The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 038: Deep Absorb

The ash flats lay two miles west of Greywatch, a wide, dry riverbed with nothing in it but cracked grey mud and the dark ribs of dead trees.

Ethan walked out alone at dusk. He had left Rhea a note on her pillow, four words in a shaky hand. Back by dawn. Don't follow. He knew she'd read it and swear at it and follow anyway, but by then it would be over, one way or another. Crane had given him a plain wool cloak and a pat on the shoulder that felt like an apology.

He stopped at the center of the bed, where the ground was flat and the wind was the only thing for a mile. Behind him the walls of Greywatch glowed orange. Ahead the horizon was a bruise.

He waited.

The chain came first.

He heard it before he saw anything, a thin, steady jingle drifting over the flats, like a handful of coins in a bag. Then a figure walked out of the dusk, unhurried, in a long dark coat. A silver badge gleamed on his chest. A coil of black links hung from his belt, and in his right hand he held a leash.

At the end of the leash, a monster.

[Ashwolf. Level 27. Vitality: 420. True attitude: Starving. Obedient. Collar integrity: 82%.]

It was bigger than a horse. Dark grey hide, rough as slate, long jaws lined with yellow teeth. Smoke leaked from its nostrils. Its eyes were empty and white, and its head hung low, with a grey band sunk in the skin of its throat.

"Mr. Vale," said the man with the chain. "I'm so glad you came."

He was perhaps forty, with a lean, pleasant face, brown hair tied back, and a gentle voice. He looked like a schoolmaster. A little, tired schoolmaster, who had walked a long way and was glad to see a pupil.

[Hunter Rook. Human. Level 33. True attitude: Eager. Fond. Hidden skill: Leash (Rare). Any creature touched by his chain is bound for ten seconds. Understanding: 0%.]

Fond. Ethan's skin crawled.

"I'd rather you'd stayed in the town," Rook said. "It's tidier, with the walls and the lamps. But the Guildmaster asked me very nicely to meet you out here, and I don't like to disappoint a lady." He smiled. "I understand you've been breaking my colleagues' collars."

"I've broken one."

"Two, I think. I'm told there was a second, in the sluice." Rook stroked the Ashwolf's muzzle with one gloved finger. The beast shuddered. "I've never met a person who could do it. Not without the key. I confess I'm fascinated."

"Then ask me nicely."

"Oh, I will." Rook sighed. "After."

He unhooked the chain.

The Ashwolf moved first.

It was faster than anything that size had a right to be. It crossed forty feet of mud in two bounds and hit Ethan low, a wall of grey muscle and teeth. He threw himself sideways. The jaws snapped a hand's width from his ribs. Scurry. He rolled, came up running, and heard it wheel behind him, claws gouging the dry earth.

Rhea's voice in his head. Don't look at the blade. Look at the hip.

He looked at the wolf's hip. It turned left. He went right. The creature's lunge struck air and plowed a furrow in the mud, and Ethan swung the rivet hammer into its flank with everything he had.

It rang like an anvil. The wolf grunted and shook off the blow.

Level twenty-seven.

Then the chain came.

He hadn't seen Rook throw it. It simply appeared, a black blur uncoiling out of the dusk, hissing across the mud in a long, looping arc. Ethan ducked. It cracked past his ear. It looped back, quick as a snake, and caught his ankle.

Cold. Instantly, horribly cold. Every muscle in his leg locked solid. He pitched forward onto his face, and the world narrowed to a ringing white noise.

Ten seconds.

He couldn't move. He lay in the mud with his cheek against the ground and watched the Ashwolf stalk toward him, slow now, savoring it, its white eyes empty and its jaws open.

Seven. Six.

Something moved at the edge of the flats.

He didn't hear her. He never did. But he felt it, the quick, small pulse he knew so well, darting low and fast along the dry bank. She'd followed him all the way from town. He had known it for the last mile and hoped she'd turn back.

No. His whole body strained. Mira, no.

She came out of the dusk like a flung stone, a knife in her fist. Hush swallowed every sound of her. She hit Rook from behind, drove the blade at his ribs, and he turned his head in mild surprise and caught her wrist in one gloved hand.

"Oh," he said. "A little mouse."

The chain flicked out. It wrapped around her ankles with a soft chink. Mira's eyes went wide and glassy. The knife fell from her fingers. She toppled slowly onto her side in the mud, rigid as a plank.

"I didn't expect company," said Rook, "but I'm always delighted. Another awakener, I think? Quite young." He nudged her with the toe of his boot. "I shall have to keep her. For the Annex."

Three.

Ethan's leg came loose.

He didn't think. He knew what he had, a window floating at the edge of his vision, a cold gate, and a single glowing line that had waited for him since the day he took Appraise.

[Evolution Gate: Absorb. Evolve to Deep Absorb? Cost: one bond. The system selects.]

One bond.

His mouth went dry. He thought of Rhea. Of Tomas, slumped over a book. Of Anselm waving on a dock, of Bram's shield between him and the sky. He thought of a green scarf and a lopsided grin.

Whichever it picks, it picks.

Rook was bending over Mira with a second chain in his hand. The Ashwolf had turned. Its jaws gaped a yard from Ethan's face.

"Yes," he said. "Do it."

[Contract accepted.]

Heat tore through him. His skull blazed white. Something, somewhere, snapped, a clean, quiet sound like a thread cut with shears. The cold left his body. His senses roared open, and the whole flat sprang into gold, every pulse and breath and tremor, and he saw them all.

[Deep Absorb unlocked. Absorb skills directly from living targets by contact. Requires Understanding of 40% or more. Understanding of Hunter Rook: 44%.]

Forty-four. The chain, the cold. The pain of it, still burning.

He lunged for the hunter.

Rook turned, startled, a fraction too late. Ethan's hand closed on his wrist, the gloved one, the one holding the chain, and he pulled.

Take it.

A flood of cold, curling power poured up Ethan's arm. It was the same ache he'd felt in the sluice, but sharper, brighter, a thousand times deeper. Rook's face went slack. His mouth opened on a soundless cry.

[Skill acquired: Leash (Rare). Estimated trace: Tether. A target bound by your will must be kept within thirty paces or the binding frays.]

The chain went dead in Rook's hand.

It hung there like an ordinary rope. The links lost their shine. Rook stared at it, stunned, then at Ethan. For a moment Ethan saw something he had never seen on a Warden's face. It was pure, naked fear.

"What have you done?" Rook whispered.

Ethan turned. The Ashwolf was already leaping. He raised the chain, a cold black flicker of power now answering to him, and cracked it across the creature's muzzle.

It froze mid-air.

It fell, shuddering, ten feet from his boots.

"Free," Ethan said quietly. He crouched. His fingers found the grey band at its throat, and he pulled, and the metal split like a dry twig.

The wolf lifted its head and looked at Rook.

He didn't remember most of the next minute. There was a scream, and then a long wet silence. When he looked up again, the Ashwolf had slunk off into the dark. Rook lay on his side in the mud, breathing, bleeding, alive. Maybe he would stay that way. Ethan wasn't sure he cared.

Mira.

He ran. She lay where she'd fallen, the dead chain still coiled around her ankles. He tore it off with shaking hands and rolled her onto her back, and her eyes fluttered open.

Brown. Wide. Dazed.

"Mira," he said. His voice broke. "Mira, it's me. It's all right. It's over."

She blinked at him.

She looked at his face. At the cap he'd lost. At his broken nose. She looked at him the way a person looks at a map of a country they've never visited, without recognition, without fear. Only polite confusion.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly. "Do I know you?"