The Humming Blade

"A sword is a tool. A killer is a man. Do not confuse the two, lest you try to negotiate with the steel or parry the soul." —Gaidan, Training Lectures

Aga - The Old Road

The Iron Peaks were not a wall; they were a shadow looming on the horizon.

For three days, the group had ridden west, brushing past the northern edge of the Witchwood Maw, leaving the coastal humidity of Seda for the dry, thinning air of the foothills. The mountains loomed ahead, a jagged saw-blade of grey stone tearing at the belly of the sky.

Aga rode at the front, his eyes scanning the ridgelines. He was tired. Not the physical exhaustion of the hunt—that he could manage—but a deep, corrosive fatigue that settled in the marrow of his bones.

Behind him, the pack was quiet.

Gaidan rode with his teeth gritted, his shattered arm bound tight against his chest. He refused pain medicine, claiming it dulled his senses, but Aga could smell the fever on him. The soldier was burning up, but he rode with his back straight, a statue of stubborn discipline.

Elara was fascinated by Zalim. The desert warrior rode slightly apart from them, his black scimitar resting across his saddle. Elara’s brass device was in her hand, whirring softly every time she pointed it at him.

"Zero," she muttered, loud enough for Aga to hear. "Thermal output... negligible. Heart rate... indistinguishable from background noise. It's like scanning a rock."

Zalim turned his head, his glass-like eyes catching the sun. "Rocks are patient, scholar. You could learn from them."

They made camp in a dry riverbed as the sun dipped below the peaks, casting long, purple shadows across the valley. The air grew instantly cold.

Aga tended to the horses, his hands moving automatically over the buckles and straps. When the work was done, he sat by the small fire Faren had built, leaning back against his saddle. He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

Mistake.

The dream was waiting for him, a predator crouching in the dark of his own mind.

He was back in the clearing of the Maw. The sky was bruised purple. The pool of black water lay before him, still as death.

He didn't want to look. He knew what was waiting in the reflection. But the compulsion seized him, dragging his head down.

The face in the water was his own, but the eyes were gone. In their place were two hollow pits of infinite, swirling darkness. The Abyss. It wasn't just empty; it was hungry.

"He is cold, Father," the reflection whispered in a child’s voice, distorted by the sound of grinding stones. "The cage is breaking. The void is feeding."

From the depths of the black pool, a shadow began to rise—a formless, shifting thing that smelled of ozone and rotting flowers. It reached for him, not to strike, but to embrace.

"Come," the Abyss purred. "Let us finish what the forest started."

Aga jerked awake, his hand flying to the hilt of his knife.

His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. The fire had burned low to embers. The camp was silent, save for the wind whistling through the canyon.

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead. The scent... it was still there, lingering in his nose. The sickly-sweet rot of the nightmare. He looked up at the stars, but they offered no comfort. They looked like cold, unblinking eyes. Every night, the dream was clearer. Every night, the shadow in the water got closer. Luka was running out of time.

"You are loud," a voice said.

Aga spun, his knife half-drawn.

Zalim was standing just outside the circle of firelight, his arms crossed. He hadn't made a sound approaching.

"I am awake," Aga grunted, shoving the knife back into its sheath. He rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the image of the hollow eyes.

"Not your form," Zalim corrected, stepping into the light. "Your mind. It screams even when you rest. You carry a ghost, woodsman."

Aga bristled. "I carry a duty. Something you wouldn't understand."

"Perhaps," Zalim said. He unhooked the black scimitar from his belt, sheath and all. He tossed it to the ground. "But fear makes you heavy. And you hold that longsword like it is a club. That is because it is not of you. You rely on weight to wield it. On anger. On the ghost."

Aga looked at the scabbarded weapon lying in the dirt. "Tch, you? Want to spar?"

"I want to see if you are worth the trip," Zalim said, stepping back. He raised his empty hands, palms open. "Draw."

The camp woke up. Gaidan sat up, wincing. Elara adjusted her spectacles, her notebook already out. Faren stopped his tidying of the camp.

Aga felt a flash of irritation. He didn't need lessons. He needed to find Root. He needed to save Luka. The frustration boiled over, fueling his muscles. He drew Gaidan’s longsword, the steel hissing.

"Fine," Aga growled. "Let's see if you bleed."

He lunged. It was a strike meant to kill, fueled by the terror of the dream. Fast, brutal, aimed at Zalim's shoulder.

Zalim didn't block. He simply... wasn't there—moving through a pivot on his heel, his body turning like a door on a hinge. Aga’s blade cut empty air.

Aga recovered, swinging back with a heavy, horizontal cleave. Zalim ducked under it, fluid as water, and poked Aga lightly on the ribs with his knuckles.

"Dead," Zalim whispered.

Aga roared. The face in the water flashed in his mind. The void is feeding.

He unleashed a flurry of blows—overhead chops, thrusts, slashes. He was fast for his size, a whirlwind of steel and desperation.

Zalim wove through the storm. He moved with an eerie, weightless grace, his feet barely disturbing the dust. He never struck back. He just watched Aga with those unblinking eyes.

"You expend too much effort," Zalim criticized, dodging a strike that would have decapitated a bull. "You fight the air. You fight the ground. You fight the fear. You would fight yourself if you could."

"Just stand still!" Aga shouted.

He saw an opening. Zalim had over-rotated. Aga feinted high, then drove a brutal kick into Zalim’s midsection.

It connected.

It felt like kicking a marble pillar.

Zalim didn't even grunt. But the force of the blow knocked him back a step. He stumbled, his foot catching on a root.

Aga didn't hesitate. He swung the flat of his blade, slapping Zalim’s hand—the hand reaching for the fallen scimitar.

THWACK.

Zalim’s hand was knocked away.

And the sword screamed.

It was not a sound Aga heard with his ears. It was a psychic shriek, a high-pitched vibration of pure, hungry rage that drove a spike of ice into his brain. It was the sound of a starving thing denied its meal.

The black scimitar, still in its sheath, skittered across the dirt. It moved like a wounded spider, jerking and twitching toward Zalim’s extended hand.

Aga froze, the hair on his arms standing up. The scent of ozone and copper exploded from the weapon.

Zalim was on his knees instantly. His calm, glass-like demeanor shattered into desperate, terrifying tenderness. He reached out, not grabbing the hilt, but stroking the sheath.

"Hush," Zalim whispered to the sword, his voice trembling. "Hush, darling, sweet thing. It was a game. Only a game. I am here. I am here."

The sword shuddered once more, a violent rattle against the stones, and then went still.

Silence stretched over the campsite. It was heavy and cold.

Elara was staring at the weapon, her face pale. "That..." she whispered. "That isn't a sword."

Aga lowered his own blade. He looked at the man kneeling in the dust, soothing the object like a mother soothing a fevered child. He realized then why Zalim smelled like nothing.

The man wasn't the warrior. The man was the cage.

Zalim looked up. The glassiness was gone from his eyes, replaced by a dark, simmering warning.

"We do not touch the Edge," Zalim said softly. "It has... a temper."

Before Aga could respond, the ground beneath his feet trembled.

It wasn't the sword this time. It was deep. Rhythmic.

Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

Gaidan was on his feet instantly, his pain forgotten. "Movement! North ridge!"

Aga spun around. The twilight shadows on the hillside were shifting. But they weren't just shadows. The earth itself was rising.

Five massive shapes detached themselves from the canyon wall. They were twelve feet tall, vaguely humanoid, formed of jagged rock and packed dirt. But where their eyes should have been, there were glowing fissures of crimson light.

"Elementals," Faren gasped, scrambling back from the firepit. "But... they're wrong. They're bleeding... Rocks don’t typically have blood. Then again, nothing has been typical since meeting the Hunter."

Thick, red sludge oozed from the joints of the stone giants. Sanguine corruption.

"They are scouts," Aga realized. "They found us."

The lead Elemental raised a fist the size of a boulder and smashed it into the ground. A shockwave of dirt and stone sprayed over the camp, extinguishing the fire.

"Zalim!" Aga shouted. "Wake it up!"

Zalim stood. He didn't draw the sword. He simply placed his hand on the hilt and allowed it to be drawn.

The black steel hissed as it left the sheath. It didn't reflect the light. It drank it.

"Feed," Zalim whispered.

The Elementals charged, a roaring avalanche of stone.

Zalim flickered. He moved to meet the charge, not with the fluid grace of the spar, but with a sudden, violent acceleration that blurred the eye.

He passed the entire group of Elementals.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then, one giant's leg simply slid off. The cut was so clean, so absolute, that the stone didn't even crumble. The Elemental toppled, crashing into another, knocking them both into the riverbed with a sound like a collapsing building.

Zalim spun, the black blade humming, satisfied, a terrifying song.

"Two left," Aga grunted, gripping his sword, pushing the nightmare of the void to the back of his mind. "Try to leave some for the rest of us to hunt."

"I make zero promises," the sword seemed to whisper in Aga's mind.

The fray continued on.