B3 Chapter 31: No Strings Attached

Quintus was on his way back from his meeting with Gaius when he felt it. A strange compulsion, as though someone were tugging on his very soul. Not entirely dissimilar to the feeling when one of his brothers died, though this lacked the sting of cold dread.

He could have ignored it. But that similarity and the urgency of the sensation drew him forward with haste.

On one hand, having a good fight to test out his new abilities was a clear benefit. Especially given that he’d be ridding the city of these troublemakers in the process. On the other hand… it became rather apparent that the source of his summon was not a fellow Legionnaire. It was the bard. And that disquieted him. Quintus had no fondness for manipulation, and the idea that the foppish man could do something like this to him…

That was a matter to be investigated later. For now, Quintus had to deal with the problem before him.

[Tactician’s Awareness] activated, and Quintus felt as though he were surveying the situation from afar. Of the five opponents in this alley, one had already been dealt with. The archer at the back of the group was unconscious and in the process of being restrained by two of the other Legionnaires that had arrived alongside him. The others were wheeling to face the newcomers with weapons drawn.

Given that they seemed intent on resisting, they might not be as fortunate as their companion. Then again, perhaps dying here would be better than seeing whatever punishment would be visited upon them for this disturbance. Either way, he felt relatively confident that the Legionnaires would be able to handle at least the other archer and the smarmy man with the knife, especially given the sound of footsteps that indicated more reinforcements on the way.

Out of curiosity, he also triggered [Lead From The Front]. He felt his connection to the Legionnaires around him strengthen. Intuitively, he knew that they felt his will without him even speaking it aloud.

Quintus mentally issued orders to his men as he stared down the burly man, his blade steady as the man hefted his axe. Yet strangely, despite the clear and obvious threat of the hulking figure, Quintus felt as though he wasn’t the biggest problem here. Rather, the lanky one stood out to his senses. For what reason, though, he couldn’t quite tell.

The axe-wielding man roared and lunged forward to chop down at Quintus. He dodged to the side, [Swordsmastery] guiding his blade in a fluid motion that diverted the strike into the ground instead of his own head. A shower of sharp stone peppered his arms and face as the axe carved a deep groove. The centurion moved to take advantage of the opening, sending a stab toward the man’s side.

A feeling of wrongness overwhelmed him. Quintus’s wrist twisted as though it had a mind of its own. It was a small movement, barely perceptible. But it was enough to send his blade off course. His sword opened a line of red along the axe-wielder’s side rather than sliding between his ribs.

The man cursed and swung again, sending Quintus leaping backwards to dodge. Again, the feeling returned. It was as though his body wasn’t responding as it should.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bard gesticulating wildly. The man had retreated back a ways and was moving his mouth, yet no more words came out—a first for him, surely. He pointed emphatically at the lanky figure that was currently attempting to distance himself from the conflict, one hand over his mouth and his other held at a strange angle with his fingers splayed.

As Quintus’s attention turned to the spindly man, his eyes widened. His fingers danced, and suddenly Quintus found his feet tripping over each other. The jerks and twists came at such unexpected times that, even though he could wrest control back with ease, they still left him feeling off-balance. Even [Sure Footing] couldn’t completely counteract the disorientation of his body simply refusing to cooperate.

He ducked low under another swing of the axe, the dodge more narrow than he would have preferred. Quintus practically fell into a forward roll, struggling to pop back up to his feet under the influence of whatever the spindly man was doing. Given the plain clothes their opponents wore, it was quite difficult to tell whether he was a mage of some sort. But whatever he was, Quintus needed to get rid of him. Even with his impressive stats, he wasn’t confident in surviving one of those axe strikes. Not without a line of Legionnaires with him.

Quintus darted toward the man—at least, he tried to. He had barely taken two fumbling steps before his target’s fingers began to fly even faster as he danced away from the incoming centurion. Between that and having to watch his back for incoming attacks, he simply couldn’t get close.

Quintus was forced to turn and divert another axe strike into the ground as an idea struck. His movements were compromised. But no one said he was the one who needed to move.

He turned toward the spindly man again, raising his blade high. The figure’s spiderlike fingers danced, and Quintus felt the sudden urge to shift and tangle his feet. Yet he didn’t move. Instead, he focused all of his attention on keeping his feet firmly in place. That, and [Sure Footing].

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He felt at the skill, how it connected his feet to the ground below. How the ground itself rose up to cradle them, grabbing onto the soles of his caligae like the manifold suckers of an octopus. He knew instinctively that, the instant he moved, the ground would do the same, positioning itself so that he could launch forward with explosive speed.

But he didn’t move. allow it to stop there. Quintus gritted his teeth, willing the skill to bend to his will. He wanted to move. He would move. But he wouldn’t allow his feet to budge one inch. The ground could shift beneath him, that much was obvious. He just needed it to do a little more.

He heard the whistle of the headsman’s axe arcing toward his neck from behind. Quintus was on the verge of turning to face it when he felt the ground slam into his feet beneath him. The response was so violent and sudden that it caught him off guard, nearly sending him tumbling for an entirely different reason than he’d experienced during this fight.

The spindly man’s eyes grew round with fear as Quintus launched toward him. He gestured with his fingers again, diving sideways to dodge even as the centurion’s blade fell. His efforts threw off its arc by a few inches. But it didn’t matter.

The blade passed just above the man’s thin fingers. [Rend] and [Tear]

ripped a hole through the air, shredding everything in the vicinity of the strike. A scream of pain echoed through the alley as the opponent’s fingers churned into a shapeless mass of blood and gristle that fell to the floor. Quintus pressed the advantage to bash forward with his shield, catching the man in the jaw. Teeth flew as he was sent to the ground.

A familiar flare of warning had Quintus spinning in place before his first opponent had even finished falling. A pair of knives skittered off of his curved shield even as he repeated his [Sure Footing] trick to launch away from another axe strike. He slid to a stop, once again in control of his body, and faced down the brute.

The rest of the battle occupied a corner in the back of Quintus’s mind. He continued to issue orders, using his awareness of the battlefield to help them avoid sneak attacks and coordinate against the pair of far more nimble combatants. Yet it was difficult for him to manage both at the same time. Perhaps his neglect of his mental stats was coming back to bite him.

He focused on the enemy before him and readied to attack. Yet before either man could charge each other, a familiar song filled the air—the same one that Quintus had heard upon entering the city. Annoyance flashed through him for the briefest of moments as the bard decided to play a song now, of all times. But then he felt his muscles swell with renewed vigor, his aches and exhaustion washed away as though by clear water.

Right. It wasn’t just a song.

Quintus lunged forward. For all of his impossible strength, the musclehead’s speed left quite a lot to be desired. And especially under the influence of this empowering song? He didn’t stand a chance.

The centurion easily dodged the larger man’s attacks, the ground gathering beneath his heel and launching him forward with unprecedented force. This time, he was ready for it—even if the opponent wasn’t. His gladius stabbed through the man’s gut in a strike that would have seen him dead within days back at home. But here? He would take no chances.

The axe man struggled to get his weapon into position, but found the cumbersome thing too unwieldy to keep up with Quintus’s nimble strikes. One cut, then another, then a third. [Rend] widened the wounds until the man was nearly slipping in his own blood as Quintus continued skating forward unbothered. The others could be interrogated. But this one? This man had earned himself death.

Before long, Quintus had severed enough muscles and tendons that the man could no longer hold himself upright. The giant toppled to the ground with a final pained gurgle. Then, with one final strike to the neck, Quintus put him out of his misery.

Glancing around, he saw the results of his men’s efforts. More Legionnaires had arrived during the battle and managed to subdue the final two opponents, leaving three tied up in the street. The spindly puppetmaster type lay unconscious, his mangled stump of an arm still bleeding, while the axe wielder twitched and lay still.

Quintus flicked the blood from his blade sheathing it as he heard footsteps approach. Marcus the bard came to a halt before him. His purple cloak, now stained with mud and a few splotches of blood, nevertheless swirled as the man gave a flourishing bow and a smile.

“My thanks, Primus Pilus. Your aid was quite timely indeed.”

“Bard,” he practically growled the word. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, well, it’s not as though I intended to make trouble,” Marcus sounded almost offended. “Nor so I believe I’ve engaged in any particularly egregious acts as of late. Rather, I suspect that this is the king’s doing. It seems that he has not taken too kindly to my presence here.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Quintus frowned. Although that was somewhat interesting. He’d heard that the bard had somehow earned the ire of the Novaran king, but for him to go to these lengths, in the middle of a siege no less? That was a story he wanted to hear. Not from Marcus’s own mouth, though. He had places to be today.

Quintus crossed his arms. “What kind of spell did you use to manipulate us into coming to your aid?”

The bard blinked, but his face remained unreadable. “Ah. That. Well… That’s a more difficult question to answer. Though rest assured I had no intention to manipulate. I only intended to reach out with a cry for help. The choice to follow it was nothing but your own, I am certain.”

Quintus glanced toward the other Legionnaires. At this point, the street was filled with them. After giving a few brief orders on what to do with the criminals and the bodies, he turned his attention back on Marcus. “Follow me.”

He began walking, expecting the bard to follow. This whole incident certainly seemed like something that Gaius would want to hear about. Perhaps Tiberius as well.

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