Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Collared

Two days. That was all the peace we got. The freed captives seemed to get a little more comfortable with every mile. By the second day, they’d broken down the camp and gotten us on the road so fast I thought Korey was going to cry. They were all painfully eager to help, but Liana made sure they weren’t overdoing it so I never felt the need to put my foot down.

The second day marked the halfway point between Anford and Amesseria, which in my mind marked the most dangerous part of the journey. The furthest point away from either city. If there was a sizable bandit camp hidden somewhere in the wilds, this is where they’d be. Especially since the valley we’d been traveling through finally opened up into wider hills that made it basically impossible to see very far in any one direction. The woods that had been our companion tapered off towards the mountains that curved away towards the center of the continent.

My Essence had recovered to eighty-two by the morning of the second day thanks to the boosted recovery from Rhallani, Serena, and Noelle. I offered to form the Link with Tiana, but she was on the same page as I was. If we were going to get attacked by any large groups, this would be the stretch for it to happen. While she understood I didn’t want to use my secondary class as a combat class, she made a very good point that as of right now the Links only affected my recovery and nothing else.

We still didn’t know why Rhallani’s Link had cost less than Serena or Noelle, and Tiana wasn’t willing to take the chance and risk it. With bandits in the area and the safety of prisoners on the line, any amount of Soul Essence could make all the difference.

The end of the second day came as it normally did. Liana and her girls (as I’d taken to calling them in my head since ‘rescued captives’ was starting to get old) sprang into action to get camp set up and dinner started. As we had the night before, I had Nariko and Tsuki do some light sparring together. I had a feeling that if Tsuki’s class took a more offensive direction, Nariko’s skills would help.

At my request, I had Ryoko put a little extra into dinner just in case. A small boost that would either help everyone the following day or give the fighters an edge if it came to a fight. Something about the stillness of the world around me set my teeth on edge, and every instinct I had told me tonight was going to be the night.

Everyone had just started to head to sleep when Rhallani grabbed my arm, her face white as a sheet. “At least a dozen men creeping along the road, using the hills as cover. Festus has eyes on them now. They’ll be here in minutes.”

Something in me settled. All my nerves and uncertainty fell away. We were about to be ambushed in the middle of the night by a presumably larger force. That was familiar territory for me. Hells, I felt more in my comfort zone now than I had in a week.

I shot to my feet and started barking orders in a quiet tone I knew would carry through the darkness. I was pleased when everyone jumped into action immediately, doing exactly what I told them to as soon as the words had left my mouth. All the noncombatants were huddled in the center of the camp in minutes using one of the wagons as cover with Fang prowling near them in wolf form, just in case. Those with range took residence on top of the wagons and I sent Rastra and Zoey to the rear in case of a secondary ambush. Zoey because I knew she could hold a line against multiple opponents and Rastra because as soon as she started casting we’d all know it.

Our attackers must have switched to using the road at some point, because that’s where they appeared from. A handful of them lit torches in an obvious intimidation move. They knew we’d seen them coming, so now they were going to try and cow us into submission. I counted thirteen normal bandits, eight in armor of varying qualities with close range weapons, three behind them with bows or crossbows, and two that held no weapons. I assumed the last two were mages of a sort.

None of them were what drew my attention, though. Standing a foot taller than even the tallest of the bandits—which meant she was more than a foot taller than me—was a Half-dragon woman. Most of her was hidden under thick armor that probably weighed more than I did, but I saw sapphire blue scales spreading up her neck. She had horns a few shades darker that curled back along her head and hair a blue somewhere in between the two in a thick braid that went the length of her back. Even from this distance, though, I could see the hollow expression on her face and the iron collar at her neck.

“Greetings, travelers!” one of the lead bandits called, splaying his hands dramatically. “I’ll make this simple. Hand over all your valuables and your demi-humans, and we’ll let you walk away with your life!”Rhallani gasped, grabbing my arm in a way that told me her [Arcane Intuition] had gone off. It wasn’t a surprise, but it made something in me snap. A cold rage bloomed through me, spreading out until I could feel it in my fingertips. These men were responsible for the murdered Nekomatas. For killing and kidnapping who knows how many people. For abusing their captives.

I stepped up until I was shoulder to shoulder with Pierce and stared down each bandit in turn. Every face I examined made me angrier and angrier. I didn’t need Ryoko’s nose to smell their malice. To feel their greed. But what really made me angry?

I could kill them all on my own.

I could tell from the way they stood. From the way they looked at the caravan like they were deciding what meat to choose at a buffet line. There wasn’t a single one of them that looked with the calculating gaze I’d become accustomed to. None of them that treated us like any kind of threat. They were bullies and cowards, used to fighting those weaker than them. Used to people submitting to the threat of force alone. They were undisciplined. Unorganized. A number of them weren’t even wearing their armor properly. Their frontline was far too lumped together in a paltry show of force. Their backline was too close behind them for what I figured was the same reason.

“What’s the play here, Ren?” Pierce asked out of the corner of his mouth.

My gaze passed over them again. The lead bandit who spoke was getting impatient, clearly irritated by the lack of begging for our lives. “You all worry about defending the caravan. I’ll take care of them.”Pierce grimaced. “Hang on, you can’t really expect us to just—”

“Pierce,” I said, something in my tone making the grizzled warrior stiffen, “I’m only going to say this one time: stay the fuck out of my way.”

I started forward. “Noelle, Serena,” I called. They were at my side in seconds. I reached out and summoned a tendril on either of them, commanding them to defend. “The Half-dragon—”

“Nine,” Noelle offered.

“Nine,” I corrected with a nod, “is the only real threat. I need you to keep her busy until I’ve taken care of the rest.”

“Yes,” Noelle agreed immediately. Serena looked less certain.

“Serena,” I said quietly, “this is what I do. This is what I’m best at. I need you to trust that.”

She gave me a curt nod and I came to a stop a few feet away from the bandits with Serena and Noelle just behind me. The lead bandit looked at me expectantly, and my gut twisted. He might have been old enough to have been a kid during the war, and that’s when it clicked into place.

This country had been at peace for thirty years. None of the men in front of me were Pierce’s age, so none of them had fought during wartime. None of them knew what it was like to face overwhelming odds at every turn. These men had put their faith in numbers. More men. More weapons. More levels. If they had those, they were sure to win. I’d never had either, and I preferred it that way.

It just made it all the more satisfying when I defeated my enemy.

Without saying a word, I summoned the cursed blade from my storage and slammed it into the ground with enough force that it sunk a foot into the earth, scabbard and all. Immediately a ripple passed through the bandits. Not a single one of them was looking at anything other than the sword. They were practically drooling just imagining the riches they could gain by taking it. That answered my first question. These were part of the group searching for my weapon.

“I’m only going to ask this once,” I called out. “Which of you were involved in using Nekomata as bait?”Another ripple that told me everything I needed to know. Some of the bandits looked uncomfortable, but most were unbothered. Not unsurprised, though, which meant they knew exactly what I was referring to. Worse were the ones who grinned at the memory. I marked each and every one of them. They wouldn’t be leaving this battlefield alive.

The speaker didn’t answer me. Instead, he barked, “Nine!” The collar on the half-dragon illuminated. “Bring me that sword.”

A resigned look passed over her face and she started striding forward with the jerky mechanical movements I knew the collar was responsible for. I started forward as well, signaling with my hand for the other two to remain behind. Nine pulled a mace the size of my head from her belt and hefted it in one hand while hefting a massive kite shield in the other.

We were only a few feet away when her mouth opened to say something, but I cut her off. “I won’t stop you from going to the sword.”

Her expression turned to one of confusion, then understanding when her legs took her past me completely. The collar would force her to bring the blade back, and as long as I wasn’t a threat to that command it wouldn’t force her to deal with me. I had to leave her to Noelle and Serena for now.

Us passing one another peacefully had the desired effect. The other bandits all rushed to ready their weapons, half of them fumbling in the process. These men weren’t trained. Not like I was. There were shouts and curses, but I was already making my first move.

I tossed out a half dozen darkness spitters, using conjured tendrils to space them out evenly. They did their jobs better than any flask, spewing clouds of inky darkness that hung in the air thanks to the stillness of the night. The startled curses turned to panic, then fear. [Predator’s Pursuit] spiked from nearly every bandit as the entire frontline of the group ended up in the cloud.

Between [Horde Slayer] and [Predator’s Pursuit], my Agility shot through the roof. The world felt like it was slowing down as my reflexes heightened almost painfully. With Noelle and Serena engaging Nine separately and the others hanging back, it was just me against the thirteen. An auspicious number for me.

I shot a barbed [Umbral Barrage] from either hand into the fray and shocked cries of pain joined the confusion I’d thrown onto the battlefield. Then I hit the edge of the smoke. [Dark Sense] told me where every single one of the bandits were stumbling around, weapons raised in preparation, stances lowered to make themselves smaller targets. [Release the Darkness] made my Primal surge, and the tendrils I’d already summoned grew stronger.

I conjured up two empowered tendrils just as I slammed into the lead bandit with enough speed and force to knock him into two of the men behind him. Two short swords fell from my storage into my hands and I slashed several times at the tangle of limbs that was the lead bandit and his two closest allies.

In pain and panic, they did as much damage to one another in their blind attempts to raise as I did to them, but I didn’t finish them off. I needed as much boost from [Horde Slayer] as I could get, and I needed to cause more chaos before I worried about ending any of them.

I found myself in the middle of the clouds, tossing a few more spitters to extend the area the bandits were trapped in. The thick smoke smothered the light from their torches and gave me the ultimate advantage, and I intended to use it. I gave my tendrils the command to lash out indiscriminately at the men around me and got to work.

I darted to the nearest soldier. I hit him with three strikes and learned everything I needed to. [Giant Killer] didn’t trigger, which meant he was weaker than me. He flinched with a surprised cry, cringing away instead of trying to attack. Even his defense was poor, which meant he was exactly the kind of opponent left to the end of the fight when I wasn’t benefiting from [Horde Slayer] as much.

I did the same with two more, the third reacting sharply enough that I left him with a few extra cuts to slow him down. It was the fourth man I spun towards that really got the party started. When my blade bit into his thigh, he lashed out with a longsword towards where the strike came from. I was low to the ground, so the blade passed harmlessly over my head…

…and slammed into another of the bandits who’d been standing too close. The man in question responded predictably, swinging his sword back towards where he assumed an enemy was. There were enough of them shouting over one another by this point that neither realized they were swinging on an ally until long after I’d moved on to the next.

I shot an edged [Umbral Barrage] into the fray and four more of the bandits either cringed away or swung towards the shards of darkness that slashed through them. But when I turned my blades on the next nearest bandit, I had to drop to the ground before I’d finished my standard check.

Flames shot over my back as one of the mages fired towards the sound of the screams I’d drawn from the scrawny man I’d frightened. One blazed across my upper arm, doing relatively little damage thanks to my insane Resilience, while another slammed into the chest of the man I’d been attacking.

By then several of the frontliners had fallen to the ground in the chaos, at least three were fighting thinking they knew where I was, and everyone was yelling. Deciding I’d caused enough chaos for the moment, I chucked more darkness spitters towards the backline.

The men cursed, backing away as the little silver spheres began to erupt with more of the thick, black smoke, but I was far too fast. I erupted from the darkness, ducking one crossbow bolt and allowing my tendrils to knock aside a second. An arrow slammed into my shoulder, and I sliced the shaft off without slowing down. The crossbowmen didn’t have time to reload, so they shucked their weapons and fumbled to draw their melee weapons.

I shot past them, my tendrils lashing out as I passed, towards the third man. Another arrow was already notched and drawn. He shot, but one of my empowered tendrils batted the arrow aside easily. By the time he could get his hands on a third arrow, I’d closed the distance. I caught the wood of the bow with a tendril and one of my swords shot out and caught the bowstring before he could back away. The string snapped, and my other sword sunk to the hilt in his stomach.

I left the blade there, summoning another on my way to the mages. One was running while the second shot more fire bolts at me. Between my tendrils and Resilience, his attacks did little to slow my approach. I slammed into him without slowing, slamming the pommel of my blade into his nose hard enough to shatter it.

He went down with a cry, curling into a ball as my tendrils chose him as their next target. One of the empowered tendrils cut into a spot on his leg that sprayed enough blood I knew he was done for if he didn’t have a healing potion on him. I shot an [Umbral Barrage] at the back of the second mage. The barbed shards slammed into his back, sending him to the ground. I rushed him, but not before a cry rose from the cloud of darkness behind me.

“He’s after the mages!” one of the soldiers called.

It was enough to give them direction, but they were still blind. A number of the bandits managed to run, limp, or crawl free of the dark, but not all of them managed it. I caught up to the running mage just as he’d turned around and thrown both hands out. Some offensive arcane spell slammed into me, but with my shadows I managed to shrug it off. I brought my blade down, meeting a magic shield he’d thrown up at the last second, but a barrage of focused strikes from all my tendrils broke through and I plunged the blade into the mage’s chest.

I dropped another spitter at my feet just before the first of the melee fighters reached me. He was one of the more skilled bandits, but once I’d summoned three more tendrils he barely stood a chance. By the time it was three on one, the inky cloud of darkness had begun to rise again.

I hurled myself at them, giving my opponents no room to catch their breath. I moved as a whirlwind of steel and shadow. They tried to rush me with sheer numbers, but my shadows kept me from taking any damage deeper than a scratch. I killed one and severely injured another before they began to overwhelm me, but I conjured two more tendrils and used my shadows to give me enough space to duck into the shadows.

They cursed, hesitant to follow me into what was clearly my domain, which gave me ample opportunity to sink to one knee and down a mana potion followed by a health potion. I took quick stock of my surroundings with [Dark Sense] while the bravest of the bandits started to inch into the cloud.

Three of the melee fighters were dead on the ground while a fourth lay either unconscious or feigning death. One mage was dead and the other was still trying to staunch the heavy bleeding on his leg. The archer was alive, but with the blade in his gut he wasn’t going anywhere. One of the crossbowmen had disappeared while the other was struggling to reload his crossbow with one of his hands limp.

A single lame crossbowman and four melee fighters in varying injured states. I dropped my shorter swords and summoned a hand-and-a-half blade. The time for whittling down my opponents was over and done with. I needed to finish off the rest so I could help with Nine.

And after, I’d hope I could avoid dwelling on just how easy it had been to take these idiots apart.

# # #

Nine’s body ached. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been permitted to take her armor off and really rest, but her collar didn’t care how badly it hurt every time she swung her mace. It didn’t give a shit that the arm that held her shield was fractured in at least two places from how fucking hard Seventeen could hit. The little redhead packed a mean punch, and the blond woman was too quick on her feet for Nine to land a strike on. Those strange black tentacle-looking things softened what blows Nine did manage to land, which was really starting to irritate her in spite of herself.

She’d barely even recognized the girl. Her hair was longer, and she’d filled out considerably since the last time Nine had seen her. Wearing real clothes and armor—with a strange, spectral armor layered on top of it—made her look even more different. If it hadn’t been for those strange, crimson eyes, Nine wouldn’t have made the connection.

She tried not to be jealous, she really did, but seeing her fit and healthy without a collar on made angry tears burn in the back of Nine’s eyes. She’d given up on freedom a long time ago, for her or for anyone else, and seeing Seventeen free and well…

“Seventeen,” she panted, “how—”

“Noelle,” she said sternly. There was more inflection in the single name than Nine had ever heard come from the tiny, battleaxe wielding girl. “My name is Noelle.”

Nine tried her best to stall, circling the sword that Noelle and the blond were keeping her from rather than charging again. “You escaped.”

Noelle nodded, her axe raised, her eyes watching Nine’s every movement. “I found a family. I was very lucky.”“That’s good,” Nine said, ignoring the spike of pain she felt in her chest. “If any of us deserved that, you did. Now stop fucking with me, please. Just put me down already.” Nine was more than ready to be done with her life of servitude, and her natural strength as a Half-dragon meant restraining her would be more trouble than it was worth. She didn’t even know if it was possible to remove it.

Noelle didn’t answer, and the collar decided Nine wasn’t doing enough to complete the task she’d been given. Her feet surged forward and a [Storm Smite] was wrung out of her. Lightning wrapped her mace as she swung, ghostly ravens appearing to slow her strike down, but Noelle met it with a blow of her own. A spectral beast erupted from her axe and met the explosion of lighting head on, the force sending them both tumbling backwards.

Nine didn’t fight the blast as hard as she could have, tumbling backwards until the collar forced her to catch herself. The blond darted in and jabbed with her spear, leaving some shallow cuts between the plates of Nine’s armor, a guilty look on her face the entire time. Nine hissed in pain, wishing the attacks would do more to actually hinder her. With her Half-dragon blood, the wounds were already beginning to clot by the time Nine had closed the distance again.

Nine ignored the sudden silence behind her as she cast [Shield Flare]. Blinding light erupted from the kite shield, causing both her opponents to flinch. She batted the blond away with the shield, sending her sprawling, but Noelle always did have sharp senses. She ducked the mace, swinging her axe and hitting the plate on Nine’s thigh hard enough to dent it and chip her blade, but the collar spun Nine around. Her thick blue-scaled tail caught Noelle’s legs and sent her to the ground, and the collar pulsed.

Nine leapt over Noelle before she could stand, thankful the collar wouldn’t make her hurt the small woman any further, and reached for the blade. But before she could wrap her fingers around the hilt, the collar spun her around. She caught the dark-haired man’s blade on her shield just before it would have slammed into her spine.

He was wrapped in a writhing cloak of shadows with a grim look on his face that sent chills racing down Nine’s spine. She barely had time to react before one of the tendrils—a red-tinged one thicker than the rest—slammed the bottom of her shield upwards with enough force that it nearly slammed her in the face. By the time she recovered from the strike, he’d spun around her and deftly pulled the blade from the earth.

He tossed it behind him and spun, his blade raised. “Sorry, can’t let you get ahold of that,” he said calmly. He flicked his hand, and she realized Noelle and the blond held back.

The collar gave her a second to assess this new threat. It was hard to tell anything past the thick shadows that clung to him, whipping with agitation and reaching for her like they ached to lash out. It was hard to tell with how much they were shifting around, but Nine could see spatters of blood soaking his clothes and dozens of rips and tears where blades had managed to breach his defenses. More shadows twisted underneath his clothes though, so it was impossible to tell if he was injured or not.

“You killed them all?” she breathed.

He shrugged. “Most of them. Three ran off, but I’ll be seeing them sooner than later. I doubt one of them will make it a mile.”

His tone was so casual he might as well have been talking about the weather. The criminals that dragged her to this shitty ambush were hardly accomplished fighters, but there had been thirteen of them and one of him, yet here he stood. A calmness settled over her. If he was that strong, then surely she didn’t stand a chance. Maybe this was the end of her servitude after all.

But the collar forced her to heft her mace. “The collar still owns me, which means Bertrand was one of the men who escaped. I’m still bound by his last command.”

He inclined his head. “I know. It really made my skin crawl to let him crawl away into the dark, but it’s better this way. At least right now I know what command you’re enslaved to. I can work with that.”

Nine frowned. A part of her wanted to dissect what he’d said, but another part of her shoved that want deep down. The collar wasn’t sentient, but if she figured out his plans the collar would force her to thwart them. She buried the tiny, dangerous flicker of hope alongside that want and simply gave into the collar’s commands.

Another [Storm Smite] that he blocked with his shadows, hardly affected by the resulting explosion of lightning. He flicked the blade up with surprising strength, and it was only then that she realized it was wrapped in shadows as well.

They exchanged several blows—hers catching air and his either being blocked by her shield or slipping between the gaps in her armor—and she knew he was out of her league. Coming to the realization was a mistake, because the collar immediately forced her to adapt. [Shield Flare] activated, but he just closed his eyes without so much as flinching and closed the distance without hesitation. Even without his sight, he was a more than formidable opponent.

She needed to even the playing field if she wanted a way out of her hell. She reasoned to herself that his ability to shrug off a [Storm Smite] meant another wasn’t going to do much, so she’d need something larger. She blew damn near the rest of her mana on a single cast of her strongest skill, [Lightning Surge]. She raised her mace to the sky and the head began to pull electricity from the air itself. She brought the mace down and a wall of lightning erupted from the weapon's head, sweeping towards the man and devouring anything in its path.

More tendrils sprouted from his chest and all his shadows curled in front of him. The wall surged over his form, obliterating most of the darkness in front of him and sending him sprawling. He somehow managed to land on his feet, his hair sticking up at odd angles and arcs of electricity sparking over his forearms. All but one of his shadows—the one wrapped around his sword—withered and faded away like sand in the wind.

He shook himself. “Well that was unpleasant.”

Nine gave him an incredulous look. She’d been hoping he’d survive, but to call her strongest skill ‘unpleasant’ was a little insulting. “That took all my mana,” she said before the collar could stop her.

A dark grin spread over his face. “Oh, good. You know how to play the game, then. That’ll make this easier.”

Nine found herself wondering just who the fuck this guy was even as the collar spurred her forward. Her long legs ate up the distance between them, the blade behind him pulling her like she was tethered to it. He met her with an excited look in his eye, trading blow for blow despite being a foot shorter than her with nothing even resembling armor on his body.

She clipped him with her shield, cutting a line across his cheekbone that bled heavily, but he barely flinched. His sword found a way through her armor and suddenly the cuisse on one of her thighs fell loose, causing her to stumble. She flailed at him with her mace anyways and he deftly twisted the tip of his blade around until it bit into her wrist. The second it made contact, the shadows wrapping around it shot down her arm and into her palm, prying her fingers apart.

The collar forced her to resist, but Nine’s body had simply been pushed too far for too long. She had no strength left, and when he twisted his blade and caught the center of her mace’s gravity just right it went spinning away. Nine looked to it briefly, but Noelle darted in and scooped it up, taking it far away from the sword that might as well have been her entire world.

But the collar wasn’t done. It might be meant for defense, but the twenty pound slab of metal and wood was still quite the blunt instrument. She swung it at him, but he was quick on his feet. He managed to duck her swings once, twice, three times, then suddenly he was between her body and her shield as her exhausted body overextended.

A dagger appeared in his hand and pain exploded in her arm. With a lightning-fast move, he raked the blade down the inside of her forearm, severing the straps that held her shield to her arm. Between the cut and the fractures, a single kick was all it took to send the shield thudding to the earth.

Once again, Noelle spirited the shield away before Nine could even hope to reach it. Nine choked out a relieved sob, but the collar refused to let her rest. Even though she was completely unable to make a fist with her left arm, she still swung for the man. He dodged nimbly, his sword and dagger both vanishing into thin air. She swung twice more, and he just backed away from either strike. Leading her right to the edge of the blade.

“For the record,” he said suddenly, “I’m really sorry about this.”

Nine barely had time to register his words before he reached out and brushed the exposed, bleeding flesh of her forearm. Pain exploded through her once again, but not just where he touched.

Every injury on her body screamed at her as night black wires erupted from the wounds, pulling the jagged ends of her flesh closed and sewing them shut wherever they appeared. A surprised grunt was all the sound she could make as the sudden tugging of skin and muscles all over her staggered her for the briefest of moments.

That was all he needed.

By the time she recovered from the sudden onset of pain, he was behind her. A foot slammed into the bottom of her exposed thigh from behind and her knee hit the ground hard. She felt something—the shadow tendrils, she assumed—wrap around her horns. A snarl escaped her lips when he yanked, pulling her head back.

The bandits loved using her horns to yank her around. To feel big and in control by manhandling the giant half-dragon woman. Despite everything, she couldn’t help but want the man dead for touching her horns.Then his arm snaked under her chin, just above the iron collar at her throat. His legs wrapped around her torso while she scrabbled uselessly at his arm with her one good hand, but his grip was like iron. She tried to buck, but only succeeded in falling forward. Her vision began to dim and her eyes swam with tears.

She wanted an end to this hell so badly, yet when the time came she found she was scared to die. Scared to leave Fourteen all alone in this world that had been so cruel to them from the start. She didn’t want it all to end, just her enslavement. She tried to open her mouth, to say as much, but it was too late. There was no air, no blood making it to her brain.

The world went black.

Then she was laying face down in the grass. Not dead, since her body hurt far too much for that, but not restrained either. The man’s arm was gone, and she was only vaguely aware of someone panting off to her side and the sound of something metallic latching into place. Nine didn’t move at first, happy to take this brief second of peace before her hell resumed.

Why hadn’t he killed her? Or at least restrained her? He seemed to know about the collar, but what if she’d been wrong? What if he assumed she’d be docile now that she’d been bested? Indeed, a part of her dragon instincts acknowledged him as her better on some basic level, but the collar didn’t give a shit about that. He’d had her, and he’d let her go. Now he was going to pay for it.

But she wasn’t going to move until the collar forced her to. She was so fucking tired the collar was going to have to puppet her every move. She wasn’t going to do fuck all but breathe until she’d slept. It always left her feeling like shit when the command was finally followed, but she couldn’t be bothered. So she lay there, cheek pressed into the grass, waiting for the collar’s command.

It never came.

As if trying to rouse her, a soft breeze blew over her. It was cooling. Soothing. Especially underneath—A soft gasp escaped her lips. Not daring to even form the hope, she reached up cautiously with her uninjured hand towards her neck. When she met with the soft flesh and rough scales instead of the iron she’d worn for as long as she could remember, the tears started flowing.

She pushed herself up slowly. The man was sitting a couple feet away. The sheathed blade rested on his shoulder, and his thumb was still sitting on the clasp that kept it locked in place. Between them sat what remained of the collar that had dictated her every action. Only half the metal remained, and at the edges it was blackened and brittle.

“No hard feelings, right? I did apologize,” the man said with a lighthearted smirk.

His face blurred from the tears in her eyes. Suddenly, small arms were wrapping around her. “You’re free now,” Noelle said, her voice quavering.

Nine felt a hand on her upper neck and warmth spread through her body, soothing her aches and injuries and drawing a moan out of her at the utterly alien sensation. “I’m sorry,” the blond said, standing behind Nine, “I wish there had been another way, but you’re very strong.”

Free.

Nine was free.

She felt euphoric, but she refused to celebrate. She grabbed one of Noelle’s arms, her large hand wrapping all the way around the small girl’s bicep and then some. “Noelle, Fourteen—”

“We know,” the man said, standing with a grunt. “She’s next on the list. I’m Zaren, by the way.”

Nine looked up at him, afraid to move in case the blond woman stopped her wonderful healing. “I want to help.”

He nodded. “First things first, we’re going to need to know everything you can tell us about Fourteen’s class and skills. The more I know, the better I can prepare, and the more likely I can take her down without injuring her quite as severely as I had to injure you.”

Nine bit her lip, not sure if she was ready to give him so much information, but Noelle smiled. Smiled. Nine wasn’t aware the poor, abused girl even knew how to do that.

“Do not worry,” she said earnestly, “you can trust Zaren. He will save Fourteen. He will save all of them.”

Nine only hesitated a little longer before she did as he asked. When she asked for her weapons back, he gave her a sad smile. “Sorry, but you’ll be staying here. Even if you weren’t beat to shit, we can’t risk her seeing you without a collar. The self preservation instilled in the collars is strong as hell, and if she makes the connection that I can free her she might flee and we’ll lose our shot. I’ll need you to trust us. Can you do that?”

Nine bit her lip, then stood unsteadily. The blond and an Arelim with wide eyes both helped support her. “I don’t see that I have much choice.” Her next words were directed at Noelle. “Please, bring her back.”

Noelle nodded, patting Nine’s thigh. “We will.”

The man—Zaren—cracked his neck. “Reese!” he barked. He turned to the others in his caravan that were all looking at him with expressions ranging from fear to shock to something dangerously close to reverence. A girl with a bow in her hands and a hood pulled low over her head slid to the forefront, and he said, “can you track them?”

She scoffed, then set off at a run without gracing him with an answer. A burly, grizzled man stepped forward, his jaw slack and his eyes shining. “You planning to take the camp solo, too?”

Zaren shook his head with a rueful grin. “Nah, not when there are prisoners to worry about.”

“What are you thinking, then?” the grizzled man asked.

Zaren hefted the blade, scabbard and all, and pressed it to his back. A strap seemed to burn itself into reality and settled across his chest. “I’m thinking we reverse the gnoll plan, make them think I’m coming at them alone. Gonna doubt me again?” he asked, his tone almost playful.

The other man shook his head all too seriously. “No chance of that.”