(Path of the Dragon Mage: Exiled) 9. Rune Magic (Patreon)

Even though Corvus's horse riding skills increased. They traveled even slower than Solt had predicted.

By the third night on the road, Corvus's bed back in the palace  seemed like an old dream. The bedroll Solt provided for him was thin and  smelled musty. Worse, he had quite literally never been as dirty in his  life. There were no servants to fill his tub with hot water. No hot  water at all unless it was boiled out of a pot.

Every muscle was sore, and even when he woke from a night's rest,  what he began thinking of his stamina bar was never at full strength.

Ding!

Warning: Due to poor  sleeping conditions, stamina debuff is been engaged. Your stamina will  not regenerate above 85% until you achieve eight hours of sleep in  adequate conditions.

The first warning had reduced his maximum stamina to 95%. It seemed  he lost five percent from every consecutive day of poor rest.

Corvus went to sleep early the next night, hoping that extra hours sleeping would counter-act the poor quality of sleep.

It was not to be. His dreams were uneasy and plagued with anxiety.  Finally, he woke with a gasp. The figments of a dream fell away, leaving  him hazy and confused. Something about his father’s anger, and badly  bungling up a test from his tutors.

Across the dying embers of the fire, Solt snored as loud as a brass instrument. There was no way he would return to sleep soon.

Taking a stick and poking at the coals. He found it interesting that  although there were no life flames, the embers still put out a good  amount of heat. How did that work?

There was a snap of a twig within the woods.

Corvus’s head whipped around.

His eyes had been dazzled by staring at the embers, but as he peered  into the dark woods, he felt his night vision activate. It was a curious  thing. There was no color, but the underbrush of the trees were lit up  silver, black, and white as if there were a full moon overhead.

Still, it was hard to make out fine details, and he almost missed it  when one of the shadows he thought was a tree trunk shifted slightly.

Something was creeping closer.

"Solt!” Corvus hissed.

The dark silhouette hesitated at his voice, but then continued, one slow step after another, like a stalking cat after a mouse.

Solt snored on.

"Solt!” he called louder, shifting the thin blankets aside. “Something is coming!”

The man's next snore hitched. He sat up, a wine skin falling from  where it had been cradled to his chest and sloshing to the side.

"What?" Solt looked briefly about, blinking blindly at the darkness. He scowled. “Are you having nightmares, boy?"
That's when two other shadows Corvus hadn’t noticed, broke from the forest and charged.

The horses screamed. Corvus did too, leaping to his feet and holding  up the blanket like a shield. He felt something hard crashed into him,  sending him rolling. Messages cascaded in front of his vision, and he  caught the impression of a large dog-like animal. It had gray and brown  fur, but long thin front limbs like an ape.

He scrambled up, dismissing the messages out of instinct. The  creature hadn’t advanced. By luck, its long claws had gotten caught in  the fabric of his blanket, and it was taking a second to shake it free.

The outline of the beast glowed a sinister red. When he concentrated, up popped a description.

Species: Lupis Wolf
Level: 3

Solt was on his feet, sword drawn and was slashing wildly to keep two  other, larger beasts at bay. Their levels were five and seven,  respectively.

"Boy!" Solt yelled and threw.

A flash of metal glinting against the light only he could only see,  and then a thunk of impact against wood. He glanced over and Solt’s  rune-enchanted dagger buried to the hilt of the tree not a foot from his  left ear.

Corvus yanked it out, just as the Lupin Wolf untangled his long claws from the blanket. It turned its glittering eyes on him.

Fear shot through Corvus like a lightning bolt. The dagger felt tiny  and insignificant in his hand. It was perhaps the length of one of the  Lupin Wolf’s claws.

He didn’t make the conscious decision to run. It was as if his legs  were completely separate from his body. As if everything that was  sentient and knowledgeable shoved to the side in his grip of fear.

Corvus plunged into the forest at full speed, milking every bit of speed could from his legs.

With a howl, the Lupin Wolf rushed after him.

Only Corvus’s vision in lowlight situations and the boost it gave to his speed let him not be overtaken right away.

But the wolf was stronger, faster, and Corvus’s lowered stamina was plunging.

He spotted a tree that had grown next to a sloped bolder. Leaping on  the boulder, he used it as a platform to jump to the nearest branch. The  rough bark scraped his palms as he caught it and swung himself up.

The Lupis Wolf leaped after him, and the dim starlight caught its  white teeth as they snapped just shy of the bottom of his boots.

The next branch was within easy reach. Corvus grabbed it, but the  moment, he put weight down it snapped. Corvus nearly lost his balance.  He fell against the trunk of the tree, catching himself at the last  second… only to almost slip again as the tree shook with impact.

The Lupis Wolf had not given up its chase. Not when its prey was just  out of reach. It slashed the trunk with finger-long claws. Then, it  slammed headlong into the trunk of the tree as if its head were a  battering ram. The tree shook with the impact as the beast hit the  trunk. Wood cracked.

Looking around wildly, he saw the tree itself was half rotten. The branches above head height were all old and gray.
In  the distance, he heard the sound of fighting, beastly growling, and  Solt’s shouts. He didn't know if the man was being eaten alive, or  managing to battle back the two wolves. The only thing he knew for sure  was he wasn’t going to come to his rescue.

For the first time, Corvus was alone.

"Go away!" He threw the half rotten branch at the Lupis Wolf below, only to have it dance away contemptuously.
Sensing  Corvus was trapped, it returned to the trunk which had noticeable  gouges in it. Its jaws were strong and the wood was soft with rot.

The rotten wood reminded him of the beams he had seen at the last  waystation. All had been rotten except for the ones that had been  inscribed with the rune Stay.

The rune.

A wild idea took him. Corvus grabbed for a branch as long as his arm  and easily broke it free. His idea was stupid. Crazy. No way it could  work. But it was all he had.

The wolf was going all out, gouging at the trunk with its claws. By  the tremor and the crack of wood, the tree would soon topple, bringing  Corvus down along with it. He was more scared than he had ever been in  his life, but he breathed out, trying to exert some level of emotional  control. His hand steadied. Then he took Solt’s dagger and dug it into  the base of the branch.

Corvus had always gotten high marks on his penmanship. Now, he  inscribed a perfect circle two perfect circles at the base of the  branch. And in them, the runes for Sharp and Stay.

That done, he pressed his palm over them and willed the meaning into the runes.

Please work. For once in my life, please… please work.

His mana bar plunged from 50 down to 10. Then, the branch seemed to warp in twist in his hands.

Before he could figure out what had changed, there was a deep crack from the base of the tree, and he felt his seat shifting.

The tree was coming down with him in it. Corvus had no choice. He jumped clear, landing hard among a a rain of splinters.

Several urgent messages flashed in front of his eyes, but he ignored  them, bringing up the branch the up to bare. It didn’t want to move—as  if one side was weighted more to the other. Stuck to the ground like  glue.

In his panic, Corvus lifted one end just as the wolf sprang on him.

The impact knocked the air out of him, and he felt hot liquid splash over his hands.

There was a terrible sound of ripping flesh. The wolf yelped and lurched to the side.

Corvus rolled away and looked back to see the Lupis Wolf thrashing,  twisting to bite the branch that it had impaled it as easily as a knife  through warm butter. The wound was gruesome, and mortal.

Perhaps it realized this, too. The wolf stopped and looked at him.  There was something in its eyes. Fierce, and intelligent and pleading.

Then the animal gave a rattling breath and went limp.

Its entire weight sagged on the branch. This proved to be too much.  The branch snapped, separating the base with the runes from the shaft.  Without the runes, the wood shifted again… losing a certain indefinable  quality.

Without the runes, the top half was simply a normal branch again.

Cautiously, Corvus grabbed the bottom half. It was now a small stake. The rune for Sharp had sharpened the top to a point. Not just any point—the top was so  sharp that he knew, instinctively, not to touch it. When he picked up a  dry leaf and pushed it down upon the point, it pierced the leaf without a  crackle. The rune for Stay made the branch feel heavy as if it wanted to stick to the soil

Corvus looked back at the wolf. He had created a spear. One that had  braced itself against the ground, and when the wolf had leapt on it…

I did that, he thought. I just killed that beast.

The wolf had been trying to kill him. He knew that. He wasn't  actually stupid. But seeing its glassy eyes which had been bright with  intelligence and pain made his stomach lurch. He pressed the back of his  hand against his mouth to keep it in—then wrenched it away as he  realized his hands were covered with salty blood.

The stub of the branch was streaked with it, too, from his fingers.  Sickened, he dropped it. The rune for Stay made it stick to the ground  just under the leaf litter.

"Boy!" Solt’s ragged yell echoed through the forest. "Where are you?"

Only then did he realize there was no more sounds of fighting from the campground. Solt had survived his encounter, too.

"Here!" Corvus called.

The sounds of heavy footsteps and breaking twigs as Solt blundered to  him. In one hand, he carried a torch a burning branch he had taken from  the embers to create a torch. It lit him up in Corvus's night vision.

"Are you alright?" Solt demanded, then scowled and spoke before  Corvus could reply. "That was foolish, running off like that. The dark  is the hunting grounds for the wolves. It can be back at any moment."

"It won't. It's dead."

"What?"

Only then did Corvus realize Solt had no idea where the Lupis Wolf’s  body was. He had not realized that his night vision was so much better  than Solt’s own. "It's right there." He pointed. His fingers were  shaking.

The outline of the wolf’s body now glowed a dull green.

Solt turned, holding the torch up high and let out a grunt when he  saw the beast. "You killed it with that pig sticker I threw to you?"

"I...."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him about the runes. But Solt  was already examining the wolf's body. The animal that Corvus had  killed. In death, it looked small. Like a dog he had seen the kitchen  boys playing with.

He lost his battle with his stomach. Turning aside, he threw up.

When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and  turned back. Solt was bending to examine the Lupis Wolf’s corpse.  Firelight from the torch danced across his features… and something in  his expression sent alarm bells ring in Corvus’s head ringing.

He was used to studying the expressions of others. Watching for  changes within his volatile mother, learning when not to cross his  father, weighing the amount of distain on servant's faces to gauge the  mood of the royal court.
The expression on Solt's face as he bent to  examine the body—specifically the top half of the branch that was still  embedded within the beast—made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

"You stabbed this creature straight through?" Solt’s voice was this shade of too-calm.

Corvus shook his head frantically, even though Solt was turned away.  He didn’t know what was close to setting the man off, but a lifetime of  fear told him to dissemble.

"I was in the tree when it came down. I grabbed the branch, and the wolf sort of... impaled itself on it?"
The words rang false, even to his own ears.

Solt jerked the branch free and examined the end. Now that the runes  were gone it had returned to its natural state. No pointy end. No more  disposition for it to stick itself to something.

Corvus glanced around but could not spot the broken bottom half of  the branch. It was hidden under the leaves. Solt might still find it if  he started kicking around. He had to distract him.

"What is that thing? It… is it a feral dog?”

Solt sent him a disparaging look for the stupid question. That was fine. Better to be seen as stupid than a threat. 

“Lupis  Wolf,” Solt grunted and tossed the branch away. “Never seen them so far  from the mountains before. The demons send them across the border in  waves."

"You mean... that's a demon's beast?" He stared at the body, outraged. "But... how did they get so far past the boarder?”

"That's the question. You don't see mobs in civilized lands."

"Mobs?"

"I suppose they don't use slang in the palace high towers,” he grunted and to Corvus’s horror, shuffled one foot in the leaves.

“I don’t understand,” he said, desperately. “What is the root of the word?"

Glancing up, Solt gave him a look like he were out of his mind, but  then shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We have to move on. A mob is a  good indication that the land is unsettled. We need to move out  tonight.”

He turned to lead him back to the camp.

The horses were still tied to the tree nearby. They were uninjured, aside from being overly skittish.

The two bodies of the other Lupis Wolves were laying by the fire. A green light outlined one of the two bodies as well.

Curiosity overrode his distaste. He bent by the closest and touched the pelt.

Ding!

You have received loot!
(1) Wolf's Claw Necklace

His hand came away holding a leather thong necklace with a tooth in place of jewelry.

What…?

“Boy! Hurry up and saddle your horse!” Solt barked.

Stuffing the necklace in his pocket, he rose to do as he was told.

Only once they were on the road did he pay attention to something new  within the corner of his vision: the tiny ghostly of a scroll pulsing  with light, as if nudging him for attention.

He focused on it and up popped a menu labeled 'Notifications'. It was  a list of all the items he had unconsciously dismissed while fighting  the Lupis Wolf.

You have gained the skills: Climbing, Rune Magic, and Deception.

Alert: Your Climbing skill is not advanced enough to climb higher in this tree.

You have hit the ground for ten HP damage.

Congratulations! You have unlocked a hidden Royal Blood sub attribute: Second Wind.

Sharp has been added to your Rune Dictionary.

Stay has been added to your Rune Dictionary.

Critical hit! Your attack has struck a critical hit on [Level 3] Lupis Wolf.

You have slain [Level 3] Lupin Wolf for 90 XP.

You have received a Wolf Tooth Necklace. (+1 Strength, 10% additional chance of critical hit on canine-type enemies.)

Corvus sucked in a breath. This was the proof he needed. Finally.  After a lifetime of hoping, he had managed some form of magic. It was  not the awesomely powerful elemental magic that came to the royal family  as easy as breathing but it was a start.

He hardly knew where to look first.

Dismissing the notifications he accessed his Path Menu.

His picture was still placed at the foot of the three branches. Now, it had moved slightly towards the path of the hedge-witch.

With the addition of his Rune Magic skill, he had taken his first step to becoming a Dragon Mage.