Kishirra winced as her ribs howled in pain – but she was used to pain. She understood that kind of ache, she knew how to deal with it.

Just like how she knew that when it came to Chalkers slithering out of their holes, a good hit was all you needed.

“Do not tell me you are surprised,” she said stepping away from the corpse and aiming her weapon at the other three, who now waved back and forth like pale ill trees, their arms stretched out, who knows if to defend themselves or to attack her. “I leave for just a while, and you take that as a chance to do how you please?”

The Chalkers did not reply, but then again she wasn’t talking to them.

The pale beasts shrieked and assaulted her, charging towards her smaller ad apparently weaker form.

Her brigandine was under repair after all.

As the closest one lunged, she stepped back and turned on herself, sending her poleaxe’s hammerhead right into its chest, cracking it open like a walnut. Another burst of powder and stringy goo bubbled out of the beast as it fell on its back, twitching madly on the gravel, spilling its white guts all over. Some fell over her shirt and her arms, but she did not care. Not when the other two tried to take her at the flanks.

She slashed at the one to the left with the pointed end of her weapon, but this one was quicker – it withdrew, hissing, just as the other one scuttled behind her to strike her where she couldn’t see.

Kishirra rolled to the side and raised her open hand.

“Sìccome stella…” she began to chant in the language of the Holy Land, as her palm glowed golden, casting shadows all about her and the monsters. For a moment, it was as if she had pulled the Sun back onto the palm of her hand as a golden circle flashed brighter and brighter, and then… “... fiamma!”

The burst of searing light sent the shadows rippling all over as the Chalker shrieked in pain, the entire front of its body blasted asunder by the Sanctioned burst. Kishirra turned and thrusted her weapon straight in the body of the last one, who was trashing on the gravel, covering its eyes like it would have under the midday Sun.

The backlash of the exploding body hit her as well. Coughing and sputtering, Kishirra fell on her knees, still holding the glass shaft of her poleaxe between her arms, like a lifeline.

Her golden pendant seemed to hum against her chest as a little bit of its holy Sanction flew into her tired arms. She pulled her weapon back, trying to see if there were any more who she missed, but you could say Ansàrra shone on her luck tonight.

She sat on a nearby rock as the bodies of the Chalkers began to decompose, their human-like shapes giving way to shadowy outlines made out of goo and powder. She cleaned off what she could out of her arms.

It was just a small group this time. A far cry from the sixteen she had to dispatch just a few days before.

She turned to gaze at the slopes, the shores and the sleeping town.

Looking at it from here, it truly seemed like a place that could exist in a fairy-tale: the peaceful settlement on the beautiful vast lake, its industrious and honest inhabitants living their lives.

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Living at just a few hours away from things that would eat their hearts and drink their blood if it wasn’t for her vigil. But in moments like these, as the glowing silver ring mirrored itself in the lacuna and Bùrian’s windmills gently turned under the breeze, she felt like her duty was not pointless, thankless as it was.

What would change if they knew about what she was doing, anyway? She had seen it before – Men and their ilk were craven creatures. They would tear each other apart. Or worse: some of them could even think they could profit from this situation and from her Duty, and the peaceful town’s life would get upturned forever.

No, she preferred them ignorant and blissful. Kishirra raised a hand as the aching from her Sanction slowly left her body and she cupped the town’s outline in her palm – it was like she could hold it.

They would never see her as anything but the brooding Elf who somehow, for some reason, had become a Knight of Madua and sometimes came back to ask for supplies or to have her armour repaired.

If she was lucky, she would never amount to anything else.

It was better if she did on her own, without relying on anyone else and anything but her faith.

Doesn’t it feel good? To play the role of the heroine? Asked a smoky female voice, raising from the spilled blood of the Chalkers, carried by the wind with the foul dark wisps.

Kishirra snorted and shook her head.

“You can save your words.”

The voice laughed, and the echoes of its mirth echoed between the empty hills, while the last remnants of the Chalkers it had raised turned into vaguely-human stains of pale powder.

But can you save those who do not care for you?

“I said I do not want to listen to you right now,” she replied, pulling out the symbol of Ansàrra and raising it into the night air. The tiny sun seemed to glint gold even against the dark sky. “I already made my actions speak far louder than my words. The other night, in case you did forget.”

When she had dispatched sixteen of those things – she had yet to see so many of them.

The four she had taken care of had been most likely held in reserve. The foul Will behind the Chalkers needed time to fashion them, and Kishirra had learned that it took about ten days to make one of her puppets.

She could take a breather, for the foreseeable future.

Or at least that was what she could hope for.

You spend so much of yourself, the voice said – a ghostly touch reached for her cheek and Kishirra whipped her head away, aiming the symbol right in front of her. Wonder to what end. To whose benefit.

“I said leave.” Kishirra held up her hand, threatening the voice with another of her Sanctions.

The presence waned, the only sound was the wind brushing the willows and her own laboured breaths.

Such manners. I am curious about what would happen when they find out why you waste so much of your effort… such a noble Knight. With such noble goals.

Kishirra snarled – but there was no rebuttal.

The voice had left her alone – alone, with a sting right into her heart.

Starless night, she couldn’t let it get to her. She has a duty to fulfil, and she was doing this for reasons that the being hiding under the hills would never understand.

Besides, there was someone who did seem to care about her.

That Mannish girl in the workshop.

Since the first time Kishirra had seen her, she had noticed something weird about her. It was as if she belonged here and at the same time, she was a long-lost traveller.

Maybe she was just a young woman a little more out of tune than the others.

She couldn’t expect her to be any different.

“I’m her best customer,” she muttered, drawing the symbol to her chest, trying to gather a little bit of warmth from the gesture and knowing that Ansàrra was there for her at any moment. She had even shared her precious healing lilythorns with her.

That made her feel a little better – the warmth of her faith burning from the deep embers of her soul. When the time came, Ansàrra would take her, and she would escape the cycle.

Nothing else mattered. She did not deserve any thanks for something she was doing just for herself.

So selfish.

In that, the voice was right. She was a terribly self-focused person.

Even then, the thought of seeing that girl again… it did comfort her a little bit more.

She had even given her that seed – which had allowed her to be here in time, to fulfil her duty once again. So maybe not all was bad.

Her faith was a bonfire, and that girl’s smile… a small candle.

But it burned for her alone.