Inch by Inch

Shit.

They were too strung out. Ana stood 3.28 meters behind him. Kane another 5.6 behind her. Too far. The shimmering lights were 6.2 meters from Jay. Too close to both Ana and Kane. Whatever that creature in the bushes was, they were wide open.

“Move to Ana,” he shouted, moving himself and hoping Kane would remember the training exercise from two days ago.

Ana looked towards him, raising her eyebrows in puzzlement. It was the worst thing she could do. She needed to keep her eyes on the creature and watch out for an attack. Looking away, she only made herself vulnerable. It might as well be an invitation for a predator. She should know this. Jay should have told her this.

“Keep your eyes on it!” He pushed against the ground, trying to get a bit more speed.

The lights brightened even as their hue shifted to gray. The lights moved closer and dipped down — preparing to pounce.

Ana was still looking the wrong way.

“Turn!”

Kane was not moving yet. 191 centimeters of muscles and honed reactions. Utterly useless.

“KANE!”

The creature hopped out from beneath the shadow of the plants. It stood up, raising itself onto its back legs and hunching forward. It wasn’t tall, though it held itself above the purple canopy. Stooped, the tips of its ears were 78 cm above the ground.

“What the shit is that?” Ana asked again, finally looking in the right direction.

It was completely hairless with bleached cream-pink skin. Large wrinkles gathered around the creature’s limbs, shifting as the rest of its body did. The glowing came from the oddity’s eyes and the tips of their horns. Out in the sunlight, they weren’t as bright, but the color was clearer.

Before Jay’s eyes, the glow changed, shifting from a greenish yellow to a dark gray.

It opened its mouth, showing a series of short fangs. The glowing horns stiffened, the light spreading as they hardened into two spears.

Jay reached Ana and pushed himself in front. His own movements took him by surprise from there. One hand ground the butt of his spear into the dirt behind him. The other steadied the spearhead, pointing it at the center of the oddity’s body in preparation for the leap. He leaned forward and into the thrust — as he’d been taught. It was all those lessons, finally coming into play. Training had taken over from his frantic thoughts.

The oddity leapt.

His breath caught. His muscles seized. There was only so much that training could do.

It hopped forward a meter, proving it could have reached Ana first if it wanted. The creature was quick. She wouldn’t have been able to react in time.

Muscles contorted, pulsing under the hairless skin and… the oddity turned. Jay couldn’t move his spear fast enough to mark it as it raced off down the path ahead.

The glow made it easy to track, but he didn’t relax until he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. You never knew with Oddities.

Kane joined them then. His hand was resting on his blade, but it hadn’t been drawn.

Jay exhaled and spun on his teammate. “What was that? Why were you just staring at it? You saw it before Ana, didn’t you? Why didn’t you warn us?”

Ana flinched at the motion and questions. She at least, had finally gotten her spear in front of her, though it was improperly braced. It was held across her body as a shield rather than the weapon it was.

”I...” Kane’s eyebrows slumped together. His voice was surprised, ashamed. “I made a mistake. It was- I got distracted.”

“Fuck!” Jay cursed, turning around again. His heart was still racing. He was glad the oddity was gone. He wanted a fight. He wanted to relax. He needed to know WHY.

“It’s not a big deal, is it? That was just a small thing. Nothing like the swarm at the wagon?” Ana hadn’t eased her grip on the spear yet. Her voice was as tense as she looked, but with an almost pleading edge to it.

Jay inhaled. “It could have been. Its clearly got something going with those ears. What if it could fire them at you, or control magic through them? An oddity just got way too close to us.”

He was angry at Kane for not saying anything. He was angry that they didn’t have time to train properly. He was angry at Romwell for being so unhelpful.

Most of all, Jay was angry at himself. He’d stopped watching the fields, expecting the others to as he watched the front. He was as much to blame as anyone else.

“I should have seen it. I was looking ahead, not at the fields.” He paused, furious at what he was about to admit. His Word was crappy enough already. “All the plants. They mess with my head.”

His words hung around them for an agonizing moment. Then Kane spoke up.

“I saw it and it was so... different. It didn’t feel hostile, and I didn’t think. I got a bit lost.”

“Your Word?” Jay asked tentatively, feeling both relieved and worried. It was nice to have someone who understood, and concerning that he wasn’t the only one affected in this environment.

Kane nodded. “The oddity’s threads. They were...” He opened his mouth, then closed it. He tried again with no success, searching for a description but unable to find it.

Jay gave him an understanding nod. His body was starting to relax now. Ana was the same.

“What do we do now?” she asked, loosening her stance. For all the encounter showed how experienced she was, Ana had not blundered. She had been the one to sound the alarm, and hadn’t panicked, run or dropped her weapon. And now she was asking the important question.

Jay gritted his teeth. They had encountered an unknown oddity. This took precedence over the rest of the patrol. There were two options: retreat or advance. Inform Slow Keeping, or follow the oddity to find out more about it.

“Kane, you said it didn’t look hostile. Do you think we can follow it?”

The tall man scanned the field and the path ahead, tracing the oddity’s path in his mind. He nodded. “I can track it.”

Jay blinked in surprise. “Your mother?”

Kane hummed.

It did make sense that a hunter would have taught her son some skills. Hopefully, she hadn’t passed over too much of the profession’s peculiarities.

“We hunt it?” Ana asked, branding her spear with a confidence that reappeared in a flash. “It ran earlier. We can take the tiny thing.”

“There are three of us,” Jay pointed out as he weighed their options. The oddity had them dead to rights. That it had run was a good sign of its strength. It also wasn’t an aggressive kind. If it was, it would have attacked even if there were twenty of them. “Let’s follow it and try to find out more. We won’t attack unless we get an opportunity, but I want to know more before we report it.”

Ana and Kane gave their agreement. It seemed they all wanted an opportunity to redeem themselves. Kane led the way, with Jay and Ana right behind him, tense and ready.

Jay spoke quietly as they followed, trying not to disturb Kane or alert the oddity of their location.

“Ana, you did really well, but you made a few mistakes. If you see an oddity like that, you can’t look away. Don’t make eye contact, but never look away from it. They might see that as a weakness and attack. And try to hold your spear in front of you, blade towards the enemy.”

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

Kane dropped to a squat, peering off at something between the trees.

Ana and Jay shared a confused look before attempting to do the same. It was not an easy task when carrying a spear as tall as yourself. When Jay was finally settled, Kane was staring at the two of them with his eyebrows raised, eyes wide, and disbelief on his face. He held a finger up to his mouth and shook his head.

Jay blushed and did his best to keep quiet. The two of them weren’t that bad. The ground was littered with branches and leaves. Any movement was going to make noise.

The crouch wasn’t easy to hold. His spear pulled him to the right and his bow threatened to slip off to the left. A minute passed. Then another. Ana was doing better than he was, surprisingly. Her face showed none of the strain he felt.

After what felt like ten minutes later, Kane looked back at them, waved his hand up and then towards him.

Jay stood, holding his breath to hold the sigh of relief back. They were unable to avoid making some noise as they crept up to Kane, but he liked to think they did a lot better than before. Or they were doing better until Ana let out a short gasp. He had a little more control over himself, but couldn’t blame her for her reaction.

Between the branches of a dark green bush with curling tendrils were seven of the oddities. It was a pack.

He tapped Kane’s shoulder to get his attention. Had they been crouching there for so long because Kane wanted to watch the creatures? What were they doing now?

Not being able to talk was a pain.

Kane turned his head at a glacial pace, like he was a bird. He nodded behind them — no, at Jay’s shoulder. At his bow.

Jay scrunched up his face and mouthed “Seven”. He tipped his head behind them.

Kane shook his head and mouthed “Proof”. Jay’s face didn’t change much, but Kane must have seen his disagreement, because he held his hands out open palmed. Jay liked that even less. Kane had tried the bow once, and he was worse than Jay was.

It was clear Kane wanted to stay. Jay didn’t. He also wasn’t about to leave his teammate.

Scowling at Kane, he jabbed his fingers at him and Ana and stuck his thumb behind him. If he was going to take a shot, they needed to get ready for a fight.

Kane didn’t roll his eyes, but his impassive stare expression in response was the next closest thing. The two of them retreated to place a thick bush behind them.

Now alone, Jay set his spear down by his feet and pulled his bow from where it hung at his waist. His hands were damp against the wood. What was it that the adventurer had said?

Stand straight? That was no help when he was crouching. Neither was where he was putting his feet.

Exhale before and after release. That was it.

He lined up the shot. The closest oddity was 15.48 m away. The furthest 24.6 m. Licking his lips, he raised his angle.

Inhale.

One of the oddities twitched.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Release.

Exhale.

The bolt stuck with a thump. Twenty centimeters off his target. An oddity wheezed in pain.

Jay shoved his right hand between the string and the shaft, letting the bow fall onto his shoulder. He scrambled to pick up his spear.

Twenty-four lights glowed red and black.

Jay stood and began to backpedal.

Six of the oddities fled, leaving the wounded behind.

He slowed.

His team joined him.

The other oddities were gone.

“Nice shot,” Ana said, switching between looking at the creature with fascination and avoiding it, disgusted at the blood. She hadn’t been awake for the swarm clean up with the caravan, had she? To her it was all new.

“Eh.” He was just glad the oddities had been all bunched up together. His aim wasn’t that good. Resting his spear on one shaking arm, he tapped Kane with his other. “Good call.”

Kane hummed, scanning the woods where the oddities had fled.

“Let’s grab the body and head to Slow Keeping.”

Before they left, Kane showed Jay what Elsie had described when talking about her Word, Expel. It was just as disgusting as he’d thought.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

The sound of the bell reflected against the wooden palisade and bounced back. Faces began to appear in windows. In the building ahead of them, a woman with black hair came into sight for a brief moment before she disappeared.

Margaret was a lot quicker than her neighbor to the door. As she clicked the bolts open, Jay found himself straightening up. They had returned from their first patrol, their first task, with proof of oddities around Slow Keeping. It was a success.

The wooden gate swung open.

Margaret was a strong woman. It was clear in her confident stance, the muscles in her arms and the callouses on her hands. She had wrinkles that set her face into a near scowl, though at the moment she looked more perplexed than anything else.

“Why is there a knob on my doorstep?”

Jay was thankful that she wasn’t shouting for all of five seconds before her words registered.

“What?”

Did she just insult us?

“The knob.” Margaret kicked the dead oddity. A streak of cream-gold blood transferred to her boot. She didn’t appear bothered. “Why did you bring it here? If you want the bounty, bring the ears to the bureau.”

Jay looked at his team. They were as confused as he was.

“We saw one of these oddities in the fields west of here and tracked it back to a pack.”

Margaret clicked her teeth. “They’re a pest. Always popping out when harvest is near.” She eyed them darkly. “Adventurers never clear it up.”

“You know what this is?” Ana butted in to ask.

“Mmhm. Itsa knob.” She nudged it with her boot once more, then turned a wary eye on them. “But you didn’t know.” Margaret inhaled and scowled at a house across the road. “ROMWELL!”

And there was the shouting. Jay’s ears were ringing.

The sound of shattered glass came from the old man’s house. Margaret’s shoulders fell, and she sighed. “That man. Look, cut the ears off and hand them in to the bureau.”

“And the body?” Jay asked.

Margaret shrugged. “Get it off my doorstep.”

After a stunned debate, they decided to bring the oddity’s body back to Lauchia. Dumping it at the side of the road felt like a horrible idea to them all, though they had no wish to carry the corpse for long. Thankfully, the city guards just laughed at them when asked and gestured at a cart inside the gate. A man gave them eight bronze and left Jay both cheated and queasy at where the body might end up.

Back at the bureau, they got another bronze for each of the oddity’s ears. Their pay for the patrol would come in a few days after the report was handed in.

Once they got back to the dormitory, Jay leaned against a wall, passed the coins between his hands and began to think.

“We’re free until patrol this evening, yes?” Kane asked, breaking his concentration.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Nothing else today. I think Ana would kill me.”

She had run into the bathroom to change as soon as they got back.

Kane paused. He leaned closer and peered at Jay. “Are you okay?”

Jay nodded. He opened his hands and showed Kane the coins. “Ten bronze. Six for the dog track in the mornings. Twenty-five for a day’s worth of patrols. I think- I think we’re breaking even.”

Kane’s expression eased, and he cracked a smile. “That sounds like a good thing.”

Jay found himself nodding. His cheeks twitched until he mirrored Kane’s smile. “Yes. Yes, it does.”