Son of a slave
Chapter 215: New beginning

Chapter 215: New beginning

"Do you want to continue?" asked Arienne, who felt warm blood on the back of her neck, her left shoulder and right thigh. "Even with your skills, it’ll take at least an hour for you to reattach that arm."

"Tch," snickered the other woman, dark eyes cool and collected without any hint of anger or pain. "What about you? You’ve got about ten minutes

before my paralysis poison sets in. Even though you’ve managed to injure me, it’s just a small thing."

The mass of floating projectiles began to swirl in a menacing manner.

While she couldn’t be certain if Deena’s words were true, Arienne couldn’t take the risk. Within her mouth, she bit down on one of her fake molars and quickly drank the all-purpose antidote within.

"How long can you keep numbing yourself with your medical magics? I’ve cut plenty of people’s arms off, and let me tell you, the pain isn’t so easily ignored."

The two women continued to size one another up, Arienne thinking that they couldn’t be more different. She was tall and fair, with bright blue eyes, shoulder-length blonde hair and beautiful facial features, whereas Deena was short, thin and overly pale, as if she rarely saw any sunlight. The arcanite’s dark hair was shorter than hers, and her black eyes were piercing, shrewd, and without a hint of warmth.

"Let me tell you," said Deena, her smile sinister, entertained even. "Even if I don’t kill you today, you’ll be hunted down by the church for the rest of your pitiful life. Prodigal swordsman? Pah"—she spat in derision—"you’ll be lucky to live long enough to experience your next cycle."

Arienne narrowed her eyes and took up a lunging position. "It seems you want to continue."

Just when it seemed that Deena would respond with equal fervour, the high arcanite’s gaze suddenly snapped to the east, her eyes widening momentarily before she muttered with contempt.

"Useless thing."

Ready to react at any moment, Arienne watched as the mass of hardened earth abruptly fell to the ground and lost its shape, creating a large ring of dirt. Some of this soil rose up a moment later, creating a barrier between the two of them.

"Count yourself lucky that I’m needed elsewhere." In a more menacing tone, she said, "I’ll remember you, Arienne of Lahn." Nodding to her injured arm, which was still glowing with green light, she said, "One day, I’ll repay this debt in full."

With that, a barrel’s worth of water suddenly tunneled free from the earth and formed a sizeable disc at her feet, hardening into ice a moment later. Stepping on top of it, Deena willed the disc to float up above the trees before it carried her off to the east and out of sight.

Keeping her guard up just in case the other woman was attempting to trick her, Arienne eventually sagged her shoulders, sheathed her sword, and snickered in a ridiculing manner. "Acting so tough, yet you still have to flee in such a miserable manner."

Despite saying this, she fell to one knee after taking a few steps in the opposite direction, noticing that the cut on the back of her neck was quite deep. Although her major arteries had been spared, the projectile that cut her had indeed been laced with some sort of numbing agent, which made her oblivious to the amount of blood that had been shed since the start of the fight. On top of that, there seemed to be some sort of blood-thinning solution mixed in as well, for all of her injuries were bleeding far more than they should have been.

Stabilizing her breaths, Arienne temporarily sealed her wounds with swordsman’s aura and then rose up to her feet with considerable effort. For now, she needed to find a safe place to recuperate. She was also in desperate need of food and water, for she hadn’t anticipated the events of the day.

The Tall Mountains were a dangerous place, their forests filled with all sorts of deadly animals and poisonous creatures. Arienne had spent most of her life within the empire’s capital, only going off into the nearby wilderness to train for situations like the one that she currently found herself in.

I need to hurry, she thought, making her way toward the nearest mountain that was vaguely visible through the dense upper canopy of congested foliage.

She persisted for several hours, afternoon quickly transitioning into evening, the daylight beginning to fade all too fast. She was hoping to find a cave to hunker down in for the night, a task that shouldn’t prove too difficult considering that these mountains were full of such natural hideaways.

Amidst a chorus of snapping twigs and proactive birdsongs, Arienne contemplated the events that had led to her current predicament.

Talented as she was, the prospects of a knight in the capital were highly limited if one lacked connections. For a commoner like her, it was absolutely necessary to obtain a sponsor that could fund her enrolment into one of the local knight academies. These were places where promising youths practiced for the opportunity to become squires, and later full-fledged knights of the state. Only, on top of room and board, the cost of purchasing and maintaining one’s equipment was very high, so she had had no choice but to rely on Archbishop Vestach’s generosity in order to realize her goals. She had many friends that had taken up the cloth under another Archbishop’s faction within the clergy, a man named Varus, though he’d been responsible for putting hundreds of heathens to death about a decade back, including her mother, a sympathiser of the Drunaeda. Because of this, the old man had been wary of her from the get go and thus—...had refused to allow her to work as a guard in his employ, leaving her with no choice but to seek help from his cunning rival.

Damned Vestach, she grated in her mind. If I’d known you had dealings with black magics, I would never have taken you up on your offer.

Just as she was cursing Maels and Vestach in her heart, a brief breeze brought with it the sound of muffled voices. Suddenly vigilant, she silently grasped one of her throwing knives while resting her right hand on her sword’s hilt. After waiting in silence for a moment, she lowered her guard by a slight degree as a few confused thoughts ran through her mind.

Young girls? After keeping quiet for a few more moments, she confirmed that a group of youths were currently approaching her from up ahead. With her keen eyes, she was vaguely able to make out their silhouettes in the dimness of the gloaming. Some of them were crying.

Perhaps they were hunters, come far out into the forests in search of prized game?

Realizing that they weren’t members of the church and likely weren’t there for the sake of capturing her, Arienne returned her knife to its perch, let go of her sword’s handle and abruptly strode forward to greet them. With any luck, they would have some food and water to spare. She had a few...

...silver lucets that she wouldn’t mind parting with in exchange for provisions, items that would surely come in handy during her inevitable flight from the empire and away from the church’s influence.

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