A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 152: Progress - Part 8

"I can believe it. You don't have any thoughts of escape? What if the Yarmdon attack?" Beam asked.

"Then I'll pay you to keep me safe, eh? What do you think? You ever save my life, and I'll give you fifty gold on the spot," Greeves said. Beam looked at him in surprise. Greeves caught the look. "You didn't think I knew about the fifty gold, did ya not?

C'mon now, I would hope you thought a bit more of me, y'know? I may not be able to swing a sword like you, or shoot a bow like the girl, but I have my weapons and I wield them well. And let me give you a bit of information for free – it's not only Nila the Elder has been asking for. He's gone to other families as well. He's already taken in two children as slaves."

The news came as a surprise to Beam and he felt his rage boil. Greeves saw the look in his eyes with a shudder. "A sore spot for you, eh? Can't say I don't understand, but not everyone sees things your way. Not even the parents objected – debts a day. They know how it goes."

Beam didn't say anything. In response to his silence, Greeves could only sigh.

The changes began sooner than anyone could have expected, as though the area for miles around had been surrounded in a barrier of great evil. It was as though the scorn of the gods had been localized in a single area, and slowly, everything began to fall apart.

It started with the monster population.

Just as Dominus predicted, they were growing stronger, and at an alarming rate. It was two days later that Beam saw his first gorebeast – a vicious hound-like creature, with three legs, one at the front and two at the back.

The creatures dug burrows deep under the ground, using that front leg and its vicious claws as a spade. But it was above ground that they were truly menacing. Reaching speeds nearing that of a horse and with an agility across the mountainous terrain that rivalled that of a goat, they were indeed terrors.

Before he saw the monsters themselves, Beam saw their effects.

He was out on his normal morning patrol, following the same route that he always did, looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. But it was not a monster that day that attacked him, but rather, a bear.

It came barrelling out of the undergrowth with a manic ferocity, closing in on Beam with foaming dripping from its wide-open jaw, as it headed straight for him, apparently intent on flattening him.

Beam swiftly dodged out of the way. It would have been easy to end its life as it ran past, but Dominus had told Beam before of the importance of natural predators, and their place in keeping the monster population under control. Bears were one such creature.

Yet this bear that would ordinarily have left him in the dust, knowing to fear human hunters, it turned round on him for a second charge.

Beam looked around for a cub, figuring that he must have angered a mother bear and that she was merely protecting her child – the bears were known to be fiercely overprotective, after all. But no matter where he looked, he could see no signs of the child. In fact, he realized that the bear was far too big to be a female and a moment later he confirmed that it was indeed a male.

Thinking it odd that the creature was acting so aggressively, Beam dodged its attacks with a frown on his face, finding it more difficult than he would like to keep the creature at bay. He needed to slow it down somehow, but he had nothing but his sword and he didn't want to cause it an injury that would affect its chances of survival.

So he feigned instead, putting into practice that which he had been training recently. Alongside his old misdirection approach, he'd been training to land that one overpowering swing – that single attack of overwhelming strength, making clear the difference between his opponent and himself.

With a grand swing of his sword, he brought it down on the bear's head at speed. The creature did not dodge – it knew not to fear the blade. But Beam had never intended to hit it with the blade from the start. He brought the hilt of his sword down instead, hitting the bear hard in the nose.

It roared in pain and retreated a few steps back.

"Leave," Beam told it and the creature did.

Beam sighed as he watched the massive ball of fluffy meat sprint away. It was only once it had turned around did Beam spot the wound on its hind leg. Blood dripped from it onto the dry earth – a rather sizable chunk had been torn from it.

At first, Beam assumed it to be the work of a goblin. Yet a moment's pondering informed him that such a conclusion was erroneous. Though goblins were quick to bite things in that maniac manner that they had, even they would struggle to take off such a sizable chunk of meat from the bear, especially with the thick fur protecting the animal and its thick hide as well.

Then he assumed wolves. Yet in all his time in the mountains, he had not seen a single wolf. Dominus assured him that there were still some roaming around, but he said they never came this far south, for fear of hunters who prized their fur.

The image of a wolf certainly seemed to fit and it was the tentative conclusion he settled on whilst he assumed the rest of his patrol. Yet it did not take much longer until Beam's path crossed yet another bear, this one also fleeing south, into the lower hunting grounds nearer the village.

This one was a mother bear and Beam spotted it from a distance away ambling along with its cub.