Wordsmith 4

The next day they had all made up their minds to go their separate ways. Brutus would first be taking Daisy and Haley back to their home village and then drop everyone off back at their respective homes. Emma didn't have a home though, so she would be coming with Daisy. Haley would be the only wordsmith in her village, and having a friend around that can do it too would be helpful. It took a few more months to reach the village and Brutus lost 3 of his followers. Before they left though, Brutus secretly gave them 500,000 coins for the trouble he caused them. A few more months and Charles had been taken back to his village, it was still going strong after the bandit attack and the walls were decorated now. Brutus gave 1,000,000 coins to the village elder in secret and told him to hide them well and tell nobody who gave them to him. Beth's father was not so thrilled to take her back, he already had a girlfriend so Brutus kept Beth with him to take to Arnold's home and see if they would take her. Arnold's parents agreed to take in Beth and were happy for Arnold to be back. It had been well over a year sense he left. Brutus left the rest of the money he had with them, and sold the carriage and Fritz and Schultz soon after. This left Brutus with about 600,000 coins. Brutus put them in his backpack and left the city. It had been a long while sense he was alone in his travels, and he was almost 17 years old.

4 Month later. Nobody would guess that under his hood was a master wordsmith. It took 4 months to spend the rest of his money and return to a single cloak for his wardrobe. Brutus was in a huge city, the buildings were all made from stone and brick now instead of wood, and wordsmiths were to be seen plenty around. Brutus had been staying in an ally of the city as a homeless man for 3 days when he was approached by someone. They wanted Brutus to join his mercenary corps. Though Brutus wore the cloak to hide his muscles, he had an aura of power. The man did not just try to invite him with that, but he also explained how his mercenary corps had a contract with the kingdom to put a stop to wordsmith smuggling. Brutus looked up at those words. That was his goal after all, and here he was just sulking in a back ally. Brutus accepted and followed him to a hotel a few streets away. There were 6 people in the hotel room, their names were not important though. One of them explained how he saw Brutus cleaning himself one day in the alley and saw what huge muscles he had and knew with the right kind of training he could be a powerful warrior. Brutus laughed on the inside about that. The hotel room was a temporary base of operations away from the main force. Brutus had to test his wordsmith ability, for which he obviously tested low. They still accepted him when he showed them him lifting the table in front of them effortlessly. Brutus was then taken outside the city and met up with the larger group. There was in total about 60 people. They were supplied wordsmith resistant armors and weapons to fight bandits who often times had high wordsmithing ability. Brutus had a sword make custom for him as his only condition for joining. It was 800 down and 7 feet long including the handle. It was extremely sharp and thick. It could cut through wordsmith resistant armor in one hit. Brutus received standard armor as well, but he was the only one with such a large sword. 2 more people joined with them, and they left the city the next day.

The mercenary band had a few wagons with provisions in them, but most of the mercenaries walked. Brutus met a few mercenaries who thought his huge sword was cool, but most thought it would never work in battle. About half of the mercenaries were wordsmiths and from those 5 were powerful ones. This was not including Brutus though, and compared to him they were not powerful at all. When they made camp for the night, as a new recruit Brutus was made to keep watch. He never saw anything, but he was told the group was constantly targeted by bandits on the road who would gather during the day and attack at night. When they came to a town, 7 of the higher up mercenaries would go into it and the rest would stay on the outside in their tents. It has almost been a month and not a single battle occurred. One day the 7 leaders came back to the camp with news. A village to the south had been attacked by bandits a few days prior and they were going to search for them. The mercenary group was split into groups of 10 with each one carrying 3 fireworks that would be launched in succession to identify when they found the bandits. Brutus was placed in a group and they set out east from the village. They would look for 3 days and come back if they found nothing. Slaves were not an easy thing to sell in foreign countries, so the bandits probably had the slaves in cave or something while they found a buyer. Brutus and his team of 9 were looking in a mostly forest area though, so it was easy. The more experienced teams went to look at the hilly areas and denser forest. Brutus and his team looked for 2 days until they were able to see something. Fireworks, which meant another team had found something. The team quickly made it's way to the location of the fireworks. It would take a while to get there, but a day and a half later they were at the location of the firework. The bandits were caught and were being tied up. The slaves were freed and being sent back to their homes while taking whatever they wanted from the bandits. The 7 leaders were also interrogating the bandits. The interrogations continued for 3 days. Brutus asked if he could interrogate them alone in the save and they agreed, as long as he didn't kill them. Brutus made sure nobody was looking from the outside of the cave and slowly took off his shirt. Under them were the muscles of someone who was blessed by God, which is exactly what Brutus was. Brutus flexed his upper body to make them even more prudent and commanded the bandits. Tell Me Everything You Know About The Raid On A City 12 Years Ago. Brutus put his shirt back on as he listened to the bandits tell him everything they knew. A few knew nothing, some only heard rumors of a large bandit group taking out a large city, some of them had a friend of a friend who was doing well after that job event now. Nobody knew were the children were sold though. Brutus left the cave with a disappointed look. The bandits were interrogated for a few more days and then taken to a prison.

A few days later the mercenary group was going to attack a fort held by bandits. It was a known location for the exchanges of slaves between this nation and the one over the border, just another 50 miles away. The mercenaries gathered outside the fort getting ready to attack it. Brutus was still with his group of 9 other people, and they were all swordsmen. This was actually relatively close to were Daisy and Haley and Emma were at, so he might take a few days off and visit them. They did not see him regrow half of his body, so they might understand him a little better than the others. Brutus still had the same sword and armor, and he had not used his wordsmithing sense he joined the mercenary group some weeks ago. Two groups went into the fort first, then Brutus's group and another. The bandits were all accomplished wordsmiths and had prepared traps for the mercenaries. They fought for a while and then they heard a loud bang. A huge crash actually. Brutus looked around and saw a pile of smoke rising into the air and 5 mercenaries on the ground. It was a cannon aimed down from the wall into the mercenary crowd. More of these cannons were rolled to the edge of the fort and pointed below. Brutus did not understand how the cannonball didn't fall out, but it must have been wordsmithing. A cannon was shot at Brutus but he managed to deflect it with his sword, using it like a baseball bat. The slaughter continued as more groups came into the fort and more bandits came from below. There were over a hundred bandits at least. Brutus was followed by his group as he made his way to the top of the fort to deal with the cannons. He crouched down behind a small wall and waited for a shot to be heard. After hearing 3 cannons go off he jumped from the wall and ran at the bandits. Due to a slight miscalculation though, they still had one more cannon which shot at Brutus as he was cutting the first cannon operation in half. The cannon flew towards Brutus and before he could deflect it, the cannon ball had made contact with his leg and blew it completely off. The members of his group behind him followed him and two others were hit by it, but took much less damage as the rest of them killed the cannon operators. One knelt down by Brutus and tried to give him medical treatment while the rest continued along the top of the fort. The group member tried to attach bandages, but he was not trained as a medic and barely knew what to do. After a few minutes though, it was no longer a problem. The black worms began to crawl under the bandage and it fell off. The group member looked at Brutus's leg as it healed itself and grew back. The group member ran away to keep fighting and left Brutus. 20 minutes later and the leg had grown back. This was going to be difficult to explain, but he should be glad it wasn't his head that got hit. Brutus got back up and took the pant leg off his detached leg and pulled it on. He then used wordsmithing to reconnect it. Brutus continued to fight until they had killed a large amount of the bandits. As he walked through the fort, Brutus could hear people talking about him. People had seen that he got his leg blown off from the cannon, but here he was as if nothing happened. Brutus eventually went outside and saw some people holding his detactched leg and talking. Brutus went over to them. He asked them if something was strange. They said nothing and walked away. Brutus promptly threw the leg over the wall of the fort. Now that he thought about it, he had 5 feet and 4 hands laying somewhere in the world, though most of them have already decomposed. Brutus went back into the fort and was confronted by the man who recruited him. He wanted to know what was happening with his leg. Brutus told him nothing. Brutus did not talk to anyone for a few days after that, and they had lost half of their members so it was not as difficult.

A few weeks past with nothing happening. Nobody spoke to Brutus about him regrowing a leg in the middle of combat. They had learned a great deal from the fort and were now leaving. Brutus even had some leads to were his childhood friends were taken. It looks like they were taken over the border and sold to additional slave traders. Brutus would need to cross the border which was an easy thing to do, but then he would have to find a place he had never heard of before. Also, wordsmiths were not well received in the neighboring countries, so it would be hard for him to find work. He could use his live wordsmithing, but it would make everyone around him hate him, so he would only do it in emergencies. The mercenary group packed up and headed to the border anyways. It was only a few miles away and as they were not actual troops of the nations army, it was fine for them to cross. Plus, the army had thousands of people in each formation, and the mercenary group was less than 100. They arrived at the border and crossed it without problem.

The first town they arrived at was much different from the center country. This one was further east and did not have any native wordsmiths. Their buildings had a much more intricate design, like everything was made by hand. The town was also very dirty and needed maintenance in several places. Wordsmiths in the center country would periodically assist with cleaning and fixing things at a minimal charge, sometimes for just a piece of food. This country did not have that same luxury and a task that would take a wordsmith seconds would take an ordinary man hours. This country did not want wordsmiths either. They had been ruthlessly attacked by wordsmiths who used live wordsmithing many years ago and those actions still had effects in the country. It was a good thing Brutus was not known to be a wordsmith, and when he traveled as one, he did not carry a huge sword with him. He was just an unnaturally strong man here. Brutus went into town with the 7 representatives so that he could see if anything could be done as a wordsmith. There was not, and even his searches for something to do as a strong man was fruitless. Those in the town had become self sufficient. Every town they came to was like this. It was like every person had abandoned the thought that someone could come through and help then fix everything in one day and now all that mattered was the long term.

It was 3 months sense they came to the new country. Brutus was not going into towns anymore, and bandits were harder to find. The mercenary group only knew that there was an underground slave trade going on though, and they were going to find it. Brutus was moving quickly through a field with his group of 9 other people. They were not the same as the ones he started with, only two died, the rest quit. Brutus was upset to think that he might have caused them to quit. While running in the field, Brutus saw a stream. It was a strange stream though. Something was polluting it from up stream. Brutus told his team to keep going and he would investigate. Brutus was already a day separated from the main force, so the stream might intersect with anyone else's search path. Brutus reached the top and inside was a cave. There were no footprints from the outside, so they must walk up the stream from some distance down it. Brutus gave the fireworks to his team members so he went into the cave alone. He knew he would be fine. Brutus walked more inside the cave and saw someone sitting on a chair looking at the cave entrance. The man instantly got up and shouted that there was an intruder, and he picked up a bow. Brutus deflected the arrows with his sword as he went forward and eventually got to the man and cut him horizontal. More bandits were coming into the stream path and Brutus ran up to them, cutting them down with his sword. There was a path to the left and Brutus went down it. More bandits came out, and more of them fell. The cave was getting smaller and there was not enough room to swing his sword. Brutus was moving forward with his sword in front of him. Spike. Someone said this and the sides of the cave turned into spikes. A wordsmith was with the bandits. Flatten. Brutus said this and continued. There was a man in front of Brutus with a bow and was astonished when Brutus used wordsmithing to cancel his. The man shot his arrow at Brutus but it was deflected. The man aimed the bow upwards and shot it. A second later a large stone fell in front of the exit to the cave. Brutus walked up to the large stone and pushed it. Brutus was already 18 and well enough to push this bolder out of the way. It must have been a few hundred down, but it was no problem. Brutus walked forward and saw the man who shot the arrow crushed by the bolder. The new cave was more open and would have enough room to move his sword around. Brutus kept going forward. It looked like a mine that was no longer used. Brutus kept going until he was facing 4 bandits. They all had heavy armor on and great swords. They tried to attack Brutus but it was not use. Brutus took them all out effortlessly just like the other before them. Brutus kept going and found a large room at the bottom. There were many people chained to the walls of the open room and had many items in the center of the room. Pots, paintings, plates, all kinds of this, and not just ones that started with p. Brutus looked around at the people and told them each to get as far from the wall as possible. The people on the walls saw how Brutus stood there with blood all over his blade and they did as they were told. Brutus went to the nearest one. He was only a few inches from the wall, but it was enough. Brutus reached out his hand. Break. Brutus's hand exploded. He cursed loudly. He didn't think that in a country without wordsmiths they would be using wordsmith resistant metal, and in truth he hadn't seen any for quite a while. Some people started laughing at Brutus. Brutus asked them what was up. They told him that he reminded them of someone a long time ago. Brutus joked, what did he blow up both his hands. The people were silent for a second and told him yes. Brutus went over to these people and picked up his sword high into the air. The people laid on the ground and thought he was going to attack them. Brutus swung his sword into the wall behind them and it shattered. He then went down and pulled the feet restraints out from the wall. He did this with everyone as his hand began to grow back. Everyone saw what was happening with his hand and he held it up. Brutus then asked them about the person who exploded both their hands. They said he was just a friend of theirs who got in a bad situation and got out of it by exploding his hands. They might have done it too, but it was hard to choose between never being able to pick something up again and live life as a cripple, or as a slave. Brutus told them who he was. The people in front of him looked nothing like the ones from the club 13 years ago, but it was 13 years so it was nobodies fault. Brutus told them that he searched for 4 days and was unable to find anyone to help. Brutus also told them about him becoming a master wordsmith so that he could save them all, and he had been looking for clues ever sense. That he was right now in a mercenary group employed by the king to bring back wordsmith slaves to the center country. Brutus freed everyone and loaded the items in the center of the room onto a cart and pulled it to the exit of the cave. The entrance was not the stream, but only a secondary one. The main entrance was nearby. The former slaves walked past the dead bodies of 5 bandits who had held them captive for many years as they walked to freedom.

Brutus talked to the slaves on the way back to the mercenary group. 3 of the 9 were from his home town. They were sold to these bandits and were fixing broken things in the bottom of the abandoned mine shaft. It was mostly vases and paintings, but nobles sometimes had nothing things that would be taken in. Their were signatures on the vases and paintings so they knew who they belonged to. Sometimes they would also erase the signatures. It seemed like the bandits had a smuggling operations were the wordsmiths cleaned the stolen goods. Brutus asked them about the other people from the town and if they knew anything about them, but they were sold separately so they did not know. Brutus came back to the mercenary ground and told the leader about were he found the slaves. Brutus was reprimanded for killing all the bandits without interrogating them. Brutus said one more thing to the slave, and that was that he was going to get back everyone from the town. Before he could leave though, he was asked, how exactly did he regrow his hands? The mercenary group leader looked at Brutus too and wanted to know. He knew he regrew a leg and the slaves knew he had regrown hands, on two occasions too. Brutus told them it was all on the path to avenging his friends that he had to learn these forbidden techniques and that he would not explain further. Was Brutus using wordsmithing to regrow limbs? Everyone in the tent thought that. The mercenary leader asked if he was a live wordsmith and Brutus kept walking out. Brutus took about 20 steps before he saw the ground from a whole new angle, and then he saw his body too.