I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The communicator crackled in Nate’s hand.

"Marshal crossed the east ridge."

Static swallowed the answer.

"Push her south."

"Lower roots?"

"Yes."

Nate looked toward the slope below them.

The hollow where Iris had hidden Milo sat beneath the exposed roots of an old tree. From above, the entrance resembled a dark split in the earth.

Lower roots.

"They’re sending Holt this way," Nate said.

Iris glanced at Milo. "Can you stand?"

Milo planted one hand against the trunk and forced himself upright. The moment his injured foot touched the ground, his leg folded.

Iris caught him before he fell.

The ankle had swollen enough to stretch the leather of his boot.

Nate removed the magazine from the mercenary’s rifle.

Seventeen rounds.

He pushed it back into place and checked the chamber. His hands remembered the drills from the regional program, although those exercises had used unloaded weapons and painted targets.

Iris watched him.

"What are you doing?"

"If Holt reaches this slope, they’ll search everything around her."

"You’re going after them?"

"I’m changing where they look."

"How?"

Nate glanced through the trees.

"I don’t know yet."

Iris stared at him.

"Nate, that isn’t a plan."

He knew.

The first mercenary had almost killed him despite walking into a trap. More were hunting Holt, and one of them had already completed his First Circuit.

Waiting beneath the roots would not make any of that better.

Nate handed the dead man’s knife to Milo.

Milo looked at the dried blood along the blade before closing his fingers around the handle.

"Don’t bring them back here."

"I know."

Iris moved deeper into the hollow.

"Cover the blood near the entrance," Nate said. "Keep the radio quiet."

"And if someone finds us?"

Nate looked at the knife in Milo’s hand.

Neither of them needed an answer.

He left before the next transmission.

The old drainage channel ran east of the shelter. Sections of concrete rose through the forest floor like the remains of a buried wall.

Nate climbed down into it.

Black water covered the bottom in a thin layer. Roots had broken through both sides, and parts of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving the channel open to the trees.

The forest grew quieter as he continued.

At first, Nate blamed the concrete. Then he noticed that nothing moved around the water.

A small animal lay near the wall.

Its hind legs resembled those of a hare, but its ears curved backward along its skull. There were no bite marks or torn flesh.

Its chest had collapsed inward.

A clear strand stretched from the body to a crack in the concrete. It had hardened into something that looked like glass.

Nate crouched without touching it.

The regional survival course had shown them dozens of Wasteland creatures. Most had been diagrams and warnings delivered too quickly to remember.

He remembered this one.

Pale skin. Six limbs. A mouth formed from feeding tendrils.

A predator that followed the movement of energy through living bodies.

Several narrow tracks crossed the mud. Some were smaller than the others, but the damaged ground made them difficult to separate.

The communicator activated.

"Lost sight of her."

"You lost a wounded rail officer?"

"She is faster."

"Useless bastards, search both sides !"

A branch moved above Nate.

He pressed himself against the drainage wall.

A mercenary passed along the edge several meters ahead. Lighter armour covered his chest and shoulders. A compact crossbow rested beneath one arm, while a curved blade hung beside his hip.

The man stopped near the dead animal.

His hand moved toward the crossbow, then paused when he saw the transparent strand.

He knew what lived nearby.

After checking the concrete around him, he continued without entering the channel.

Nate waited before climbing out behind him.

Holt’s blood appeared on the bark of a tree farther down the slope. She had tried to hide her trail by stepping on stone and exposed roots, but the wound in her side left more evidence than her feet.

The mercenary followed it.

Nate followed him.

Another body lay near a fallen branch.

The dead man wore the same mixed armour as the attackers from the train. His throat had been opened so deeply that bone showed beneath the blood.

One hand remained pressed against the wound.

Holt had not waited for him to die.

The mercenary crouched beside the body and touched two fingers to the man’s neck. He spoke quietly into his communicator.

Nate’s stolen device remained silent.

The man had changed channels.

A voice came from behind Nate.

"Calder?"

He turned.

Holt stood between two trees with her blade raised.

Blood covered the left side of her uniform. Her other arm remained close to her ribs, and part of her sleeve had been tied around the wound.

"It’s me," Nate said.

"I can see that."

Her attention moved toward the trees behind him.

"Where are the others?"

"South."

Holt looked downslope. "Then get away from me."

"They’re driving you toward them."

She noticed the communicator attached to his belt.

"How many?"

"At least two. Their leader is farther back."

"You should have stayed hidden."

"They’ll reach the others if you keep moving south."

Holt glanced toward the eastern trees.

"I tried to turn."

Pale energy appeared beneath the skin of her neck.

The current descended toward her chest, then shattered around the wound. Dark lines spread beneath the blood-soaked cloth.

She stopped circulating immediately. Something was threatening her circuit.

"Clamp fragment?" Nate asked.

"It broke off inside me."

"There’s something in the drainage."

"I know."

"A Vein Hound?"

"Probably."

Nate looked at her.

Holt adjusted her grip on the knife.

"I wasn’t interested in getting close enough to confirm it."

Movement came from the trees behind Nate.

The mercenary had abandoned Holt’s blood trail and circled around them.

Nate turned the rifle, but the man reached him before the barrel aligned. The curved blade struck the weapon aside and cut through Nate’s coat.

Pain opened along his ribs.

He stumbled backward.

The mercenary stepped between Nate and Holt, keeping both of them in sight. His eyes settled on the rifle, then moved to the blood covering Nate’s sleeve.

"Rook?"

Nate did not answer.

The man understood.

Energy tightened through his legs.

His first step tore the soil apart and carried him several meters forward.

Nate barely raised the rifle before the mercenary struck it again. The stock slammed into Nate’s face, and the edge of the drainage vanished beneath his heel.

He fell into the channel.

Cold water broke his landing.

The rifle slipped from his hands and struck the wall.

Above him, the mercenary prepared to shoot into the water.

Something moved beneath the broken concrete.

A pale strand wrapped around the man’s ankle.

He looked down.

The Vein Hound pulled.

The mercenary hit the ground as the creature climbed from the crack. Its long, hairless body moved on six narrow limbs. Four feeding tendrils opened around a dark mouth.

One pierced the gap beneath the mercenary’s shoulder plate.

He screamed.

Energy surged through his arms and legs.

The Hound’s spine brightened as it drank from him.

The mercenary cut through the feeding strand and rolled away. Dark fluid spilled from the severed tendril, eating small holes through the wet leaves.

He rose almost immediately.

His curved blade opened the Hound’s side.

The creature recoiled and lost the stronger current.

Then it turned toward Nate.

He felt the small flow of energy moving through his own legs. He had used it to soften the fall.

The Hound dropped into the channel.

Nate pushed himself upright and forced the current lower.

Fear tightened every muscle in his body. Rovan’s exercise demanded the opposite.

Nate loosened his ankle.

Then his knee.

He stopped forcing energy through the joints and allowed his body to carry its own weight.

The Hound approached.

Its tendrils opened and closed, searching for the current that had drawn it toward him.

Nate moved one foot backward.

Slowly.

The creature followed the fading energy instead of the motion.

Above the channel, Holt understood.

She released a short burst through her right side.

The Hound spun toward her.

Her Circuit survived for less than a second, but the pulse was stronger than anything Nate could produce.

The creature launched itself from the drainage.

Holt waited until it reached her.

One tendril tore through her shoulder as she stepped past its mouth. Her blade entered behind the creature’s jaw.

The Hound twisted and threw her to the ground.

Its remaining tendrils wrapped around her arm, but Holt kept the blade buried inside its skull and dragged it sideways.

The creature collapsed beside her.

The mercenary was still alive.

A broken feeding strand protruded from his shoulder. He dragged himself toward Holt with the curved knife still in one hand.

She had not seen him.

Nate found the rifle in the water and raised it.

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The magazine had shifted during the fall.

The mercenary reached Holt.

Nate dropped the rifle and climbed out of the channel.

He caught the knife arm before it descended. The mercenary struck him across the mouth with his free hand.

Nate’s grip broke.

The blade turned toward his stomach.

Nate seized the feeding strand lodged in the man’s shoulder and drove it deeper.

The mercenary screamed.

His fingers opened.

The knife fell between them.

Nate reached it first and drove it beneath the man’s ribs.

The mercenary twisted, trying to pull away from the blade. Nate planted his knee against the armour and held the weapon inside him.

The man struck Nate once more, but little strength remained behind the blow.

Nate pulled the blade out and drove it in higher.

The body beneath him went still.

He raised the knife again.

Holt caught his wrist.

"Enough."

Nate remained over the corpse.

Blood covered his hand and the front of his coat. His fingers trembled around the handle, but he could still feel each one clearly.

He released the knife and stood.

Holt sat beside the dead Hound with one hand pressed against her wound. The short use of her Circuit had reopened it.

"Can you walk?" Nate asked.

Holt looked at him.

"Can you?"

He tested his leg.

"Yes."

"Help me up."

Nate pulled her to her feet.

Concrete broke inside the drainage behind them.

A second Vein Hound emerged from a crack farther north.

The First Circuit leader appeared above it.

Energy formed a stable path through his chest and right arm. The creature attacked before he entered the channel.

The leader struck it.

The impact broke two of the Hound’s front limbs and drove its body into the concrete wall. Cracks spread beneath it.

The creature twisted and buried one tendril in his side.

Blood appeared through the man’s coat.

He seized the tendril and tore it free.

The Hound had injured him.

It had not stopped him.

Holt turned away.

"Move."

Nate supported her across the slope.

The smaller tracks beside the dead animal returned to him.

He had assumed the damaged mud showed several steps from the same creature.

The prints had not all been the same size.

They had also led south.

Nate increased his pace.

Holt stumbled once but continued.

The roots appeared through the trees.

A knife lay in the grass outside the hollow.

Fresh blood covered the blade.

Nate released Holt and ran.

"Iris?"

Milo’s muffled cry came from beneath the tree.

Nate dropped beside the opening.

Iris crouched inside with one arm around Milo’s chest and her other hand pressed over his mouth.

A smaller Vein Hound had forced half its body through the roots.

One transparent tendril had wrapped around Milo’s swollen ankle.

The flesh beneath it was already beginning to sink.

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