A first taste of action, a heroic rescue.

Grand forests had long given way to rolling plains that grew more chilly.

Noriko’s river-runner cut against the tide with sails full of fortunate winds.

They made good time, for Noriko had been up and down this river. She’d learned its breadth, width, and temper as surely as any lover. The same waters that gave so much, and flowed clean and clear to drink and bathe in, could surge forward, flood camps on the banks, or just dash their vessels against rocks.

Not to mention, in the days without her Lord, beasts were just as ready to boil up from the shallow, ashen bed of the river as come out of the forest. She couldn’t deny it was pleasant to guide the boat without having to fight random encounters.

When they reached the final leg of their journey, the land turned white.

It was a day choked with clouds, heralding yet more blankets of snow. Yet genuine smoke rising into the air was still easy to spot. The black, acrid pillar rose from something just over the horizon.

Which, as they approached, turned out to be a fellow ship, run aground.

On fire.

Her sails were being consumed by tongues of rising flame that ate through like moths. The timbers of the masts sagged, and in fact the topmast had a violent meeting with one of the few remaining arboreal trees. Which was catching the vessel, and preventing its progress as surely as the dark creatures aboard.

Great beastly green-skinned orcs, who bore the figure of humanoids, though their character was far different. That was something the wanderer understood instinctively, even before seeing how they towered over the armored guards they were mercilessly cutting down.

Much less frightened passengers fleeing, or diving into the water to escape.

“Out here so far from the city, nobody would dare travel out of convoy…” Noriko shook her head, drawing her ashen greatbow, which stood to her own height. “My Lord, please stay back. I can handle-”

“Concentrate on saving the people!”

He got a running leap and hit the water with a great cannonball splash.

It was freezing-cold, but not being able to see was the bigger bother.

That, and having to improvise how to swim, against the strong southward current of rushing waters. Fortunately, his power was such that by merely flailing, he made good progress, and soon pulled himself up onto the shallow, tilting deck of the transport.

Waterlogged and freezing, but still quite a surprising sight for the orcs.

They didn’t know what to make of him. Until a volley of fireballs consumed the beasts, and caused them to start leaping overboard to save their besotted lives.

It did them little good, however. A hail of excellently-placed arrows pierced each in vital points, and added their black blood to the bodies and debris floating downriver.

With another ship coming alongside, these distressed people naturally tried to make for it, with varying levels of success.

Noriko obediently tossed down her bow, busying herself with pulling up whoever she could reach. Leaving the rest of the enemies aboard the boat to her Lord with a concerned huff. The light from her healing spells flashed like constant thunder, adding to the warm glow of flames bursting from cabins and hatches.

At least the fires meant that going below decks was unnecessary; nobody who had been down there was left, and he could focus on top.

“If you insist on leaping right in,” the voice chided him, “Then at least spare a thought towards your many powers. If you keep tossing flames around, you will only make things more dangerous for everyone! Come, now. Summon your weapon, that will do.”

He hadn’t ‘spared a thought’ towards combat at all until he was upon the enemy, so the revelation that he could summon a big burning hammer was acceptable.

It was still on fire, but only to keep the metal white-hot, so that had to be okay.

Pasting orcs or knocking them flying towards the opposite bank, he made short work of the attackers, saving many ordinary citizens and frightened guards just in time.

Of course, for every one person he saved, there was another two who felt the blacksteel axes of the orcs. Whatever his great destiny in the future, those people would never get their long, happy lives.

There was scarce a moment to brood on it, which was new to him.

The wanderer had never experienced a moment of such feverish urgency.

“The orcs are handled by now…” the voice surveyed the scene of carnage and chaos with detachment that could only come from a disembodied spirit. “Oh, forward at the ship’s bow! That’s something a bit… larger than the standard fare. I pity whoever is being attacked by that one.”

In fact, the monster at the front was an enormous snake. Scales black, but glinting off the afternoon light. It was a great undulating mass, wrapped tightly around another armored figure. This one, a woman with long, wavy red hair, in similarly bright-red armor plate.

Who was absolutely surrounded.

The coils were pure muscle, and tightened visibly, drawing a choked cry from the woman. She tossed her head back, trying to struggle, but it was absolutely pointless. The difference in their strength was too great, she was being crushed.

If anything, her armor was going to make it so much worse.

“I don’t recommend smashing that with the hammer, unless… oh, the head!”

Presumably not the head of the woman, which was the only thing poking out of tightly-wrapped black coils. The head of the snake, though, was regarding its next meal, forked tongue flopping through the air smugly.

Until that head was smashed against the deck with a great thunderclap of ****.

It crashed through the hot timber beneath their feet. That sent spiderweb cracks through the floor, which then collapsed. Causing the entire beast to fall into the sea of flames beneath.

In alarm, the wanderer grabbed the redheaded soldier, as the monster’s muscles relaxed in **** and relented.

Allowing the great serpent to tumble over and be consumed.

The waterlogged wanderer pulled her up. Although the woman hunched back over, clutching her stomach through the blindingly red plate-mail, she was certainly alive, and grateful.

“I don’t know who you are or how you did that, but luckily, I also don’t care. You, sir, have exceptional timing and sense for the dramatic.” She cast a look around. “Good thing I was distracting that huge beast, so the others could escape!”

Some of them.

“I believe you are the last one left,” the wanderer said, having scoured the deck up and down for other signs of life.

“Then let’s fix that! Come, let’s away to what I presume is your lovely ship…! Oh ho, piloted by a very lovely maiden indeed.” She was quick on the recovery for somebody who nearly died, and was visibly bleeding a trickle of red from the mouth fit to match armor and hair.

Noriko brought the river-runner alongside, close enough to allow a respectable running jump onto the opposite deck.

The priestess rushed forward to their aid. “My Lord! Thank goodness! You handled those beasts with exceptional skill for your first battle! I have ensured that all the refugees I could save are… oh no.”

The wanderer looked over to her, as she pointed down at the recovering redhead.

“Not you again!”