His Student

Sam was already gone before Gavin had fully processed what the boy said about more people. For a second, the speed of her reaction caught him off guard. It reminded him of the way she used to move whenever someone needed help, before she had time to think herself out of it.

The thought barely had time to settle before the injured man shifted heavily against him. Gavin’s expression changed at once. This wasn’t the time.

He carried the older man toward the village inn.

“Is anyone in there?” Gavin called. “Someone’s injured! I need somewhere to treat him!”

The door opened almost immediately. A young woman appeared on the other side and quickly raised a hand to her mouth when she saw the blood.

“Glenn!”

Gavin brought him inside and carefully laid him across an empty wooden table. The younger children were quickly ushered upstairs by some of the older ones, leaving enough room for him to work.

He removed his pack and dug through it for bandages before pressing them against the deep wound across Glenn’s abdomen.

“You’ll be fine. Just keep breathing, old man.”

Gavin kept his attention on slowing the bleeding and wrapping the wound tightly enough to hold. Once he finished, he looked toward the villagers gathered inside. Their faces weren’t familiar to him, but still held his head low.

“Is his wife around?”

Several of them exchanged looks before shaking their heads.

“She’s been inside their home. But how–”

“Then tell her he’ll be fine for now. Change the bandages if they soak through, and keep him from moving too much.” Gavin glanced toward the younger man who had carried him. “As for him, I don’t see anything serious. He’s mostly shaken.”

He packed away the rest of his supplies and left a few extra bandages behind.

“I’m heading into the forest. My daughter’s already gone after the others.”

Before he could turn away, Glenn caught the edge of his cloak.

“Don’t be…so rash.” He coughed weakly. “That beast…it’s not like the others. You need…to be careful.”

Gavin looked down at him, a grin forming beneath the shadow of his hood.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, gramps?”

He gently pulled his cloak free and headed after his daughter.

~~~

The miasma grew denser the farther Gavin pushed into Hearth Forest. He knew these woods well enough that he should have been able to find his way through them half-asleep, yet the purple-black haze swallowed familiar landmarks before he could recognize them. Even the trees seemed to blur together at a distance.

Sam couldn’t have gotten far.

Several Veyraths broke through the brush along the way. Gavin dispatched the first without slowing, his blade cutting cleanly through its neck before he pivoted into the next. Another lunged from his left, only for his sword to catch it across the body and send it dissolving into the mist. None were worth stopping for. His attention remained on the forest ahead.

A scream carried through the trees somewhere north of him.

Gavin changed direction.

He went through a wall of brush into a clearing and immediately spotted two teenagers huddled behind a thick tree trunk. Blood streaked their faces and clothes, though neither appeared to have suffered anything life-threatening. Their eyes remained fixed on whatever stood opposite them.

Sam.

She had placed herself between the boys and a massive Veyrath, probably a Bane class.

It was nowhere near the scale of the Reaver they had faced four years ago, but it was still larger than most beasts roaming this region had any right to be. It crouched low on four thick limbs, its long body filling the clearing as jagged spines rose along its back. Miasma seeped from between them in heavy streams, curling around its frame until the beast seemed half-swallowed by its own corruption.

Its jaws opened wide enough that Gavin doubted it would have much trouble swallowing a person whole.

Sam’s hood had fallen away sometime during the fight.

Gavin studied her instead of the beast.

Her breathing was steady. Shoulders loose. Feet planted just wider than shoulder-width, her weight balanced between them rather than committed too heavily in either direction. She held the sword near her face with the point angled slightly forward, leaving enough room to cut from either side without wasting movement.

Better.

A few months ago, she would have put too much weight on her front foot.

Gavin rested a hand near his own sword but made no move to draw it. If the creature turned toward the injured boys, he would interfere.

Until then, this was Sam’s fight.

The beast lowered itself.

Sam didn’t move.

Its claws dug into the earth before it launched forward, crossing most of the clearing in a single bound. The impact of its paws tore dirt from the ground as its mouth opened around her.

Still, Sam waited, holding her ground until the beast had nearly closed the distance. Most fighters would have moved sooner, but Gavin knew better than to mistake her patience for hesitation. When her blade finally moved, the strike was so fast he nearly missed it.

One moment the beast was bearing down on her, the next, its momentum carried two separate halves past either side of her body. They slammed into the ground behind her hard enough to shake the clearing.

Sam remained where she had been standing, sword extended at the end of the cut.

The core was still intact.

Her tongue clicked against her teeth as the severed halves began pulling themselves together, strands of miasma stretching between them like muscle rebuilding itself. For a brief moment, the regeneration exposed a black orb buried between the two sections.

Sam saw it at the same time Gavin did.

She didn’t hesitate.

Her foot turned, hips following before her shoulders, and the second swing came through with considerably less force than the first.

The edge passed directly through the exposed core.

A thin crack split across the black orb before the entire thing broke apart.

The beast collapsed with it.

Its body lost shape almost immediately, dissolving into thick trails of miasma that scattered across the clearing before fading into the surrounding haze.

Gavin gave a quiet chuckle.

“Umbralis and Veridion.”

Not bad.

A mercenary party might have spent several minutes trying to bring down something that size. Most would have wasted their strength hacking apart a body that would simply rebuild itself until someone managed to find the core.

Sam sheathed her sword and immediately approached the two boys. Whatever she told them was too quiet for Gavin to hear, though her posture softened slightly as she pulled her hood back over her head.

One of the boys couldn’t put much weight on his leg, so Sam helped get his arm over his friend’s shoulders before Gavin joined them.

She glanced at him.

“Why did you just stand there?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Gavin said, letting his hand fall away from the hilt at his side. “You had it handled. No reason for me to get in your way.”

Sam looked away, her gaze dropping briefly toward the ground.

Gavin turned his attention to the boys. “Can you make it back to the village?”

The uninjured one nodded quickly. “Yes. I can get him there.”

“Good. Stay inside once you arrive. Don’t come back into the forest until we’ve dealt with whatever’s happening here.”

“We will.”

He adjusted his friend’s weight and began leading him toward the village.

Gavin watched until the two disappeared between the trees, then looked back at Sam.

A beast that size shouldn’t have been here.

Neither should this much miasma.

Sam met his eyes, and the two of them turned deeper into Hearth Forest.