Everyone always asks what the greatest weapon I have wielded is. The God Cleaver, Last Dance of Shadows, Ol’ Bessy here. I’ve met more crafters than I can remember and received gifts of every variety. Even the mythical beasts I have faced have been forged into weapons.
I’ve always given the same answer though; the best weapon is the one you’re familiar with. ‘A blade in the hand is worth three in the sheath’ as my Da used to say. Truthfully though, I think I was wrong.
The greatest weapon I have ever wielded is desperation.
- Words of Markuth Breeze-Born, as recorded by Archivist Al’Rizan of the Sons of Ash
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It was a familiar sound, one engrained so deeply into my very soul that I felt the reverberations travel down my spine, shaking me to my core. I was frozen for a moment, brought back to my very first night in this world, staring down the baleful gaze of a creature out for my blood.
Something within me bristled at the fear though, and I felt my pathbound skill unfurl its metaphorical wings, the constellation in my soul-space beginning to spin once more, siphoning mana from my core without my conscious prompting and activating with a howl of its own.
In an instant my mouth was filled with saliva, my hands were prickling, and blood was shunted to my muscles, priming me for a fight. Along with the bewildering swirl of sensations, my mind kicked back into gear and I sat up, swivelling this way and that to find the source of the noise.
A pair of yellow eyes stared back at me from meters away, unmoving. I swallowed thickly. The eyes were far above me, surely at least shoulder height when I was standing – this was not a simple Tarkenzi like I had faced before.
I slowly stood, turning side-on to the creature, angling my body so that I was ready for a charge, but giving myself the opportunity to confirm there was nothing sneaking up behind me as I did. This may be a different beast than I’d faced before, but so was I a different man.
The manacles binding my hands clanked against the thick iron bar that held them together, and the chains leading from each wrist to the central plate tinkled with my shaking arms. I felt the central chain grow taught as I stood, keeping me from moving any further from the tree that it was wrapped around and secured to by a thick metal piton driven through the links.
I thought to myself that panic would be a fairly appropriate response right now – chained and manacled, without a weapon or armour, facing down a wolf nearly as tall at the shoulder as I was and likely twice as heavy. Strangely though, I was glad for it.
Not only did the heavy iron plate serve as some sort of shield for me, and possibly even a weapon if I put some oomph into a swing, but the coming fight was something to struggle against. I’d asked for this had I not? Intercession by some wandering beast? Ideally it would have attacked one of the others, but I suppose I did look to be the weakest of the herd.
Another growl, saliva dripping from curled lips, glistening fangs contrasting with the dark of night in the dull light of the embers. I heard a muffled thump from across the camp where Sven was on watch, followed by a wet tearing sound, and I looked back to see a massive shadow slam into one of the tents.
Instantly I knew I’d made a mistake and dived to the side. I felt the rush of air displaced above my head from the wolf’s charge and heard a snapping of heavy jaws. Landing, I rolled to my back and managed to bring my arms - and the plate on the end of them - up above me. An impact rocked me as paws hit my shoulders, and I flinched as saliva dripped onto my cheek.
The lupine body atop me was strangely light, and I was surprised to find myself able to keep the jaws from my throat. I pushed back against the wolf above, straining through gritted teeth as it bore down, but with each heartbeat, I saw it moving further away, inch by inch.
Teeth, clamped around the iron bar connecting my wrists, scrabbled for purchase and scraped against metal. Something changed suddenly, and I felt mana flood the air. The wolf’s jaws bunched, and with a flash of silver light and a squeal of tortured metal, those teeth sheared through my restraints.
The creature lifted its head, shaking from side to side to dislodge the heavy plate before finally throwing it into the bushes and focusing back on the man pinned below it. Unfortunately, its distraction had given me enough time to reorient myself, and as it moved to lunge towards my face, I slammed both wrists together around its neck. Jagged metal cut into pelt and then flesh, and I roared as I strained, shrimping my body to the side and yanking with all my strength to drive the creature off me and to the ground.
An explosion of fire and sound lit up the night from my right, engulfing the tent that I’d seen the shadows fall into, and the figure of Sven appeared, wreathed in fire and bellowing a war-cry as he threw the body of another massive wolf over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Something whistled over my head, and I heard the sickening smack of rock against flesh. Turning, I saw the wolf that I’d wrestled with curling around its now ruined hip, mewling weakly, a heavy stone larger than my head lying cracked on the ground next to it.
“Boy! Get back to the cage! Rank will protect you.” Francis’s deep voice boomed across the camp. I turned to see the powerful warrior and leader of the group swing his axe one handed, thudding into the body of another shadowy wolf that was lifted off its feet with the impact. Its yelp was lost in a maelstrom of noise as snarls and grunts mixed together with the crackling of fire.
He looked back at me, gesturing wildly to the iron cage, metal door propped invitingly open. Rank was making his way over, Rib-Kicker not far behind him, both fighting through the burning detritus of the camp that Sven had set alight, and at least four of the shadow-wolves, all lunging with silver jaws bared wide.
Rib-Kicker was closest after slipping past one wolf and braining another with his mace, and he beckoned me over. I stared in shock for a moment, wondering why in all the world he would ever expect me to voluntarily come with him, but then I heard a much lower growl behind me.
It felt like it shouldn’t have been audible, shaking the ground I stood on ever so slightly. If I thought I’d heard the first growl in my spine, this one set my entire skeleton to tingling. I turned again to see a dozen sets of yellow eyes blazing from the underbrush, and two sets far higher than the others. I wondered at first if a couple of wolves had leapt into the lower branches of the pine trees surrounding us.
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It wasn’t until I saw a shoulder emerge from the darkness, brushing against a trunk as thick around as my entire torso, and the trunk was pushed aside, did I realise I was in fact looking at a simply enormous wolf. It had to be at least 12 foot high as it padded forwards, and where its brothers were pitch black, this one looked to suck in all surrounding light, its fur glossy with darkness. Shadows dripped from its open jaw as it pounded the earth with its front foot, and I felt a hand grab my shoulder, pulling me backwards.
I flinched and looked around again, seeing Sven pulling me away while Rib-Kicker hefted his mace and took position in front of me, stepping backwards slowly – careful to keep his weight evenly distributed to avoid being caught flat-footed if the massive beast charged.
I was still trying to process things – it was one thing to know that creatures far more powerful and magical existed in the world, but another thing entirely to stand face to face with one. To witness something so frankly awe-inspiring, it shifted my perspective of what was possible yet again. If a wolf could grow to be so fucking massive, what could I achieve?
Not much trapped in a cage, that’s for sure. I allowed Sven to lead me back through the camp, backing away the whole time. I did idly wonder what was keeping them back at all. Sure, we could likely all take a few of those smaller wolves, especially when fully armed and armoured, but all the weapons in the world wouldn’t give me much faith in Sven, Rank, Rib-Kicker or myself for that matter when faced with the titanic wolf of shadow.
Turning again to look behind, I saw Francis standing utterly still, staring straight at the edge of the tree-line where I knew the two massive wolves still waited. He looked calm, despite the obvious chaos surrounding him, and I had absolute certainty in that moment that my threat assessment for him had been way off. 2nd tier at least. If he was able to give those creatures pause with his mere presence, I wasn’t keen to imagine what he was capable of if truly roused to fury.
But then there must have been a reason he wasn’t intervening himself as well. If he felt confident in slaying them without endangering himself, his men, or his captive, then I’m sure he would be in there with his axe already. A stalemate then, and one I would not be able to take advantage of much longer.
I hardened my heart, resigning myself to a bitter flight through the trees and then probably death by wolf. At least it’d be on my own terms though. A bitter thought honestly. I hardly had a story as inspiring as that of the Hero of Altine, no reason to be remembered by much of anyone. Was there much point risking death for this? Fuck it though, I wasn’t getting back in that cage.
At that moment, I tripped. Cloven-Hooved ensured I caught myself before actually falling, and all Sven saw was a brief shuffle of my feet, but that near-fall was enough to drag my attention to the floor. Rather than a tent-pole or log from the fire like I expected, I saw a dull metallic glow, firelight reflecting from a copper rod.
My mind struggled for a few moments, trying to categorise the sight as some sort of cooking pot or the like, before I felt the recognition sweep through me. The smooth wood, studded copper along the haft and a lanceolate blade at one end – my spear. Without taking any more time to think, I shrugged Sven’s hand off my shoulder, ducked to the floor and grabbed the spear in hand. I stepped sideways even as my other arm searched the ground for the shield beside it, before my fingers grabbed the metal edge. I pulsed my mana, feeling two artifacts shine in my soul, as the connection between us snapped into place.
“Wha-?”
I heard Sven turn but ignored it, pushing off the floor and bursting into a sprint, body low and aiming directly at the back of Rib-Kicker. Francis’s voice followed me, and the fury within was almost enough to make me reconsider.
“Boy! Don’t y-“
Almost. I continued on in a frantic sprint, but the call was enough to alert Rib-Kicker, who turned in time to take in the scene. With no more than a few meters between us, I saw him react with commendable speed, raising his mace in a sideways swing to knock aside my spear as it sliced towards his neck.
It was an impressive reaction, speaking to a familiarity with violence that was probably to be expected from what I knew of the sadistic prick, but still took me by surprise. I could see the satisfaction in his eyes as he realised his mace would intercept my spear-tip when it was only inches from his throat, and I knew he was already imagining the beating he would give me after he’d subdued me.
Unfortunately for him I had planned ahead, and mana was already surging across the link between me and the spear. There was a thunk! as the internal gearing within the haft of the weapon was activated by the mana through the artifact link, and another foot of metal behind the blade shot forwards, delivering the leaf-shaped blade straight into his neck. It emerged from the other side of his body in time for the shaft to be hit by the heavy mace in his hand, smashing the blade to the right and near-enough severing his entire neck through.
I barrelled into him only a heartbeat later, wrapping an arm around his waist and driving upwards, carrying his almost-headless body on one shoulder, shield pinned against his back and spear jumping in my right arm as it pumped back and forth as I sprinted towards the trees.
I heard a bellowing snarl from somewhere in front, and the pattering of small feet on the forest floor. I had no time to form a coherent plan, no complicated string of actions that would intertwine to create a masterfully predicted outcome. Instead, I did what I do best; made a series of uninformed, likely stupid, and objectively sub-optimal decisions in the heat of the moment, and fell from one bad situation right into another.
I roared a challenge, leaning on the domain of Indomitable Prey to hopefully make the smaller wolves hesitate before leaping at me. At the same time, I threw the increasingly limp body of the virtually decapitated Rib-Kicker into the air above me and dove forwards in a low roll. There was a nauseating crunch as a pair of jaws larger than my entire body slammed shut on the corpse above, and I saw in slow motion a pair of massive paws hit the earth to either side of me.
I activated check-step and the heightened reactivity it supplied allowed me to roll back to my feet underneath the belly of the creature. The thought briefly flashed through my mind that if I wanted to kill it, now would be the best time, as a spear to the gut would no doubt be a crippling wound, even for one of such stature. Luckily, better sense prevailed, as I prioritised appropriately and dashed out from beneath it and into the woods behind.
A weight slammed into me from the left and I was knocked to the floor, breath driven from my lungs. Another snarling snout greeted me, surging over the lip of my shield to bite at my exposed throat. I jerked my shoulder up in response and leaned back, buying myself enough space to survive to the next breath.
It was all I needed. Another surge of mana through the link to my second artifact and the top segment of the shield, currently supporting the neck and one of the front paws of the wolf that was clamouring to rip my throat out, abruptly retracted back into the centre of the shield. The wolf’s momentum forced it to fall down between the two segments on either side, and even as it made to surge forwards, I wrenched to the side, rolling my body around and over to mount it, with my shield bearing down on its neck to press its face to the earth. Three quick, heavy blows from my fist shattered its skull, and I pushed off into the night, heart pounding a furious rhythm.
I tried to ignore the ringing in my mind, the first system messages I’d received in what felt like months, as I ran flat out through the trees, no particular destination in mind other than away. Away from the thuds of steel on flesh, away from the roar of titanic wolves and unbeatable warriors, away from the smell of burning fabric and blood and shit. Away from the fighting. Away from everything.
I sprinted through the forest, weaving past trees, hurdling over moss-covered rocks, ignoring the wondrous sights of fluorescent mushrooms, enormous trees and lush hanging vines. Slowly, as I scrambled up steep rock faces and leapt from shelf to shelf, as I crested hills and slid through ravines, I began to calm.
Long ago had I stopped hearing any signs of the fight, and if I’d turned to look back, I would have seen the smoke distant on the horizon. Instead, I kept running, heedless of the world behind.