Salt of the Earth
A flash of light, a deafening crack, and the loss of balance shocked Noah without warning. A lightning bolt fell from a cloudless sky and struck the ground directly in front of him, spooking his horse and sending it rearing onto its hind legs with a fearful scream. He tried to calm the creature, but it was all he could do to keep from being thrown off.
His vision blurred from the light, and he couldn't tell up from down with the way his horse was jerking around. He reassumed as much control as possible and pulled to the left with the reins. Now given a direction to unleash its panic, the horse galloped across the rocky stream Noah had been following.
Moments later, five men emerged from the dense forest flanking the path's right side. Bandits, he had already encountered such foes multiple times since leaving Clive. Under different circumstances, he might have taken them on, but between his disorientation and his horse's mortality, fleeing was the better option.
One of the men, wearing a filthy robe, aimed his hand at Noah and shouted a spell. A golden hologram of floating runes appeared around his hand, and he fired a burst of grape-sized spheres of light like buckshot. Most hit nothing but air, though one struck Noah in the back. He jerked in pain, feeling like he had just been branded. It was Noah's first time experiencing thunder magic, and, in all likelihood, far from his last.
His horse reached the opposite bank, and he turned it to run parallel to the river. Noah's vision returned, and he dared a look back at the men. One of them was aiming with a bow and arrow. Noah leaned to the side, trying to make himself less of a target, but the arrow still drilled into his shoulder, and he nearly blacked out. He raised himself in the saddle, no longer stunned, though racked with pain and stuck with an unusable arm.
Noah reached around and felt his back, wincing when he found the place where the spell hit him. He wasn't bleeding, so he could ignore the wound for now. As for the arrow, he couldn't remove it while on the move like this. Nevertheless, the horse's fear drove it at a good pace, and Noah steered it back and forth across the creek, maneuvering past fallen trees and boulders. Five miles from the scene, he finally allowed his horse to slow and returned to the road.
Bandits only seemed to chase their prey when they had horses, and even then, a commoner like Noah wouldn't be worth the trouble. Regardless, he now kept a constant watch on the path behind him. He was rarely caught in such a trap, as he could generally see an ambush coming from a mile away. Those guys had some skill, even if they lacked the follow-through to pursue him.
The attack was just another reminder that this was a violent, unpredictable world ruled by strength and magic. Minus the injuries of the lifestyle, Noah liked it this way. It gave him something he had never seen before and endless new possibilities to discover. As for the dangers, he had plenty of experience when it came to fighting and surviving. Getting hit with spells and arrows was not his idea of a good time, but at least it was more interesting than regular bullets.
The day was getting late, and he needed to set up camp. He directed his horse off the road and towards an upheaved slab of bedrock in the distance. He led it through the woods, its reins in one hand and his sword in the other. He reached the rocky crag with just a few hours of daylight left. Millions of years ago, the nearby mountain was born and caused the upheaval of the landscape, offering not a cave, so much as a giant stone lean-to.
Either way, it was a roof over his head, and nothing could sneak up on him from behind. The bones of past inhabitants and their meals littered the ground. Many animals, including goblins, had used this spot as their den, but nothing seemed fresh enough to warrant concern. Still, he raked the area clean and set up camp.
This was the safest time he could expect to get, and Noah's wounds desperately needed attention. He washed his hands and knife with some high-proof liquor he had bought a while ago for just this occasion. The arrow hadn't pierced his shoulder all the way, so he couldn't just snap off the arrowhead and yank out the shaft. Instead, he had to dig it out with his knife, slowly, with blood streaming down his arm and the pain giving him spasms. Perhaps it was better to be hit with bullets rather than arrows, after all.
He eventually removed the arrow and poured half a healing potion onto the wound. These potions could mend flesh and bone with no less than miraculous speed, but they were dangerous if used too frequently. However, this wasn't an injury he could afford to have in the wild.
Next, he focused on his back and used alcohol to clean what seemed to be a second-degree burn. He couldn't see it, only feel the wound with his fingers. It was like a spoonful of black powder had been set off on his back. Thunder spells were no joke; just that one minor hit had been like a jab from a cattle prod, and simply sanitizing the wound took up the last of his pain tolerance. He used the rest of the potion on his burn and the singed flesh was mended.
Tired as he was, there was work to be done. He unloaded everything off the horse so it could rest and feed on a sack of oats. A repurposed metal helmet served as a drinking bowl, though the horse had drunk plenty at the creek. With what light he still had, Noah gathered spruce boughs to use as bedding and thorny bushes and bristle plants for protection. They wouldn't stop a determined opponent, but it would hopefully be enough to hinder them and help conceal the light of his campfire.
While gathering firewood, he met his dinner. A lone stag was flitting between the trees nearby. It seemed aware of Noah and was trying to leave the area without drawing more attention. Its moves were calm, and the way it stepped, its hooves on the forest floor, made no sound. Noah aimed with his bow, staring at his prize with an arrow between them. It was crooked, a cheap piece of scrap with a full quiver more on his back. It was the best he could get in the last town. Noah released the string as the deer turned away. The arrow slipped in under the ribcage and pierced a lung.
The deer's heart had stopped by the time Noah reached it. He worked fast, carving off the pieces he wanted and removing as much of the pelt as he could before he lost the light. This had become second nature to him. Once he had collected everything, he dragged the carcass far from his campsite. Most of the remains were left behind, considered offensive in an ordinary world but ignored in this one. After all, a magic circle would summon one sometime soon.
All animals not born through physical mating were conjured out of mana, keeping a fixed population for every species. One was considered lucky to see a creature appear from the light, unless it ended up being a monster. Besides, that body would likely be gone within a day or two.
Night overtook the forest, save for the cliff's shadow, where transient sparks were glowing like stars. The striking of flint and steel finally brought forth flames from some birch bark shavings, and soon, a steady campfire was burning. Noah set up a tripod over the fire with three sticks and dangled a metal pot about the size of a coffee can. It was full of water from the creek, filtered through a handmade life straw.
As Noah waited for the water to boil, he prepared the meat. What wasn't smoked over the fire was turned into stew. He added some dried vegetables bought in town and some herbs and mushrooms for extra flavor. Most of the plants in this world had the same properties as their counterparts in other worlds, at least in these lands, so Noah often stopped to gather anything useful.
He dropped in a lump of salt, and had himself a hearty stew, sided with some chunks of bread and cold pine needle tea. This was considered an adventurer's roadside feast in this world, while in most other lifetimes, this would be thought of as some homeless person's back-alley meal. But it was worth the extra effort, at least Noah believed it to be. It was best to enjoy the little things, to live in the now. He repeated that to himself obsessively, like a little hamster spinning its wheel in the back of his mind.
His horse settled nearby, but it had yet to fall asleep. Like Noah, it knew that sleep was dangerous in lands like these. Those who lived here had to be constantly aware, always ready for battle or escape. When the horse did lower its head and drift off, its ears remained pointed up, twitching from every noise within their range.
Lying on his bedroll with his sword beside him, Noah waited out the night, half asleep. He kept his eyes on the fire, moving only to put on more wood. Without technology, a man can stare into a fire for hours without getting bored. How many times had he done this already? How many evenings had he spent staring into flames while surrounded by dangers and unsure of the next day? Perhaps it was instinctive, a habit ingrained from the earliest members of the human race to huddle around a fire, to nourish their minds with its light and warmth when night fell. Perhaps it was just due to his experience, being well versed in such a scene.
Noah closed his eyes and trained his ears on the fire. Its crackles and snaps competed with the evening chorus. Everything seemed to come alive at night, from the clicking and crying of insects to the howling of wolves in the distance. It was just another sound he had grown used to hearing when he slept, like the roar of traffic, the mountain winds, raining shells and automatic gunfire, the groaning of metal hulls in the sea, air, and space, the silence of burnt-out cities and atom bomb craters, the soft breathing of a woman at his side and maybe the snoring of a dog at his feet, the beeping of heart monitors either after his birth or before his death, and so many more.
A crack, too loud to come from the flames, awoke him. He got to his feet with his sword in hand, despite his eyes not fully adjusting and blurred from sleep. Noah focused his gaze, spotting a humanoid figure standing on the other side of the thorn barrier. It had just stepped on a pinecone, one of many that Noah had laid out to alert him if any enemies came close. He moved around the fire but off to the side, not wanting this intruder to hide within his shadow.
The creature was more muscular than a human, taller, and with longer limbs. It wore clothes made of animal hides and carried an axe. Other than its missing lips and sharp teeth, what stood out most was the single great eye in the middle of its face, flanked by long, greasy hair. It stared at Noah with a rumble in its throat.
"Keep walking," Noah warned with his raised sword.
