BrightMoon: Path of a Witch King

Chapter 7

Looking at the two massive corpses I felt a headache coming on, lugging these down the mountain was going to be a pain. Even for me and my enhanced strength. “Master, is it safe?” I heard the voice of one of my servants from the cave mouth, the nine silver sprites stood at the entrance with their daggers drawn and ready.

Luckily the fight was quick, I knew the little sprites would have fought the bears with me, but it was a bit too much for them to fight these beasts. Though these speedy sprites looked adorable I had watched them hunt horned rabbits, a vicious rodent like creature that was incredibly fast, and they worked together to bring down several of them.

Their cute chittering language was something I inherently understood, though I suspected they could speak in the common tongue if they chose to.

“It is alright, come in and get settled. I will need you to guard our new home until I get back, are you up to the task?” I asked.

“Leave it to us master!” they said in unison, and gave me tiny salutes. I loved these tiny sprites, they may not be the most powerful summon but they were incredibly loyal and quite the joyful bunch.

I smiled and gave them each a silver disk, they all smiled and headed into the cave, I grabbed the bags from outside and let them start unpacking. I packed a satchel with a few horned rabbits and the claws and teeth of the bears. I saved a few so I could experiment with them later before heading out.

I walked down to the river and splashed some water on my arm, I cleaned off the blood and wrapped my arm in a bandage, it wasn't pretty but it would have to do. I started walking down the river when I heard the sounds of laughter, a small boat with a few barrels turned around a bend. 

I waved at the boat and the few deck hands started to slow down, “Any chance I can purchase passage down river to the next town?” I called. A human at the back came forward.

“It will cost ya three silver disks!” he called back, it was a little expensive, but it wasn't out of the normal range either.

“It's a deal.” I said as they pulled up close to shore. I used a bit of mana to raise some stone unter the water just enough to keep the water from going into my boots. I hopped into the boat, I pulled a small pouch from inside my belt and grabbed the silver and handed it to the human in front of me. After pocketing the silver he gave the order to the men and the boat took off down the river at a swift pace.

I stood at the back of the boat near its captain, his name was Thomas, he was coming from a small village further up the river. Three days by boat, more than a week on foot, from what I could tell they had quite the cargo on board. There was an entire barrel filled with salt, their village had opened a new shaft in the hills nearby and found a large cavern of salt.

I wasn't sure why Thomas was bragging about this, but I could tell that the village would probably be under new management within a month.

However this wasn't any of my business so I congratulated him and his men, it took about an hour to get back to town, my home was a bit far from town now. Hopefully this would keep me away from the troublemakers in town.

Once we were docked I hopped off the boat and said my thanks to Thomas, I quickly made my way to Uran the butcher, I traded in the horned rabbits for a few silver and asked about moving extremely large kills. I described the bear's size to the man and after a moment of getting over his shock he said it would be easiest to move all the meat and hides by boat now that I was further away from town. I thanked the large man before heading out to the docks. I guess buying a boat was my only option for getting to and from town.

I stopped by my favorite tailor and the general store for a few supplies before heading back to the docks. I started talking with the fishmen and boat captains about purchasing a boat. It wasn't going great as no one wanted to sell their boat as it was their livelihood.

I was talking with an older man when the sound of shouting drew our attention away from the conversation. A large boat at the end of the pier had a small gathering of fishermen. A very large man with an equally large belly was holding Thomas by the throat and screaming in his face, “Where is the salt from you little cretin!” The large man started to beat the poor captain senselessly, there were two other bodies that I could barely recognize  as the crew Thomas had with him this morning. 

Thomas died less than a minute into the beating and was tossed onto the ground, a bag slipped out of Thomas’ belt, six gold disks and two gold cubes along with dozens of silver cubes spilled onto the ground.

That kind of money was quite extravagant for most citizens in town, even with the wealth on the ground no one moved to pick it up, since no one wanted free gold I might as well be the winner here.

I stepped forward and the old man started to whisper to me, “Don't do it lad, that's Fetc, he is one of the river bandit leaders.” I waved the old man away so he wouldn't get caught up in any trouble. 

I pushed my way through the crowd, Fect was still ranting about something but I ignored him and made my way to the gold. I quickly picked up the gold and put it in my satchel, I proceeded to check the other two corpses, in all I collected four coin purses and three well maintained knives.

After collecting my loot I looked up to see Fects’ red face, he was shouting at me, “What the hell are you doing with my gold! I will flay you alive boy!” Was partially what I caught along with a few colorful swears. What was odd was that behind Fect were three women bound in chains, they looked well fed but their eyes were filled with so much pain that no matter how you dolled them up they were nowhere as pretty as they once were.

I guess Fect is more of a scumbag than I originally thought, the massive wall of meat that was Fect threw a fist at me, to give credit where it was due. Fect was indeed strong, and he was on the martial dao path, I could sense it. I couldn't tell what realm he was in, but I could feel that his body was several times stronger than an average mans.

However he was incredibly slow, though I wasn't going to use my strength in front of the townspeople, I was committed to only showing that I was a witch. I focused my mana into my throat to cause my voice to seem like I was casting a spell, while in truth I was manipulating the earth.

[Stone Arrows] my voice carried the strength of mana, the stones on the ground and in the river shattered into stone arrowheads and with a push they all targeted Fect.

The bully managed to cover his head with his arms, but that did him no favors as he was turned into a colander, blood leaked out from dozens of wounds. The crowd had backed away once the arrow heads started flying.

I walked up to Fect who started coughing up blood, “Know your place trash.” I kicked his legs making him fall onto his knees. I grabbed him by his greasy hair and made him look up at me, “Don't you ever f**k with a witch.” I pulled out my lion tooth dagger and shoved it into his throat.

His eyes opened wide and he started choking on his own blood, I held up the large man by the hair until he collapsed, I dropped his body and checked it for any loot. There was a money purse, several gold and silver accessories, a few even had gems. After I stripped him of his valuables and walked towards the boat.

About halfway there I looked to my right at the three girls in chains, “Come you three, you can show me how to operate this craft.” I was pushing my luck by ordering these girls around, but it seemed that their conditioned response was to follow orders.

I needed to show a hard stance in front of the townspeople, I knew that eventually someone would want my slowly accumulating wealth, showing a bit of strength now meant having peace in the future.

I walked onto the ship with the three women right behind me, their chains dragging behind them. Once we were all onboard I pulled the large plank of wood back onto the deck, there was no one else on the ship, something I found odd but decided to ignore for now.

I led the girls to the captain's cabin, my cabin now, once we were inside I could tell they were scared. I could only imagine what had happened to them, and even then it would never come close.

“Easy there you three, now that we are alone lets get those collars off you.” I walked forward and reached a hand out to them but they all flinched away from me. “Shhh, it's alright now. No one is going to hurt you.” I had to keep reassuring the girls as I inspected the collars, the things weren't magical by any means, just iron with a clasp that was welded shut.

The welding job was quite poor, ‘I guess brute force will have to do.’ I grabbed the sides of the collar and slowly pulled away from the girl. The collar wasn't designed to handle an earth spirits strength, the clasp barely groaned before snapping, I tossed the metal away and proceeded to remove the other two collars.

Once the collars were removed I examined the shackles that bound their wrists and ankles, they were a bit thicker than the collars but the design was the same, basic and easily broken.

Once the girls were completely free they rubbed their necks and wrists, the bindings must have chafed their skin horribly, there were red marks and shiny scar tissue that showed that they had been captives for quite some time.

With my work done I went over to the desk and sat in the large chair, surprisingly it was incredibly comfortable, I looked up at the girls. They looked more confused than anything, still there was a layer of fear that would take some time to get over.

“Do any of you know how to control the ship?” I asked. This ship was too large for oars to be used and its design had no sails, it did however have the paddle wheels, the wheels weren't too large but I have no idea how to operate the thing. 

The oldest of the girls stepped forward, she was obviously worried but she found a small amount of courage somewhere deep down inside. “mMaster the echinism s on the ddesk.” she stuttered and mumbled out the short sentence while pointing at a blue orb on the desk.

“This thing?” I asked and pointed at the orb, she nodded a few times in confirmation. “Thank you...what is your name?”

The girl smiled when I thanked her but I saw her panic right after. “What's wrong?” was my obvious question.

The girl on the right stepped forward this time, “We don't have names, master.” she said in a timid voice just above a whisper. Even their identity as people was taken from them? There had been a brief moment when I hesitated on taking that trashes life, but I see now that there is no room for hesitation in this world.

“Would you three like to work for me? I need competent servants to run this ship, you are free now, so the choice is yours.” I wasn't interested in slavery, though in this world it seemed that it was an accepted practice.

The girls in front of me started crying, “Are we really free now?” they asked while they each started to crumble internally. 

“There is no greater pain than having your freedom ripped from you, and I would not keep you three under such pain just to have some free labor.” I said, my ancestors had their lands invaded and stripped from them. While they hadn't been exclusively purchased, they had suffered their own unique pain caused by others.

I tried not to watch as the girls came to grips with their new reality, they held each other for a while before they started to calm down. 

The eldest of the three stood up after making sure the others were ok and approached me. “What would we have to do if we worked for you?” she asked, it was obvious that she was putting up a strong front for the others but that was perfectly fine with me.

“Well some household chores like cleaning and cooking, but mostly you would be navigating the ship between my home and town with my goods. As well as shopping for things I may need, I am unsure about how much servants are paid but the wage would be fair.” My offer was fair, I didn't particularly need servants but they could be a good resource to cultivate.

My silver sprites were loyal but at the moment they were small and not very strong, though with their numbers and speed taking on a few normal fighters wasn’t impossible.

The blue haired girl thought about it for a moment, she turned and said a few things to the others before turning back to me, she took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “We would be honored to serve you.” she gave a small bow, her already low cut dress giving me an eyeful of cleavage.

As much as I appreciated the eye candy I would need to purchase them proper clothing, and some ointment for their skin.

“I am glad to have you all working for me. I will investigate how much a servant is paid and discuss it with you when I have a good idea about how much you will be paid annually. For now however we need to get you some proper clothes, take this silver to Gola the tailor, tell him BrightMoon sent you over. Get a week's worth of clothes each, including one pair of shoes and one pair of boots.” I took out four silver cubes and put them into a small leather pouch before holding it out to her.

She stepped forward and took the bag hesitantly.

“Now, before you go. What am I going to call you?” I mused the question before tapping my finger on the table while examining the girls.