Chapter 10: FIRST BLOOD
The snap of a twig brought Garrett out of a half-doze.
His hand found the knife before his eyes fully opened. The barracks was dark, the fire reduced to embers, but enough moonlight filtered through the shuttered windows to show the survivors still sleeping. Thomas's labored breathing. Sara curled against her mother. Marcus sprawled on his back, mouth open.
Jin sat up from his corner. Their eyes met. The older fighter had heard it too.
Another sound. Footsteps—multiple—trying for stealth and failing. Moving around the compound's perimeter.
[ALERT: HOSTILE PRESENCE DETECTED]
[QUANTITY: 3]
[CLASSIFICATION: HUMAN — NOMAD SCOUTS]
[THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE]
[WEAPONS DETECTED: BLADED]
Garrett held up three fingers. Jin nodded, already reaching for his blade. Silent as smoke, he crossed to Paolo, touched his shoulder. The younger fighter woke without sound—trained reflex or survival instinct.
They followed the blood trail. The thought crystallized with cold certainty. Thomas had bled through three bandage changes during the night. Some of that blood had dripped outside when they'd first arrived. A trail leading straight to the Old Mill.
Garrett pointed at Paolo, then at the door. Hold position. Paolo understood, moving to flank the entrance, knife ready.
Jin received a different set of gestures. Circle. Outside. Flank. The older fighter's eyes gleamed in the darkness. He slipped through the broken window on the far wall, disappearing into the night without a whisper of sound.
That left Garrett.
The hatchet felt heavy in his hand. He positioned himself at the base of the stairs leading to the upper level—out of immediate sight from the door, with a clear line of attack to anyone who entered.
And waited.
The door crashed inward.
The first Nomad came through fast, blade leading, expecting sleeping victims. He found Paolo instead—waiting, coiled, professional. The guard's knife took him in the throat before he could raise his weapon.
Blood sprayed. The Nomad made a wet gurgling sound and collapsed.
"Ambush!" The second one through had time to shout it. Time to see his companion fall. Time to turn toward Paolo with murder in his eyes.
He didn't have time to see Garrett.
The hatchet caught him across the arm—a bad angle, not the killing blow Garrett had intended. The Nomad screamed, blade dropping from nerveless fingers. Garrett swung again, and this time the edge found neck.
The sound it made—meat parting, spine resisting, then giving way—would stay with him forever.
The third Nomad ran.
Smart. With two companions down in seconds, running was the only play. He made it fifteen feet before Jin materialized from the darkness behind him, bearing him to the ground.
Garrett heard the struggle. Grunts. The meaty thud of fists on flesh. Then Jin's voice, strained: "He's fighting—"
The Nomad was bigger than Jin, stronger, fueled by desperation. They rolled across the compound yard, each trying to get their blade into the other. Garrett sprinted toward them, hatchet raised.
He reached them as the Nomad got on top, hands around Jin's throat, knife forgotten in the dirt. Garrett brought the hatchet down on the back of the man's skull.
The sound was different this time. Wet. Final.
The Nomad went limp. Jin shoved the body off him, gasping, rubbing his throat.
"Took your time," he rasped.
Garrett couldn't respond. He was staring at the hatchet. At the blood dripping from it. At the man he'd just killed—the second man, the third counting Paolo's—lying face-down in the dirt with his skull caved in.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[HOSTILES ELIMINATED: 3]
[XP GAINED: 200 (FIRST BLOOD BONUS)]
[CURRENT XP: 650/1,000]
[SP GAINED: 75 (COMBAT EFFICIENCY BONUS)]
[CURRENT SP: 80]
The numbers scrolled across his vision. Experience. Points. Rewards for killing.
Garrett bent over and vomited.
The dried meat he'd eaten for dinner, the water he'd drunk, the acid remnants of a stomach that had nothing left to give—all of it came up in heaving waves. His body rejected what his mind already knew: he was a killer now. This world had made him one in less than a week.
"First time?"
Elena's voice. He hadn't heard her approach. Hadn't heard anything past the roaring in his ears and the sick churning in his gut.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
She didn't offer comfort. Didn't say it would be okay. Just stood there, arms crossed, watching him finish being sick.
"It gets... not easier," she said finally. "Just quieter. The voice that screams gets tired of screaming."
"How do you know?"
"I've been a Cog's wife for fifteen years. I've seen what people do to survive." She looked at the bodies. At Jin, now checking them for useful items. At Paolo, cleaning his knife with methodical precision. "You protected us. That's what matters."
"Is it?"
"Tonight it is."
Dawn found them disposing of the bodies.
Not burial—too much work, too little time. They dragged them to the ravine half a mile away and rolled them in. Let the wildlife handle the rest. Let the Nomads wonder what happened to their scouts.
Jin had stripped the corpses efficiently. Two decent swords—curved, Nomad-style, but functional. Three knives of varying quality. A pouch of dried meat and jerky. Two waterskins. And a prize: a map, crudely drawn, showing patrol routes and camp locations.
"Kael's band," Jin said, studying the map. "Maybe forty fighters total. Based here—" He tapped a spot two days' travel west. "These three were a ranging patrol. When they don't report back..."
"How long before Kael sends more?" Garrett asked.
"Three days. Maybe four. Depends on how worried he gets."
Three days. Maybe four. Then a larger force would come looking for answers.
The Old Mill's defenses were minimal. The group numbered seven, with only three capable fighters. Against forty Nomads, they'd last minutes.
"We need to leave," Paolo said. "Find somewhere else. Somewhere they won't track us."
"Where?" Elena's voice cut through the suggestion. "We've been running for weeks. Every safe place turns into another trap. At least here we have walls."
"Walls they know about now."
"They knew about them before. Those three found us because of the blood trail, not because they knew this place existed."
Garrett listened to them argue, mind racing through options. Run—and run where? The Outlying Territories were vast but hostile. Another caravan, another attack, another desperate flight until the running killed them.
Or stay. Build. Fight.
[STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT AVAILABLE]
[COST: 15 SP]
He authorized the expenditure.
[SP: 80 → 65]
[ANALYSIS: OLD MILL DEFENSIVE POSITION]
[CURRENT STATUS: VULNERABLE]
[WITH FORTIFICATION: DEFENSIBLE AGAINST FORCES UP TO 3X DEFENDERS]
[WITH FORTIFICATION + TRAINING: DEFENSIBLE AGAINST FORCES UP TO 5X DEFENDERS]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO BASIC DEFENSIVE CAPABILITY: 7-10 DAYS]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO SIGNIFICANT DEFENSIVE CAPABILITY: 21-30 DAYS]
[RECOMMENDATION: STAY. BUILD. THE MATHEMATICS FAVOR DEFENSE.]
Seven to ten days for basic capability. They had three, maybe four.
Unless...
"The Shades," Garrett said.
Everyone looked at him.
"The things in the mine. The ghosts." He met their stares without flinching. "They're territorial. They don't like intruders. What if we could use that?"
Jin's expression shifted from skeptical to calculating. "You want to put ghosts between us and the Nomads?"
"I want to make attacking us more costly than it's worth. Right now, we're easy prey. Seven people in a ruin. But if that ruin is haunted—really haunted, visibly haunted—Kael has to ask himself if we're worth losing men over."
"You're insane," Paolo said flatly.
"Probably. But I'm also still alive, and so are you." Garrett looked at each of them in turn. "Three days. Maybe four. That's how long we have to turn this place into a fortress. Not a physical fortress—we don't have time for that. A reputation. A story. 'The Old Mill is haunted. The people who went there never came back.'"
"The Nomads will spread that story themselves," Elena said slowly. "When their scouts don't return..."
"And when the next patrol comes and sees ghosts walking the perimeter?" Garrett smiled, though there was no humor in it. "They'll run. Tell everyone. 'Don't go to the Old Mill. Death lives there.'"
Silence held. Jin broke it with a harsh laugh.
"I've followed worse plans. Let's hear the details."
[LEVEL UP IMMINENT]
[XP: 650 + 350 (LEADERSHIP/PLANNING BONUS) = 1,000/1,000]
[LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]
[REWARDS: +2 FREE STAT POINTS, +1 FUNCTION UPGRADE POINT]
[NEW LEVEL THRESHOLD: 2,500 XP]
The notification pulsed at the edge of his vision as Garrett outlined his plan to the group. He dismissed it for now—there would be time to allocate points later. Right now, the living mattered more than numbers.
Thomas was awake, propped against the wall, pale but coherent. His wife sat beside him, holding his hand. Their children listened with expressions too old for their years.
Jin and Paolo stood apart, already thinking tactically, already calculating angles and approaches.
And in the shadows beyond the compound, Garrett felt the Whisper watching. Waiting. Curious about what this strange new thing would do next.
Three days.
Everything started now.
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