his rapidly cooling stew. “Oh, quite good tonight. Anyway, it was realized turies ago that while the military is effective, they’re somewhat of a blunt object. A neroach was needed, alongside the founding of my Academy, to battle the ever-growing threat of mota the frontiers. Thus, Martial Orders were born. In any case, we’re to meet up with my sed. He’s been amassing troops and supplies from our allies in the Uprising as well as the Order in my birthpce. A small, sleepy little town named Hollow Hill.”

  I him, following along. “I’m guessing we’re leaving soon then?”

  Grey nodded back at me, with a spooween his lips. He took it out and answered. “Indeed. We still o settle a few things, and then we’ll be on our way tomorrow afternoon.”

  ………………………………………

  When I woke up in my tent early the m, I could tell that the camp was only starting to get busy. Getting up, I started to outfit myself again for another hunt. Last night, after my versation with Grey and Sylvia, I’d decided that it couldn’t hurt for the camp to have a little more fresh meat before we left. This area was just too filled with game to pass up the ce. Luckily, I’d remembered to leave my blood-spttered hunting outfit with the camp washers yesterday. The st of blood that would have trailed me otherwise would have driven things away from me.

  Stepping out of my tent, I found the camp was only starting to wake up like I’d thought. Azarus was awake though, drinking from a steaming mug of tea o the embers of our campfire. He set his metal mug down for a moment to raise a tired eyebrow at me. “Again?” He asked in dull surprise.

  I shrugged at him before smirking. “Hey, this way I don’t have to help pack up camp.”

  Azarus made a rude gesture and shooed me away. I left camp at that with a chuckle.

  ………………………………………

  It actually took me loo find suitable game than I was expeg it to. It took me a few hours, but I eventually tracked a deer deeper into the forest than I’d typically gone. Once I’d found it though, it wasn’t hard for me t down, with my literally superhuman strength and speed born from Sylvan Vigor. Hauling it onto my shoulder, I set off ba the dire that I thought camp y in.

  On my way back, I found something else, though.

  Stopping at the edge of a forest clearing, I slowly set the deer carcass down on the forest floor. Mesmerized, I stepped into the clearing and tried to make sense of what it held.

  It looked like some kind of giant stone mo.