Jack touched his broken nose and activated the Pseudo Priest Skill, Heal. The mana drained from him in a light ripple, and he felt the flesh knit itself together.

  Hmm… that felt strange. It was the first time he’d used a skill that required his mana. Having never used a spell that required mana before, he wasn’t sure how many Heals he could cast before he became mana exhausted.

  The bleeding stopped, the nose set in place, but the healing was limited. His fingertips brushed the bridge of his nose. It was still sore like it had been injured a few days earlier. It would need time to fully heal.

  Fuck! That was a mistake. He’d realised too late that his nose had healed crooked. If he wanted it straight, he’d need to break it again, reshape the nose, and heal it.

  “Cain,” he whispered. “I’m going to heal your arm.”

  Cain frowned. “I thought you were a scribe?”

  Jack nodded. “I am. It’s a long story.” He touched Cain’s left arm and healed the small cut. Like with his ear, the wound sealed with a scab. Not perfect, but it would save days of recovery.

  Cain inspected the scab and shrugged. “Ready?”

  The guards had just vanished around the corner.

  Jack nodded, and they bolted across the courtyard.

  The stable wasn’t empty. A boy, no older than fifteen, was mucking out the stalls. His eyes widened when he saw two blood-smeared figures running through the door.

  “Shit,” Jack whispered. He held a finger to his lips and motioned for silence.

  The boy glanced towards the exit, but Cain blocked the way.

  “If you run or scream, we’ll have to kill you,” Cain said, keeping his voice low. He pulled one of the young nobles’ coin purses from his belt and fished out a gold coin. “Hide in the back and don’t come out for fifteen minutes.” He flicked the coin.

  The boy’s eyes went wide at the small fortune spinning through the air. He dropped his shovel, still full of horse shit, and snatched the coin mid-flight. “Yes, sir.” He ran to an empty stall and ducked out of sight.

  “Hide the coin and come back for it in a few days,” Cain said while mounting an unsaddled horse. “Be careful where you spend it, kid.”

  A single gold coin wasn’t much in noble circles, but if a stable boy tried to exchange it in the wrong part of the city, he could wind up dead for it.

  Jack followed Cain’s lead and mounted a horse. It was the same horse he’d ridden earlier, but saddle-free this time. “So much for no saddle sore,” he muttered, steering the animal after Cain at a slow trot towards the stable door.

  They exited the stable to find half a dozen guards running across the courtyard. The guards had their backs to them. Jack and Cain bolted towards the tree line. By the time the guards noticed, they were already galloping into the forest beneath a three-quarters full moon.

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  A minute later, a horn blew. Loud and sharp. It echoed through the estate like a blade drawn in moonlight. Then another horn… and another. The chase had begun.

  “Which way?” Cain shouted.

  Jack scanned the dark woods. It was difficult to orient himself beneath the canopy. “The main entrance to the estate is that way… I think.” He pointed behind them, towards the manor. “We should head deeper into the forest and circle back.”

  Cain nodded. “It’s a plan.”

  At a trot, they headed deeper into the shadowy forest for a few minutes before they began circling around where they thought the manor house was. The sound of hunting horns and barking dogs never strayed far away.

  “I think the lymer hounds have our scent and are tracking us,” Jack said. “If we could find a deep river…”

  “You understand the signals?” Cain asked.

  Jack nodded. “Some of them. Not all.” He’d read a book in his past life that explained the noble hunting codes. It had seemed useless at the time.

  Cain shook his head. “You’re full of surprises, Jack the scribe.” He chuckled.

  Jack used his Total Recall skill to reacquaint himself with what more of the horn sounds meant. As he mentally flicked through a book on deer hunting, he felt connections to other books and even newspaper articles he’d read. Oh, my. That’s so useful, he thought.

  His new Pseudo Librarian skill, Cross-Reference, was pointing him to other books he’d read with related information. That’s an amazing skill. As he read relevant parts of various books in his mind, he noticed he wasn’t struggling with concentrating on riding through the forest.

  Is that Multitasking? He realised his new Pseudo Administrator skill, Multitasking, was allowing him to do two things at once.

  Ten minutes passed with Jack rereading everything he’d ever read on horn signals while navigating his horse through the shadowy forest. The horns and hounds never stopped.

  “There,” Jack called. “I think that’s the road back to Lundun.”

  They broke onto the road and increased speed from a trot to a gallop, the horses thankful for the even ground. Fifteen minutes later, they reached a large clearing. On the far side stood an ornate gate set within an eight-foot-high wall.

  They had found the main exit. They stopped at the edge of the clearing, wary of guards or a trap. They could still hear the distant horns, but they’d gained enough of a lead that they couldn’t hear the hounds.

  “Seems clear… but it shouldn’t be,” Cain said, catching his breath from the gallop.

  No guards or lights were unusual for the main entrance to a Viscount’s estate.

  “Do you think they called the guards away, or could this be an ambush?” Jack was also assuming there should be a pair of guards stationed here at all times.

  “It’s a good ambush point,” Cain said. “Do you know of any other exits?”

  “No.” Jack shook his head. “This is my first time here. I only know of this road… there could be other ways out, but your guess is as good as mine.” He had travelled inside a wagon on the way to Viscount Tides’ estate, so he only gained a partial view of where he’d been through the back of the wagon. He’d seen this entrance after he’d entered the estate, so he knew no more than Cain did

  Cain rubbed his mouth in thought.

  Jack listened to the sounds of horns. “We don’t have long. I’m sure the horns are calling everyone this way.”

  “Alright… we follow the treeline to the wall and get a closer look,” Cain said before dismounting.

  Jack followed suit, and they led the horses along the trees until they reached the wall.

  “We could abandon the horses,” Jack whispered. “Climb the wall and walk back to Lundun.”

  Cain shook his head. “With scent hounds, they’d be on us in under an hour. We need these horses.”

  Jack cursed himself for not buying scent-hiding scrolls when he’d had the chance. If I survive this, I should buy a variety of spell scrolls for emergencies.

  They followed the wall towards the gate, but still, nothing happened. Cain went to open the gate and found it was locked with a heavy chain. A dozen guards burst from the trees. Two more appeared on the other side of the gate. One fired a red signal flare into the sky.

  The clearing lit up like daylight for a heartbeat before fading to night.

  “Surrender or die!” one of the guards shouted. “Viscount Tides wants you alive. This is your only warning.”