***
Dawn arrived unusually quickly.
It gently tiptoed in, timid and unsure, casting a gentle light on the room and bringing with it a lingering chill that refused to dissipate until the sun's rays could fully embrace the world.
The sun hesitantly peeped through the thin curtains of our small room, casting a weak, warm glow on the floorboards. The fire had long since died out and had left a chill in the room, a chill that would not be banished until the sun rose high enough to warm the air. Outside, the sky was a pale shade of blue, barely noticeable against the grey clouds that lingered on the horizon. A thick layer of fog engulfed the still-cold dawn air, sticking close to the ground. The morning was eerily quiet, only the faint sound of birds chirping in the distance audible as if they were hesitant to interrupt the stillness. The creaking of floorboards and rustling of blankets as we stirred were the only other noises I could hear.
Theron's breaths, slow and steady when I had drifted into sleep, remained so as he slept soundlessly on the bed.
Kozun silently rose from his chair, walking over to Theron and placing a cool hand on his forehead. "He doesn't have a fever." His voice was gruff with sleep. "It's a good sign. If he doesn't make any inconsiderate efforts, he'll heal nicely."
I rubbed my eyes and sat up slowly, my body creaking with sleep's lingering hold. I was a bit sore, but other than that, the wounds I'd sustained yesterday were long gone, most likely only leaving pink traces of their existence on my skin.
I tilted my eyes to Kozun, who stared back at me with an indecipherable expression, and I realized he had somehow known I was awake, which didn't come as a surprise, since Kozun was one of the most observant people I'd ever met.
I cleared my throat. "That's good. Don't wake him up yet, though." My eyes darted to the peeking sunlight. "It's still early. Let him sleep a while longer."
Kozun nodded, standing up to poke the coals in the stove back to life.
The resulting flame cast a warm orange glow in the otherwise dim room. Outside, I could hear a growing morning chorus of birdsong, signaling the frosty world was waking up.
Stretching carefully, I rose and padded softly across the wooden planks to join Kozun by the hearth.
I'd fallen asleep with all my clothes on. The stains of Theron's blood still marred the chest of my black tunic and, except for the cloak and the belts I'd taken off, I was fully clothed. I was aching to take the tunic off so I could scrub Theron's blood off it, but pure laziness made me hesitate to do so, instead joining Kozun at the hearth.
The heat from the rekindled fire was comforting, melting away the early morning chill that had clung stubbornly to my skin.
I watched as Kozun worked expertly, stoking the fire with an old metal poker until the flames licked higher and the room grew warmer.
It was a simple action, mundane even, but it was these moments of calm and quiet that I found myself cherishing in our otherwise turbulent lives.
Across the room, Theron shifted slightly in his sleep, a murmur escaping his lips before he fell back into silent slumber. The sight of him resting so peacefully brought an uncharacteristic smile to Kozun's weathered face. "Always sleeps like a baby," he murmured, more to himself than to me.
The morning gradually gathered strength outside, its weak light growing bolder as it fought against the lingering night. Its pale gold rays pierced through the tiny gaps in the curtains and scattered on the worn wooden floor, casting long shadows that danced with our movements. The sounds of awakening began to filter into the small room through the window that Kozun had left only slightly open. Birds chattered impatiently in their nests, leaves rustled softly under the gentle assault of the morning breeze, and distant doors creaked open.
Life was stirring.
Turning from the window, I glanced at Kozun who was now warming his hands by the fire. "We should prepare," I suggested quietly.
Without looking up, he nodded his agreement. "Aye," he grumbled. "I'll get Ahya and Jasiel."
As Kozun shuffled out of the room, his footsteps echoing ominously on the creaky wooden stairs, I turned my attention back to the fire.
The dancing flames held an enchanting allure, drawing my thoughts towards what was coming.
War was inescapable. I knew that. I'd known it for a long time. I'd known since I was quite young that war would follow me for as long as I lived. It would breathe in my blood the same way the thunder did. Because that's what I'd been born for. It's what I'd been bred for. Even without knowing it, it had been in me ever since I learned how to walk, in the fixation I had with weapons, the art of war, and the mastery of fighting.
I'd gone to battle once.
I'd failed.
When the time came for the rise of a battle once more, I wouldn't fail again.
The beasts were gathering, growing bolder and stronger. Like me, they'd had a long time to master their skills and while I'd killed my fair share of them over time, their numbers continued to grow as they crossed the Terskel and came closer and closer to Arszden, preparing for what was about to be the war that would define the course of the Cosmos. Yesterday had been my warning. The end was coming. The war was coming. It wouldn't take long before it was at my threshold, rapping its knuckles on my door, and it wouldn't wait a second to drag me out into the battlefield to fight it.
Some small part of me was exhausted already.
Before it even began.
The truth is most of my life had been a war.
Ever since I could remember, I've been at war. As a child, my father had been my war, constantly putting me on edge, despising me at every turn he had for the benefit of somehow validating the hate he felt for me. Nothing I did was ever good enough and all the mistakes I made, I always paid greatly for. From the moment I was born, he hated me, and he made sure I never forgot that. The more I thought of them, the more the memories of my childhood flooded back, unbidden and heavy like burdens falling on top of my shoulders, where they never seemed to stray far away from. The constant fear and anxiety had been my reality for so long that, as a boy, I'd forgotten altogether, at some point, what it was like to live without either. My father was a cruel man, his words and actions leaving deep scars that'd never disappear — all his punishments and all his hate had left marks on my soul I'd never be able to erase. He was quick to anger and even quicker to lash out. I learned early on to keep my head down, to avoid his gaze at all costs. But no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to be the target of his rage. His disappointment in me was palpable, and it seeped into every aspect of my life.
To the day he died.
After I Ascended, another, completely different war began for me. Alike in all ways, but different, as well. The beasts arrived, dangerous and lethal in ways no other world creature was. They were unlike any other creature I'd ever encountered. Deadly and unpredictable, their massive size and ferocious strength made them nearly impossible to defeat. While I'd been thoroughly trained and much better equipped than humans to fight them, I still had to hone my skills like any good hunter who adapted to his prey, and over time, I became the sole primary weapon against beasts. My entire purpose became hunting them and killing them, as I've been doing for the past three centuries.
It was a never-ending cycle of hunting, killing, and surviving.
But it wasn't just a physical war for me. The toll it took on my mind was just as brutal. Every kill weighed heavily on my conscience, knowing that each beast had once been a human before they were ripped off their souls and transformed into monsters. It was a constant battle between fulfilling my duty and keeping hold of my humanity.
Which, to most people's understanding, was not going over so well for me.
Despite this inner turmoil, I never once wavered in my mission to protect Arszden from the beasts as I'd promised so long ago. They were relentless in their attacks, leaving behind only destruction and death in their wake, and they meant for the end of the world.
I would not allow that.
I shook off my misgivings as the door creaked open.
Kozun returned with Ahya and Jasiel, rested and ready to depart. Kozun moved straight toward Theron, kneeling as he gently brushed the hair out of the boy's forehead, probably checking his temperature. He offered me a brief nod to confirm Theron's improving condition before he rose to his height and crossed his arms over his chest. Jasiel, on the other hand, went to stand by the window with a small sigh, his gaze lost in the growing light of daybreak. Ahya was the only one who remained by the door, her hand on the handle, hesitating to close it as the smell of freshly baked bread reached us from downstairs.
She inhaled before smiling widely. "I'll get us breakfast while the three of you wake the sleeping beauty."
I nodded.
She walked out, closing the door behind her.
The morning sun continued to climb higher into the sky, casting longer shadows that slid eerily across the floorboards.
Suddenly there was movement from Theron's side of the room.
His eyelids fluttered open revealing his startlingly raven eyes — eyes that had seen too much for his young age. "Morning," he croaked out, attempting to sit up only to wince with pain. Kozun helped him upright. He smiled at Kozun thankfully before turning his gaze to the rest of us. "So, are we ready to leave this joint?
I chuckled, while the others laughed. "Breakfast first, but then we're leaving."
Theron's face lit up with a smirk. "Ah, I hoped the smell wasn't a dream."
Kozun snorted, giving Theron a light punch on the arm before heading towards the door. "Dream on, you glutton."
A sound of protest escaped Theron as he rubbed the spot where Kozun had hit him, glaring daggers at his retreating back.
The room echoed with gentle laughter at their antics.
The cheerful moment was abruptly replaced by a heavy silence as Jasiel moved away from the window, his intense gaze capturing everyone's attention. "So, what's our next move, now?" He asked, looking at me directly, his blue eyes serious as he waited for an answer.
I changed my weight, running my fingers through my hair as I thought about our next course of action.
The beasts had been more aggressive lately, attacking more frequently and closer to populated areas than before.
We needed to figure out why.
"Evren wants us back for the Sigrblót," I reminded them, repeating my words to Theron from yesterday. "But for now, I think it's best if we stay for a few more days. There's a chance that more beats roam this area, so we should linger for a while longer before leaving for Iselvheim, just in case."
Theron's smile grew as he tried to rise from the bed — this time successfully on his own. "We're staying?"
"For a few more days."
"Kozun saw tracks in the forest yesterday while he collected herbs. He's positive there are more of them around," Jasiel supplied, expression drawn as he confirmed my suspicions.
My eyes locked on Kozun's.
The man nodded grimly. "Lesser beasts, most likely looking to do the Mörk's bidding."
He was right.
I didn't see any as I flew in yesterday, Thora added. But I can patrol the area, today, if you need me to.
I arched a brow. "Do you have numbers?"
"My best guess?" Kozun shrugged. "Probably a pack of Hundar. Fifteen would be my estimated guess."
"Then, we have to assume they're here for a reason, whether that is because of us or to flock around the Mörk we killed yesterday. Now that it's dead, they'll probably turn their attention to the village —"
I was interrupted by Ahya bursting through the door, her dark eyes wide with alarm. Her hands shook as she held out a bundle filled with loaves of hot bread and meat wrapped in paper. "I saw them," she blurted out in a choked voice. "Hundar."
My runes tingled. "Hundar?"
She nodded. "There were at least twenty. They're going to attack a group of guards in the forest to the east of the village. I heard the snickering of Kött, too. I'm guessing they're hunting together, cleaning up after the Hundar."
Shit.
I'd take a pack of Hundar over a single Kött every day.
Hundar are the very best, most effective hunters I've ever met. They often hunt in collaboration with other beasts, but they don't usually do it out of need, but out of foresight. They're intelligent enough to parcel out that they're even stronger if they're joined by beasts that can help them track their prey through other means rather than just their own, which is why they can often be found in the company of Själlös, though the two have little patience for each other. Either kind tends to tolerate the other in honor of what they can achieve together, but that's as far as their alliance will go. Whenever they weren't actively hunting, they usually found reason to bicker with each other, ending up quarreling amongst themselves.
For creatures aligned with the same goal of raining havoc upon the world, beasts rarely enjoyed each other's company.
Unless they got to kill each other.
That, they enjoyed.
But Kött?
Kött beasts were a different ballgame altogether. They were cunning and stealthily, usually cowardly in their approach to prey since they couldn't effectively hunt, only served to feast upon the carcasses of the kills already mutilated by others. That's why they usually roamed after packs of other beasts, taking advantage of the others' kills after they've moved on. Their diet usually consisted of decaying flesh of killed prey and their bones, which they were the sole predator of. Unlike Hundar, they didn't value any sort of loyalty to their pack, usually feeding on whatever they could find without much thought to sharing, and their inability to properly hunt meant that they didn't form alliances as easily, even among their own kind. For the most part, they traveled alone or in small groups, taking advantage of whatever they found. For other beasts, there was very little they could particularly bring to the table that could prompt them into joining forces. They were dangerous, however, because of their stealth, which bonded with their strength, made them capable of making a kill simply by the misfortune of their prey's surprise.
The thought of facing a pack of Hundar, backed up by Kött, was enough to unsettle me.
"Were they Royal Guards?" I asked.
Ahya shook her head. "No. Their color was red and they weren't carrying any flags, traveling light on horseback. I've never seen uniforms like those."
"So, they're not from neighboring kingdoms either," Jasiel worded my thoughts exactly.
"But then who are they? If they're not our soldiers, nor from across the border, then what are they doing here? And in Hargard, this far north?" Theron wondered, voice rough. "I can't be the only one who finds that odd."
"No, you're not," I agreed, my mind racing with questions and implications. "It's more than odd. It's concerning."
"Could they be mercenaries?" Ahya mused from the doorway, her dark eyes narrowed, thoughtful as she looked across the room at us.
"Mercenaries in Hargard? Why would that be?" Jasiel countered, folding his arms across his chest. "There's hardly anything here worth the long trip for."
Theron glanced at Jasiel, then back to me. "Unless…"
We all turned to look at him expectantly.
"Unless what?" I pressed.
Theron's eyes moved slowly to me, his mouth morphing into a deep scowl. "Unless they're here for us."
Jasiel let out a chuckle. "That's ominous," he quipped.
"And entirely non-consequential," I added, starting for my cape on the back of the armchair where I'd left it last night. I felt a shiver travel down my spine at that, but forced a collected expression onto my face. "No matter who they are, they don't deserve to be ripped apart by a pack of feral Hundar." I stepped towards the door, signaling Ahya to hand me the bundle of food. I tossed a loaf of bread to Theron, who caught it easily despite his injuries. "So, eat up and get ready. We're going on our own hunt."
Theron's wide eyes and the strain lines at the corner of Kozun and Jasiel's mouths were enough for me to know what each of them was thinking.
A pack of Hundar with numbers the size Ahya was guessing was a menacing threat.
We'd never gone up against such a large pack before.
I handed the food back to Ahya, who accepted it swiftly and started distributing it immediately. Theron grunted, sitting back down less than gracefully, munching on his bread and meat. Kozun did the same, a grim determination set on his features. Jasiel simply nodded, his lips drawn tight in a pensive manner.
The room was filled with a charged tension.
Which I could not deal with.
I started for the door, brushing past Ahya —
Her hand settled over my forearm. "Going for some air?"
I looked down into her eyes, dark and filled with knowledge I was entirely too scared to dig around, scolded by all the people in my life who knew and saw too much to care for knowledge that wasn't my own — or to give them anymore, for that matter. I opened my mouth, but the words seemed to escape me, so I ran a hand over my hair and looked away, incapable of handling the weight of her stare. "I'll be back soon."
"Steel."
"Ahya, don't," I cut in gently, exhaling a long breath that made the hairs framing her face shake. "I'll be back."
She tilted her head to the side, her fingers straining around my arm almost reassuringly before she loosened her grip. "Then, go." She lifted her hand from me, stepping back like she meant to physically give me the space I needed mentally. "Come back when you've found a way to drop all that shit you carry around."
My heart nearly stopped.
Have I recently said that I like her? Thora sounded amused, but her tone was soft as she spoke in my mind, probably feeling the raw pain that Ahya's words had inflicted upon all my old, bleeding wounds.
I didn't answer, because I was too busy practically running out of the room. If there was any way I could've flown out of the room, I would have.
Unfortunately, I was not gifted with that ability.
Over three hundred centuries of life, I'd been prepared for almost anything. No matter how much time passed and how many things changed in the world, the surge of battle was always the same. Through the best and the worst of my capabilities, I'd learned to take the leadership role in commanding armies into battle. It's what I've been trained to do for most of my existence and, if I was honest with myself, it's what I was fucking good at. But through all this time, there was one thing I'd never been prepared for. One thing that all the wars I've been in never prepared me for.
Loss.
One of my most flagrant flaws was my way of dealing with loss. Probably given my upbringing and everything that'd happened, I'd never been taught how to deal with loss. With grief. I didn't know how to process the pain and the longing. To some extent, I've always wondered if that feeling I got whenever I lost a soldier or a Melig was exactly what grief was. Feeling lost. Without knowing where to go or what to do. Not because I didn't feel it. I did. I felt every single damn piece of it. I just didn't know what to do with it. I never did, even when I was a boy. My experience told me, over time, that to truly grieve someone is to realize that person was of great importance in your life, whose existence will forever leave an imprint in your soul, but whose life on the land of the living had ended. Thus, to properly deal with grief, one has to understand that grief doesn't shrink with time, but instead, it is those who live with it that grow around it.
I had never — not once — been able to do that.
Instead, what I did was carry it.
All that grief. All that pain. All the blame.
I brushed past Ahya without looking at her and stepped out onto the corridor. The door closing around me provided some relief as I dashed down the stairs while I fastened my cloak and pulled the hood over my head to hide my hair. The frigid chill of the early morning seeped into my bones, but I made quick work of the stairs, arriving at the tavern beneath.
The sound of voices stopped me.
"The blonde one looked a lot like the King's Slayer. Didn't he?" A male's voice was saying, though from the sound of it, I guessed he must be young.
A boy?
The voices were coming from my right, where a small door was left ajar leading into the kitchen, I was guessing. Judging by the scent of bread and the gathering smoke from a large oven, I was guessing the innkeeper was stoking a fire to begin preparations for the food she'd present her guests and customers with for the day. I heard the dull sound of what I thought was a knife chopping vegetables, which further proved my supposition.
"Leave the fantasies to your dreams, Bodil," a raspy woman's voice scolded, stern and calloused like I imagined her hands would be. Her accent was thick, from winters of living far north, where words were the edged side of a blade and the voices were the ice that forged their swords. "He'd not travel here for the likes of us. The King's Slayer goes where his master sends him and the lowly people of Hargard are of no importance to either of them. And even if he was here, what is it to you? To us? He's not here to help."
A stab of pain hit me in the chest like the words she'd said were a knife digging into my heart.
"The elders say he's the only blonde man in the kingdom," the boy said in a conspiratorial voice, dropping his volume until he was almost whispering as if afraid anyone might hear him. "The man we saw yesterday coming in with the wounded lad was a blonde. Did you see his hair? It was ashen blonde. It had to be him, with the blue eyes and the long hair. It had to be him."
I was not the only blonde man in the kingdom.
Nor was my hair ashen blonde.
My heart was racing as I crept closer to the door, trying to listen in on the conversation happening in the kitchen.
The mention of my extremely recognizable hair was enough to have my fingers wrapping around the edges of my hood, trying to hide the hair beneath it like an incriminatory clue to a crime I'd committed — like a magician attempting to conceal a rabbit in a hat. It was like a dagger's edge against my skin, a reminder of my identity that was both a blessing and a curse. Lighter than the color of wheat in summer, the strands cascading like a golden waterfall down to my shoulders, it was a beacon that could not be hidden, a mark that branded me as the fantasy-inspired character of the many stories that took their place among family gatherings. Hearing it be used as a way to characterize me felt like the spotlight of a thousand eyes suddenly focused on me, exposing my identity like a jester who had accidentally revealed the king's secret.
The woman let out an exasperated sigh. "Bodil, if he was the King's Slayer, he'd be announcing it to the world. Not hiding here in this tavern with us." The sound of relentlessly chopping vegetables punctuated her words.
"The elders said he was a warrior. That he'd fought many wars and had shed much blood," Bodil insisted, his voice quivering with excitement and apprehension. "He carried himself like a warrior would. Did you not see the way he looked at us? He had the eyes of a man who'd seen war."
My hands stilled on the hood beneath which I hid my hair.
The words felt like an echo of my own thoughts, words I'd whispered countless times into the void of my quarters.
They were absolutely right.
And it was terrifying.
"What if…" Bodil's voice dropped to an even lower whisper. "What if he's here to help? With the beasts?"
"The beasts have always been here. We've learned to live with them," the woman said dismissively. But there was a tremor in her voice that betrayed her fear. It echoed mine as I thought of the Hundar that were coming this way, most likely ending up attacking this village. "We've learned to fight them. We don't need him or any of his kind. And you've better things to do than to dream of spoils in a war you'll never fight," she stopped, and I heard a heavy sigh fill the room. "Now, go fetch me water."
As I listened to their conversation, I felt a surge of shame.
Here I was, thinking I was a hero to the kingdom when the truth is these people wanted nothing to do with me or 'any of my kind', exactly as the innkeeper had called us. To the Court and the Crown, the Melig and me specifically, were commended for our work across the kingdom. We were seen as heroes. Warriors. Knights who strode in the night to protect the people. But to these people, the small, humble people who were utterly helpless in the face of the danger that lurked all around them, those who suffered the most from the beast's existence, we were nothing if not tales of people they did not believe in anymore, for the stories they'd heard had not ever done anything for them before. And more surprising than that, still, was how unexpected it was and how it stung me, that in the face of the harshness of their existence and the forgotten faith in a hero they'd never seen, they spit in my face while proudly admitting they relied on their own for protection.
"But, Ma —"
"Bodil, remember your place," she snapped suddenly. "You are merely a boy of the north and you've no business dreaming of the King's Slayer and his lot. Your duty is to your mother and your family, nothing more." Her voice was clipped and sharp like the edge of a knife, but there was also what sounded like a hint of resentment and pain lacing her words, as if she meant no harm through her words but needed their harshness to explain to her boy how the world was made of a reality he could not change instead of the dreams he wanted to be real. "Your wyrd is not to be a warrior. Your wyrd…" She sighed lengthily. "Is to live, Bodil."
"But —"
"Bodil!" She exclaimed and the sound of something heavy hitting wood startled me enough to make me step forward to get a closer look. "No more," she cut him off harshly. "That is the last I'd hear of this!"
Bodil's silence followed soon after.
The disappointment was palpable, even from where I was standing.
I understood his yearning all too well, the desire for a life beyond this village. It was a thirst that so many young boys had, that feeling of being enticed by tales of warriors and battles, of glory and honor. It was not an unknown reality to me. I'd seen it many times. Heard it many times in the voices of young men who begged to follow me into the war I fought so diligently. Most of them craved purpose. Direction. Something bigger than themselves to place their faith and sweat into.
And yet the harsh reality of life so often crushed those dreams.
I wavered at the door, torn between making my presence known and remaining hidden. But as the silence within the kitchen lengthened, I decided it would be best to keep my identity concealed for now. For the moment, these people didn't need the King's Slayer.
They just needed help.
"Bodil," the woman said again, but this time softer, filled with something that sounded a lot like regret.
There was no reply from the boy. Perhaps he had left to fetch water as instructed or maybe he stood there in stunned silence just like me outside the door.
It made me realize how much I'd been taking for granted lately. How much my status meant to me even when I said it didn't, and how little it could mean to others facing their own battles every day and winning them.
"I am sorry," she whispered kindly and the sound of chopping vegetables stopped as footsteps replaced it. "I know you dream of great things, but this world isn't safe enough for you to conquer the dreams you have. I've lost your brother and your father to this same dream… I'll not lose you, too."
"I know, Ma," the boy murmured in an uneven voice.
"I love you, my boy."
"I love you, too, Ma." Was the quick, unfiltered response.
"You'll leave not my side. Your place is here and the day will come when you'll understand it's not because I don't trust you that I don't let you fulfill your dreams," she continued and I moved to the crack between the door and the threshold into the kitchen, spying inside to see that the woman was hugging a much smaller boy, maybe aged thirteen or so, against her chest. "It's because I love you more than anything in this world. Too much to risk losing you," she said, her voice whispering in the silence, thick with emotions she barely held back. Her hands were tangled in his hair, holding him close to her as if afraid he would vanish if she released him.
It stung in the same way my wounds from the battlefield did.
A slow burn that threatened to consume everything, if not carefully handled.
"I understand, Ma." It was barely audible, muffled into her apron, and it made my heart ache in an unanticipated way. "I'm sorry."
As I watched them cling to each other, I felt a pang of something unusual, yet familiar.
I was envious of their love, their bond.
The way they found solace in each other reminded me of my mother before I destroyed her. Before my family broke apart. It reminded me of the way her arms used to feel around me as she cradled me to sleep after Father had spent the day drilling some political nonsense into me with his Visir. How many nights had I spent missing them, wondering if there was anything I could have done differently? Yearning for my mother's warm embrace or my brother's laughter? Yet here I was, hiding behind a door, unknown and unwanted.
A so-called hero who was anything but that.
A pang of realization struck me.
This anger— this resentment these people felt — wasn't due to the lack of my presence in their lives. It was because I had been here, and yet their lives hadn't improved as significantly as they'd believed it would. Their hopes were not met. Their dreams did not come to fruition. I was seen as a hero for fighting the beasts that terrorized them, yet I wasn't around when their crops failed, or their roofs leaked, or when sickness crept into their homes during the icy winters. And I wasn't around when their loved ones left in the middle of the night to hunt down horrific beasts and returned as nothing if not the bodies of who they'd once been.
I was here but my presence hadn't changed the outcome of what was before me, nor the tomorrow of what came after.
Their loved ones still died fighting the beasts. People who believed they could fight the beasts. People who were forced to grab their weapons and go out into the night to kill beasts because they had no other choice. People who believed in the protection of their savior, that he'd come to deliver the beasts to the fate they deserved while granting them the peace they deserved, but never did. People who couldn't afford to wait, and thought hope was too banal of a thing to waste their time on. They didn't know if they'd win. I guessed most of them knew they'd fail, but they still went, because they had others who relied on them. Because when I did show up, all I delivered was more loss. More pain. More death. I robbed them of more spouses and sons, who went to battle with me.
I was suddenly brought back to reality by the sound of Bodil's heart-wrenching sobs, muffled by his mother's embrace. I could feel their shared pain and uncertainty in every tear that fell. Yet, even through her choked voice, his mother offered reassurance.
Words that held both hope and fear.
For a future she knew nothing about. A future she'd seen unravel a thousand times before. A future she knew the end of.
But shied not away from.
I turned away from the door then, my heart heavy with a sense of helplessness that I wasn't used to feeling.
I'd slain hundreds of beasts single-handedly, faced impossible odds on the battlefield, and cared little about risking my life daily for people I didn't know. Yet here I was, unable to help a boy live a happy, full life, or ease his mother's worry.
Held helpless at the feeble frailty of human life.
As always.
But that was precisely where the problem lay, wasn't it? I'd been trained to fight battles, but life wasn't just about battles and wars. It was also about the constant struggle for survival against forces that were beyond huge beasts with razor-sharp claws and fangs.
Sometimes, they were as ordinary as the grief for a husband or a son.
Shit.
I needed to get out of here.
Before I could think better of it and second-guess myself, I retreated from the scene, edging away from the door with my heart pounding too hard in my chest. My footsteps weren't as silent as I wanted them to be because of my hastiness in getting out of the house. I still heard the innkeeper's voice as she and the boy spoke and footsteps resonated inside the house, but I ignored the sound, closing my eyes tight against the outside world that lay at the fringes of my senses. The sound of a door closing on the back of the house made me turn as I burst through the front door.
The boy.
Bodil closed the door behind him and descended the steps from the back porch with light speed, his feet barely making a sound as he descended with practiced ease, a bucket in his hands swaying to the rhythm of his pace.
He looked young, no more than thirteen winters, indeed. His hair was a tangled mess, sticking out in all directions. He was a bit tall for his age, but his limbs were skinny like long tree twigs. He wore simple clothes, a tunic, and breeches, that were worn and faded from countless days of work. Despite his apparent youth, there was a certain strength and resilience in his posture that hinted at the hardships he had faced in life.
Overall, he seemed like a determined young boy, not yet fully grown but already shouldering adult responsibilities.
I purposefully looked away as he ran to the fountain at the center of the village.
The brisk air hit me with a sharp coldness that made my emotions gather and settle like steel into a mold. A few shoddy snowflakes tumbled from the clouds, dissolving into nothingness before they hit the ground, a few hitting my face as I tilted it up to the sky. In the distance, the first rays of sunlight began to kiss the morning mist shrouding Hargard, casting a golden glow on the sleepy haven. My eyes scanned the horizon for any trace of movement, straying to the densely forested borders that surrounded the village as I took a sharp left to the dense darkness.
The village was eerily quiet. As the innkeeper had said, the people were always wary of the beasts but they learned to live with them in the meantime and found ways to fight them with whatever abilities they had, even through their fear.
They were stronger with their fear.
Not weaker because of it.
Wasn't that a beautiful thing?
I snorted, turning a bitter stare to the sky before I looked away, my eyes trailing over the people already moving about the village, preparing for the day ahead, most of them elders.
The boy had said that the elders had told him about me.
The King's Slayer, as they called me.
I was no more the King's than I was the kingdom's, but they didn't know that. All they knew were the stories they'd heard whispered around the bonfires, in the tales spun by the sound of a bard and the taste of good ale.
They knew a bit of what they'd heard and a little of what they'd seen.
Sadly, for me, the little they knew was enough for the stories to arise about the King's immortal Slayer, and while that realization might have taken a long time, it came anyway.
To my own downfall.
Subjected to that fate at an early age, I knew it would be a long time before it started to become noticeable that I didn't age. As a youthful young man, still apparently in my first twenty winters, from the very beginning, I knew it would take many winters before people started to gather that my skin gained no wrinkles, my hair showed no white and my body grew not wearier. I knew, however — better than most, perhaps —, that the time when people would start noticing inevitably would come, which would grant me the honor of being the talk of the kingdom for the first few winters, to the point when people would stop making jokes out my youthfulness and instead whispers would arise questioning my mortality and my place in the world.
This was a pathway I'd had early on expected, seen, and accepted.
A naturally-carved trail constructed by all that was assumed as part of human nature itself.
However, since I'd returned to Iselvheim and had restored my former place alongside the King, it was bound to become more and more noticeable. Before I left, whispers had already risen about me. People talked about my youth, my abilities, and my service to the King in whispers already, knowing and remembering much more than I could ever wish them to.
Partly, that'd been the reason I'd left, a few decades ago.
At the time, I'd been convinced a few decades away would do me, the King, and the people some good. The people would forget, eventually. The elders would grow older and many would die, and, hopefully, alongside them, so would the collective memory of my existence. The then-youthful King would stop assuming I was his do-it-all and, with a bit of luck, I would get the much-needed load of fresh air I needed so badly.
Sadly, two decades of working from a distance didn't seem to change much.
People remembered far longer than I'd thought. Many of the elders who'd known me and remembered me had indeed died, but they'd left their younger ones with the stories and legends of my existence and my service to the King.
Foolish of me to think any elder would die and not tell the tales of the King's Slayer.
Upon my return, whispers still rose wherever I went, which had made me wander far more in the shadows than I had expected to need to do. People recognized me even though a higher percentage of them had never seen me or ever even been in my presence at any point in their lives. Fingers rose and heads turned wherever I went.
For the most part, leaving and coming back twenty winters later seemed like an even bigger confirmation of all the people's assumptions.
And an even greater reason for rumors.
Bodil was proof of that.
I shrugged off these thoughts.
There'd been a time when that would have disturbed me. Maybe even unsettled me. In my early winters, I'd been far too committed to looking, sounding, and being as normal as anyone else, so the recognition and the whispers and the tales would have worried me. They would have made me try to dispel them as if I could somehow dissipate the fog on a cold, winter morning — which I knew wasn't possible. Of course, back in those days, I had one other secret that I'd, fortunately, stopped having to protect about two centuries ago, so I had focused much of my energy on worrying that the right person could say something they shouldn't and somehow upset all the work and effort I'd put into burying that secret in the ground. Back then, that alone had made me far more skittish about what people thought, said, or knew about me than it did now.
Now, I'd grown old of those worries.
Quite literally.
I'd grown far too much in the last few centuries to care about the attention or give the rumors any real concern. The only secret I wanted to keep had been buried a long time ago — along with whoever I had been back then and all the existing memories of that person. And whatever else people found out about me — whether true or not — didn't matter to me in the big scheme of things.
I had other things to worry about, right now.
Because the truth is there is this one particular thing about immortality people never really talk about.
How old it's made me feel over the winters.
I never expected immortality to make me feel so old when I was still technically so young. I'd expected some form of boredom derived from the fact of being shackled to the fate of undying life. As I'd guessed as soon as I'd been told of the wyrd that'd been handed to me, the winters weighed on me, emotionally and mentally, growing into a burden I was barely able to lift anymore.
After all, if living a hundred winters is lengthily arduous, imagine doing it for the rest of time.
I'd even been warned to not mistake the non-aging of my body with the stopping of time, and even though I'd heeded these warnings, the weight of them coming to pass didn't escape me all the same.
Time still passed — to all around me as well as myself.
My body simply didn't age with it.
The knowledge of the human mind was rooted deep within me now, as the winters had gone by and I'd seen all the facets of its kindness and monstrosity. In just the last decade, I'd seen more of humankind's facets than I'd ever seen or known about as a human. I'd seen good men sin and bad men beg for forgiveness. At this point, I was convinced I'd seen it all. Maybe too much, already. I'd seen tears, smiles, screams, crimes, strength, cowardice, stubbornness, loss, and miracles. Through the good and the bad, I'd been there, watching as the world around me gave me as many sorrows to grieve humanity for as well as miracles to be thankful for.
I'd never closed my eyes for any of it.
And some inner part of me knew that I wouldn't now, either.
I'd walked too far to close my eyes now and bury my head in the sand. I had too much to lose, now that I'd come this far and fought this hard. Good or bad, evil or not, the Children of Clay deserved an existence free of the beasts. They deserved a future without fear and strife.
I would fight to give them that.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the energy of my runes. My heart pounded against my ribs as an odd sensation of cold and hot washed over me at once. It was as if I could feel the presence of every living creature within miles, their footsteps, their breaths, and their substance. Lightning flashed through my blood, boiling within my veins, lighting my warding through the fabric of my clothes. Tingles sprouted all over my skin, my intuition zeroing in on the lands at the northeast where I could feel the tendrils of darkness reaching their fingers to me.
The Hundar pack.
I could feel them.
My feet carried me without thought, following well-trodden paths until I found myself at the outskirts of the village where the sounds of ordinary life melted into an endless stretch of silent pine forest.
As I crossed the entrance, my heart started to pound in my chest.
The tall pine trees were so dense that the shadow created by their swaying tops made the forest look shrouded in darkness, the sunlight struggling to get in. I kept to the shadows, trying to be as silent as possible. In the quietness of the forest, each rustle of leaves and snap of a twig had me on edge as I stepped around roots, jumped through fallen tree trunks, and moved around dense, overgrown plants.
Where the hell are you? Thora demanded in my mind.
The runes etched over my skin tingled —
The sound of deranged screams reached my ears.
Thora, stay away —
A shadow ran across my vision, the low growl filling my ears before I even saw it, the surprise cutting off the rest of my words. Paws trampled over the ground all around me, moving too fast to be human.
Up ahead, another scream filled the air.
Fuck.
The first Hundar ran around me, jumping over the shape of a round fern that'd grown to around my waist and coming around until he was growling behind me, his claws sinking into the ground, his paws moving restlessly as it prepared to attack. Countless others sprinted through my vision, rounding me in a circle.
I felt the air shift to my left —
My fist landed on the side of a Hundar's snout, smacking the creature to the ground with a yelp of pain. It shook its head, waving off the pain, before rising to its full height and facing me again.
I stared at the beast.
Saliva slipped over my skin, dripped from the Hundar's jaws. The beasts looked at me warily, their eyes glowing a dark shade of red around the black pupil, each of them aching to maul me.
They knew who I was.
And they were scared.
Hundar weren't the most gnarly looking of beasts, but they weren't pleasant to look at all the same. They were black-furred, four-legged beasts with the stance of wolves, who liked to eat human flesh above almost anything else. Their throat was surrounded by three sets of arched bones on each side, protecting their muzzle and chest, along with three more in their loin right after their front paws. Their snout was smaller than a regular dog's, weirdly flattened like a bulldog's, and their nostrils were wider than normal, giving them acute smell perception. They all had perked triangular ears that could move in a 180-degree external rotation, granting them sublime hearing, as well. Given their long legs and muscular build, they were also quite fast, with acute senses. They resembled a mix between a dog and a wolf, except they were slightly larger than a normal wolf, their height reaching taller than my waist.
I opened my senses, counting a total of six Hundar around me. I wasn't sure if they were hesitating simply because they could sense I wasn't human, or if they were holding back because they knew exactly what I was instead.
You senseless, foolish, reckless idiot! Thora yelled in my mind and I could sense her growing closer as she flew at break-neck speed. Do you have a death wish? How can you —
Thora, I can't fight if you're yelling in my head, I cut in, voice quietly calm as I let my senses trace the positions of each Hundar, my muscles preparing for a fight. You can feel me, right? Then, track me here so you can yell at me after I kill these Hundar.
You bet I'm going to yell, you idiot! She retorted angrily, but she didn't say anything further, masking her emotions so they wouldn't reach me, but not shrinking her presence completely. I could still feel her, watching everything that happened around me through my eyes, tracking me as she flew.
The Hundar directly in front of me lunged first.
It soared at me, its teeth bared and eyes filled with blood lust. I sidestepped it, bringing my foot down hard on its tail. It yelped and lashed out with a clawed paw, but I was faster, dodging the swipe and grabbing hold of the paw with both hands. There was a crack as I twisted it at an impossible angle to the side, and the Hundar's yelps turned into shrieks of pain.
Another Hundar leaped at me from behind, but I was ready for it.
Whirling around, I brought my fist straight into its snout. It crumpled to the ground with a whimper, its leap halted in mid-air by my blow. As it landed, I pressed a booted foot on its neck, pinning it down to the ground. It lashed out furiously at my legs with its claws, opening and closing its jaws as it strained to escape my hold, but I leaned down and lifted it by one of its hind legs before throwing it across the forest into the bark of a tree that shook and nearly broke in half.
The rest of the Hundar froze for a second, staring at me.
I didn't give them time to recover.
I launched myself into the air, my fists glowing blue with power. As another jumped to intercept me, I grabbed hold of its neck and watched as the lightning zapped through my skin into its form, burning through its fur until it reached its heart. The sound of the beast's whimper echoed around the forest before it fell into a pile of black ash at my feet.
The ground trembled beneath me as another Hundar lunged, its eyes flickering with a primal fury but equal determination. As it launched into the air, I twisted my body to avoid its fangs, spinning with an agility that belied my larger stature. As the Hundar soared by inches away from my chest, I leaned one of my arms down, adjusting my feet so I wouldn't lose my balance as I thrust my knee into its soft underbelly with a force that knocked it a few feet back, its form falling on the ground in a cloud of dust.
A growl rumbled through the forest as yet another Hundar stepped forward, undeterred by the fate of its brethren.
This one was bigger than the others, its coat matted with scars and old wounds that spoke volumes of previous battles. But there was something else in those menacing crimson eyes… intelligence.
It lunged without warning, closing the gap between us faster than expected. But instead of dodging like I had with the others, I stood still, letting it come closer until we were practically nose-to-nose.
And then I lifted my leg quick, blunt front kick as power sparked from my hands to seep into its fur. The energy surged through its body, causing it to arch unnaturally backward as an anguished howl escaped from its jaws. When it fell limp at my feet, panting heavily but still alive, I glanced at the remaining Hundar.
There was only one left.
It backed away slowly, retreating as it realized it couldn't win the fight. There was nowhere for it to run, but as I stared at its crimson eyes, I realized it didn't want to run. It accepted its fate and it was more than willing to die fighting. It didn't plead for mercy or ask for a retreat.
Because, truthfully, it knew mercy was never an option.
As it had never been for me.
In a swift second, it lunged at me at chest height —
I knelt on instinct, lowering myself so the beast went soaring above my head. Palming one of my daggers from the inside of my boot, I then raked the blade up until I felt it rip through soft tissue. A loud yelp came from above me and droplets of sál dripped through the blade and handle of the dagger until it was sliding over my skin.
I hissed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
As the Hundar jumped over me, the blade cut open its underbelly nearly all the way through, and as it landed on the ground with a thud, its legs moved restlessly as it emptied its bowls onto the forest floor, whimpering lowly, the sound of its pain not as sweet as I thought it would be.
And then it stopped moving altogether.
Jaw working, I rose to my feet, looking at the beasts lying in varying sizes of black sál around me.
Quickly, I cleaned the dagger with my cloak, ignoring the boiling pain in my hand from the contact with the beast's sál.
"Steel!" Voices called my name.
Screams echoed further ahead —
I was running before I could think.
I closed barely fifteen yards in a run when the figures of four soldiers solidified in an open clearing ahead circled by the remaining Hundar. Assuming that Ahya's vision had been right and there had been a pack of about twenty Hundar, subtracting the ones I'd just killed, there should be fourteen here. But from the ones I could count, there were only ten. Maybe the soldiers had killed a few of them already.
I shook my head.
Human or not, mercenaries or not, these humans were fairly more skilled than I'd anticipated.
My heart pounded.
Under the sunlight streaming in from above the tree canopies, they looked ragged, clothes dusty and torn, drenched in sweat, despite the chilly weather. Most of them were covered in blood, although I could see that their armor was also stained with black.
Kneeling, I took out my other dagger from my boot.
And then I was moving.
My body moved recklessly, propelled by the rhythm of battle. I broke into the clearing, my hands aching to throw knives almost instantly.
I aimed with my left hand and threw the first dagger.
One Hundar fell with a surprised yelp as my dagger embedded itself in its thick neck. The others snarled and spun around at their sudden loss, falling into a frenzied panic that made them momentarily forget their human opponents.
Several soldiers took advantage of the distraction, lunging forward with their blades to finish off the surprised creatures.
I weaved through the chaos, every step taken with deliberate precision. I darted past one of the soldiers, my blade finding its way into a Hundar's flank before drawing it out again with a spurt of black Sál.
I needed these daggers.
I'd left my weapons back at the inn.
"Steel!" A voice yelled from behind me.
I turned and saw that one of the soldiers was backing away from an advancing Hundar. His spear was twisted in his hands, his movements too shaky to aim properly.
Without thinking I palmed the second dagger, twirled it in my palm, and sent it flying. It struck its mark, slicing through the air until it embedded itself in the creature's eye with a sickening squelch. As the creature went down in a writhing heap, I saw movement behind it and the lightning-blue flash of my sword glowing among the four figures running straight at us made a sigh of relief wash over me.
A steel arrow flew by my chest, striking a Hundar prowling my way —
"You're welcome!" Ahya yelled at me.
"No time for pleasantries!" I yelled back, my gaze meeting hers briefly before snapping back to the oncoming threat.
With a daring leap, I tackled the wounded Hundar to the ground, our bodies colliding in midair. I stood up, ignoring the burning pain in my shoulder as ichor seeped through my shirt. The beast writhed beneath me, its claws scraping against my chest as it tried to get free.
Ahya's arrow had bought me a precious few seconds.
I twisted the arrow out of its side, and with a swift downward thrust, plunged it into the creature's heart. It shrieked and convulsed one last time before falling limp beneath me.
As I straightened, I spotted another soldier cornered by a Hundar. He was young, barely a man, and his eyes reflected pure terror —
"Steel, catch!" Theron's voice bellowed.
I turned just in time to see my sword soar through the air toward me. I put out a hand and gripped the hilt with strength, lifting the weapon in front of me as it immediately lit up lightning-blue in my grip, recognizing me as much as I recognized it.
Swinging my blade in my hand a few times to test out the weight I knew so well, I charged towards the Hundar without hesitation. I made it just in time, swinging a powerful kick into its side and flinging it to the ground. It snarled and fought to get back to its feet, snapping its jaws, but I drove my blade through its flank, silencing its hisses.
I saw Kozun and Jasiel cornering another Hundar, while Theron put his sword through another chest, and, not too far behind, Ahya pointed an arrow at another's heart.
There were only two more —
The snickering, sniveling sound of the Kött should have warned me, but it was too late.
I turned —
It pounced.
I didn't have time to move out of the way, duck, or even raise my sword. It struck with perfect aim at the forearm of my wielding side, making the steel drop to the ground with a metallic rumble. Its teeth snapped around my arm, robbing a strangled scream out of me that echoed all around the clearing, making the skies groan with lightning. I heard the snap of the bone as it closed its teeth around my flesh, its weight smacking me right on the chest as its momentum made it hard to stop in front of me.
We fell in a heap of fur and ichor.
It lifted its fangs from my arm, raising its snout to look at me. Its breath stank of decay as it snarled into my face. Its weight was unbearable and with my right hand incapacitated and my sword dropped off a few feet away, a proper sword-fight wasn't exactly the best option I had, even if I could wield it perfectly with my left hand.
The Kött looked exactly as I expected it to.
It had gray fur, spotted along the chest and loin, and a sizable mane on top of its neck. Its snout was shaped like a triangle, with strong lower jaws and sharp teeth, both intended to do exactly what it'd done to my arm. Break bones. Its hind legs were slightly smaller than the front ones, with a small hip as well that swooped into larger shoulders and a strong neck for head support since its muzzle and jaws are the strongest parts of its body. Its ears were rounded, moving slowly as it tracked the movement around the clearing.
With all the strength I could muster, I swung my free arm at the beast, slamming my elbow into its snout.
The Kött recoiled, loosening its grip on me for a moment.
That was all I needed.
Gritting my teeth against the throbbing agony in my wrist, I rolled out from under it and attempted to scramble to my feet. But the Kött wasn't done with me yet. It lunged again just as I managed to half-stand, its momentum knocking me back to the ground. Our bodies thrashed in a chaotic dance of the fight. Finally, I managed to shove a knee between us underneath its broad shoulders, using the leverage to wrestle myself from underneath it.
Visibility was low under the now stormy sky, but I could just make out the others all locked in combat with Hundar.
It was just me and the Kött.
Just die, sniveling beast.
Lightning thrummed in my veins, ready to snap.
The Kött stared at me through fiery eyes, struggling against my knee, trying to thrust its jaws down to clamp them around any vital part he could reach —
A shadow moved to my left.
A caw sounded right before Thora dove in, her shape a barely discernible black blur, right before she was morphing mid-air, blinding blue light encasing her body as it elongated and changed until she resembled a wolf of her own, all black with lightning-blue stripes exactly like her crow form did when she drew power from me. The blue stripes started at her snout and elongated in a weird shape around each of her sides and directly over the top of her head, all the way to her tail.
I'd only ever seen Thora morph once.
She only did it when she was protecting me. And the only other time she'd done it, I'd nearly died. So had she. While morphing was a common ability of the Skera, it took a great amount of strength and power to do so. Usually, she'd draw from me to do it, using very little of her own power to not over-exert herself, but still, it was extremely dangerous. She'd never risk doing it if it wasn't a last resort.
Or if she was really angry.
Without wings, her frame descended as she flung her body at the Kött still nearly sitting on top of me. As it tried to reach for me, its claws snagged me on the sides, but the teeth that I was worried about remained safely away from my skin. Thora landed gracefully on the ground and, not wasting any time, lunged straight for the Kött's throat, throwing it off me with her weight. The two rolled on the ground for a few seconds before Thora gained the upper hand, working to pin the Kött down even as it fought her with all its might.
Hold him there, I told her.
I'm going to rip you to shreds when we get out of here, she snarled back.
Me?
Ignoring the promise, I rolled and came to my feet, ignoring all the aching pains in my body, running the distance separating me from my sword and skidding on the ground to grab it.
Just hold that thought, I retorted breathlessly.
I launched from the ground back toward Thora, who now had the Kött pinned beneath her large, black frame, her front paws secured on top of the beast's head and loin while her teeth were tightly thrust into its jugular, making a steady river of black resin fall on the ground. The beast's claws dug holes in the ground as it tried to fight Thora off.
But she held on.
Are you going to kill it anytime soon?
I'm —
Beheading sounds good to me, if you're taking requests, she interrupted sadistically and I could feel her bloodthirsty need for revenge as she held the Kött down. I won't take any chances. I want it dead, so those damn teeth can't come anywhere near you again.
A warmth spread over my chest.
Seconds after, my sword was falling on the neck of the Kött beast. A single yelp later, the head was severed from the body, sál pooling on the ground.
Thora stepped back, staring down at the Kött's body with revulsion, sál dripping from her jaws, barely discernible with the jet-black color of her fur. Well, I am never doing that again. She stepped back, her tongue slithering in and out of her mouth as if she'd swallowed sand. That has to be the most disgusting thing I've ever done in my life.
I rolled my eyes. Drama queen, I sighed.
She rounded on me, her eyes so blue and her stance so menacing I was actually a little afraid of her. We will talk about this later, you reckless —
Her head snapped to the side as the sound of footsteps came from our left, interrupting herself.
A growl erupted from her.
One of the soldiers, the only surviving one, it seemed, was headed in our direction, followed by Theron, Kozun, Jasiel, and Ahya, who circled him like he was prey and they were seizing their opportunity to strike him dead. Thora growled menacingly as she angled her body to step in front of me, though she was half my size and knew I didn't need her protection. The fur on her back stood as she dug her claws in, ready to maul her way through him if it meant protecting me.
He came even closer, but stopped before us, driving Thora to lift her snout in surprise, the growl emanating from her throat growing silent. "We were followed…" The man gasped as he could barely keep his balance, swaying like a leaf on his feet and I noticed that he was covered in blood almost from head to toe. "Came out of nowhere… attacked… all dead."
Thora stepped out of the way.
And then the soldier collapsed right at my feet, forcing Kozun to rush to his aid as I was entirely too awestruck and exhausted to do much of anything.