The Silver Tongued Devil Chapter 10: Chapter 10 - Ridge Drop
Read chapter 10 of The Silver Tongued Devil by The Vilkas on NovelPedia.
Matas’ blade whispered through the stale barracks air. Short strokes. Guard. Reset. It wasn’t the kind of pattern that got instructors out of bed, but running it this early had to count for something. It was what his body remembered from moving weight across bad surfaces—keep your center low, don’t overcommit, never trust what you’re standing on further than you can jump. His shoulders complained in familiar ways, the pressure of manual labor had a cost. His legs hummed with leftover wrongness from Level 5, dull and ever-present; it was worse than any amino acid buildup. The big spinning and the full-body vertigo had burned out yesterday, what was left felt like he’d done two workouts with somebody else’s muscles and then forgotten to stretch. He ran the pattern anyway. If the system was going to keep rewriting his body, it could at least pick up a few habits that weren’t trying to kill him. Not that it would, but a man can dream. Bootsteps scraped behind him. He cut short, pulling the blade in tight so he didn’t take a strip out of anyone’s ribs. The guard walking past never broke stride. A shoulder brushed his sword arm hard enough to jolt it, the impact just shy of a shove. No apology. No curse. No look back. Matas let the point fall until it kissed stone. “Morning to you too,” he muttered. The man’s back vanished into the dim knot of bunks and racks. The barracks carried on without him—scouts lacing boots, someone laughing at a joke too low for the words to carry, the soft clink of metal as a spear came off a peg. All the small sounds of people who knew exactly where they fit. He wiped his palm on his trousers, slid the shortsword into its scabbard, and felt hunger tug behind his ribs, as sharp as the memory of last night’s stew. The thought of sitting at a table while everyone talked over him like he was invisible made his teeth itch. Food could wait. Merrik’s bunk was empty when he checked. Blankets thrown in a heap like they’d been kicked off in a hurry. His usual rack slots had gaps where favorite spears had hung; only a couple of rough backups remained. Serh’s corner was cleaner—bed stripped, bow gone, the sort of absence that meant she’d known what she was doing before dawn. He caught the eye of a young scout tightening a strap nearby. “Merrik?” Matas asked. “Serh? You seen them?” The man’s gaze slid past him, like he was checking the wall for cracks. “Out,” he said finally. “Watch already turned.” That was it. No direction. No, they went gate-side or tried the Quartermasters. Just enough sound to make him stop asking. “Right,” Matas said. “Thanks for the warm briefing.” The scout had already turned away. He thought about going back to his corner and running the pattern until his arms shook. Instead, he turned toward the tunnel that led up. If no one wanted to talk to him in here, maybe the mountain would at least be honest about wanting him dead. ~ The climb from the barracks level into Samhal’s spine never got easier, but it stayed predictable—stone underfoot worn smooth by generations, bad mortar joints pinging his eye whether he wanted them to or not. The air thinned and cooled as he left sleeping bodies and old blankets behind, sharpening into something that tasted like smoke and cold iron. At the first junction, the quartermaster’s post sat like a knot in the hallway, shelves of gear rising behind her. Yesterday she’d barked at Merrik about missing straps and let a thin joke slip when Serh glared a kid away from the bow rack. Today, when Matas stepped into her shadow, she just stared. Her eyes tracked from his boots to the wolf pelt on his shoulders, to the sword at his hip, to the slit pupil that still hadn’t gone back to normal. No greeting. No offer of bowl or bread. The silence stretched long enough to count as an answer. When she finally looked away, it was to reach for a ledger, not anything he could eat. He shifted weight off his bad leg. “Guess we’re both busy,” he said under his breath, and