“What’s the second lesson?” Sal asked.

Looking back at her, Linara was struck by a brief sense of guilt. Yesterday, they left the city at sundown, as Linara had planned. In the middle of the night, the two took a short break, and Linara shared some of the provisions she had with the girl before continuing the journey. The sun was rising now, and she hadn’t allowed her new apprentice to truly sleep. Yet despite all of that, the young woman still walked, legs shaking, sheathed sword on her belt, pack of miscellaneous things on her back.

“Do you know what happens after you are forced to travel at random notice?” Linara asked, coming to a stop.

Taking a few extra steps, Sal came to a stop beside Linara, leaning over, hands on her knees. “Ah, you get to lay down and sleep? Please tell me that’s the answer.”

Linara smiled. The guilt was short lived because she had given Sal the option to stay with Rella. “Unfortunately, no. The sun is setting and the alarm is raised. The enemy was sighted. Everyone has to get their gear and head out immediately. Half a day’s march later, with no sleep, they encounter the enemy. Stand and draw your weapon.”

“What?”

Linara stepped away from Sal, taking a distance three paces away, holding her spear in both hands. “The first lesson is that duty doesn’t have a schedule. You must be ready to march or fight at any time. You’ve only done the first part of that. You need to do the second before I can teach you the second lesson.”

The half-smile on her face shifted first to shock, then horror, then resignation. Dropping her bag and taking up a fighting stance, Sal drew her sword. The weapon caught Linara’s eye.Wide and curved, with a single edge, the flat side had a series of metal rings loosely attached. As Sal assumed her stance, the rings rattled, clanging loudly against the back of the blade.

Ignoring the confusing loudness of the weapon, Linara nodded to Sal. “Try your best to hit me.”

Deprived of sleep, exhausted from the march, her legs shaking, Sal yelled, rushing forward, her sword held high. She swung at Linara to a clattering of metal rings, only for her weapon to slide through air as Linara stepped to the side. As Sal stumbled forward with the momentum of her attack, Linara tapped her on the back, right between the shoulders. Spinning around, Sal came at Linara again, this time with a horizontal slash. Catching the strike on her spear, Linara raised an eyebrow at the force of the blow. Sal was short and skinny, and the attack carried far more force than Linara would have expected. Stepping back, Sal panted heavily, looking at Linara through her bangs.

“Is that it, Sal?”

Closing her eyes, the young woman stood upright, taking a deep breath before meeting Linara’s gaze. With renewed motivation, she presented her side as she faced Linara, raising one foot and holding her sword over her head, one hand extended forward. Raising an eyebrow, Linara waited for an attack.

Sal slid forward, putting her raised foot down as she moved, loudly, but smoothly, flicking her sword down and cutting upwards from below, a flowing strike aimed at Linara’s legs. The movement was precise, but slow, and as Linara intercepted it, she found it lacked the same force as Sal’s second attempt. This time, Linara pushed back, knocking the girl off balance and sending her into the grass.

“That’ll be enough. Let’s rest.”

Without moving, Sal muttered her thanks, entirely spent.

Over the next four days, Linara learned a lot about both Sal, and herself.

The young woman possessed good eyes. If Linara showed her a stance, the girl was able to copy it almost perfectly just from seeing it. This applied to movements, as well. This explained everything wrong with her fighting style.

Sal copied movements without understanding them. A stance, a strike, a parry. Her form was perfect, but she used the wrong things at the wrong times, and to make matters worse the wrong moves for her unusual weapon. Wielding it herself, Linara was momentarily shocked at how heavy the blade was for its size. The rings she had thought were for decoration and noise carried a good deal of weight, and as they all shifted during a swing, moved the weight further away from the wielder’s hand, adding power to the cut.

The flowing movements that Sal used did not lend themselves to such a heavy weapon. The girl was very practiced in them, and Linara figured that she must have spent a lot of time observing someone who used the style, given how many different forms Sal was able to use, and her ability to move from one to the next.

Teaching Sal did not remind Linara of teaching Senral. Not in the slightest. Her hesitation over the fear of reliving those memories seemed laughable. Sal was skilled, eager to learn, and quick to pick up on anything, but her ability to apply what she was taught properly was a mess. Making her do her favorite forms bare-handed, or even holding Linara’s knife, demonstrated to both of them the speed and flexibility of the fighting style, but Sal was oddly attached to her weapon. Asking her to replicate the attacks of Linara’s final opponent from the tournament, Linara felt she demonstrated how much stronger the weapon was when used with a more simple, straightforward style, but Sal stubbornly objected, claiming that despite her ability to perfectly replicate the motions, they ‘didn’t feel right.’

Despite it all, Linara felt the girl was making progress. She had to limit herself heavily, and give Sal clear signs of when she would be aggressive, or when she was waiting for Sal to expose herself with a poorly thought out attack, but Sal started to read Linara’s posture to an extent, and was slowly starting to make better choices about which of her surprisingly massive collection of memorized moves would allow her to take the upper hand in each scenario.

“Wait.” Sal spoke up on the fifth day as they walked in the fading light of the sunset. “Have you been on this road before?”

“No, not this specific one. Why?”

“I heard of something, and it should be near here. I want to look at it. It shouldn’t take very long, if it’s real at all.”

Nodding, Linara followed as Sal took the lead, continuing to follow the road for some time before finding a path leading off to the side, up a hill. The grass wasn’t entirely trampled flat, but had the obvious sign of being walked on by the occasional passerby. Following the trail, the two of them walked up the hill, around an outcrop of bushes, to find the object Sal sought.

A statue, slightly taller than Linara, overgrown with vines, stood where it would have looked down on the main road, if not for the hedges that blocked the view. Carved from stone, the man stood, resting the hilt of his sword on his shoulder. Linara wasn’t sure how long the weapon was supposed to be, because the upper part had fallen off, the stub sticking out slightly on the other side of the statue’s head. His other hand was over his eyes, to shade them from the sun as he stared intently at the bush in front of him.

“Neat!” Sal exclaimed, jogging over to the statue. “People call it The Watcher, a statue of a great warrior from thousands of years ago. I thought they were joking, but it looks that old.”

Frowning, Linara stepped forward to take a closer look at the statue. A lot of features were worn away, or never there to begin with. The face was mostly blank, with only two notable indents for eyes and a small stub where the nose should be, with no sign of a mouth. If The Watcher was supposed to be wearing armor or just regular clothes, Linara couldn’t tell.

The hilt of the sword, however, was not made only of stone. The stone took on the basic shape of a hilt and the base of the blade, but the crossguard was made of metal. Something about it drew Linara in, and she stood on the tips of her toes to get a closer look, not wanting to touch the ancient statue. The metal of the crossguard was not rusted black with age, but made from black, Hatharen metal. Just like her dagger.

The other oddity were the spikes on the crossguard, also fashioned from metal. Linara had seen those same kind of spikes before. On Ferene’s sword.

“What else do you know about this statue? Why is it here? Who made it?”

“Probably made by whoever lived down there.” Sal said, pointing behind the statue.

Her hand simply pointed at the hill. “Down where?” Linara asked.

“Uh, I’m told there’s an old abandoned building behind it. If you pay your respects to The Watcher, you will have the strength to fight off any bandits you meet on the road. But if you steal from his home, you will pay the price.” The girl ran up the hill, cresting the top and pointing down the other side. “There it is!”

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Following her, Linara reached the top and looked downward. There was indeed a large stone structure in the valley beyond, even more overgrown than the statue. “There is no way that anything of value is still in there, look how old it is. Let’s take a look.”

“Why would we look in there when you just said there’s nothing of value to take?” Sal asked.

The black metal and the hilt design bothered Linara. “I don’t want treasure, I want information. We might learn something from looking at old stone.”

“How does looking at old stone teach us anything?”

“Same way watching other people fight teaches you how to do silly dance moves with a sword. Lesson four - are we on four? - is that you do what Linara tells you to.”

It turned out that Sal carried a lantern in her pack, allowing the girl to light up the vine-covered entrance as Linara walked through.

The building was only a single story, though it stretched out to the sides, filling the valley. Inside, Linara stepped into a large entry hall with a stairway leading downwards in the center. Multiple doorways leading into other parts of the ground floor broke up the walls, the doors missing.

“This place is old.” Sal said, putting emphasis on the last word. “Like, older than Bavmont. Older than kingdoms.”

“It might have been built that long ago, but I don’t think it was abandoned until around a hundred or so years ago, maybe two hundred.”

“That’s old.” Sal replied.

Linara shrugged. Aesuthal existed for thousands of years. It was hard to think of other places as old, having grown up there. “Let’s keep moving.” She said, looking down the stairs.

“Is it safe to go down there?” Holding the lantern high, Sal illuminated the stairwell, stone steps with the occasional root pushing through. “The ceiling won’t fall in on us or anything?”

The floor here, and the ceiling for the lower level, seemed to be made of much thicker stone than the stairs. “If the roof above us hasn’t broken, I don’t see why the floor would.” Linara said, taking the first step down.

“Because it has more stuff on it!” Sal joined her in walking down, despite the protests.

Rather than a simple basement, the area below turned out to be a cavern of some sort, carved into a proper room, with more doors. Regular sized openings lead off to the sides, but directly ahead was a much larger, double door. Linara felt drawn to it. She wasn’t searching for hidden valuables left in side rooms, but the purpose and history of this place. She wanted to find a central room. Curiosity drove her forward. Finding small amounts of Hatharen metal would be rare, but not unheard of. Her people occasionally ventured into human lands. Having the metal incorporated into a human statue, however, suggested something more than a trinket left behind. It had been forged that way, on purpose.

The double doors resisted at first, but a firmer push forced one open, allowing Linara to slide through, Sal behind her. The air in the empty hallway tasted stale, but the two pressed forward regardless. Another double door, this one opening far more easily, pushed into a cavernous chamber. On the opposite wall, offset from the center, a regular sized door stood, unassuming yet drawing Linara’s attention. The chamber held stone tables near the walls, leaving the center clear. None of that interested her.

The door was locked. Examining the lock, Linara found it rusted, and a simple kick broke off whatever it used to hold the door in place. Beyond was a small chamber, old but empty bookshelves lining one wall, a wooden table in the center, tilted due to the loss of one leg. Yet under the light of Sal’s lantern, Linara’s eyes were drawn to a pattern on the far wall. A horizontal strip of Hatharen metal, embedded in the stone. If she hadn’t seen that metal before, been around it all her life, it would have looked like a discoloration, not dissimilar from other darker markings on the wall. Walking around the desk, she approached it, hesitating. Breathing in - feeling the dust she had stirred up fill her nose - she reached out and pushed on it.

Feeling it shift slightly, she moved her hand to one end, pushing in, causing the piece of metal to slide into the stone, giving her a place to put her hand. She could feel the thinness of the wall, and pulled on it. She felt an entire column shift towards her.

“Um,” Sal said, watching from the other side. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Linara ignored her, bracing herself against the solid section of the wall, placing both of her hands in the opening, and pulling again. Slowly, bit by bit, she pulled the stone of the wall out, a section reaching from floor to ceiling, just wide enough for her to slip through the opening it left if she turned sideways. Which she did, Sal making a low whine as she scrambled after her teacher.

Even smaller than the previous room, this chamber held a single object in the center. A stone coffin lay before them. Stepping forward, Linara stared down at it, her heart beating. “You’re going to open it, aren’t you?” Sal asked.

Why was this hidden so deep inside? The room felt ancient. Older than the upper part of the structure. “Help me get the lid off.”

Gently, the two of them lifted the top off the coffin, sliding it to the side.

Sal got a glimpse inside first, and screamed, stepping backwards and falling over, her lantern hitting the floor but thankfully not breaking. Linara tried to help her up, but the girl shook her head, staying on the floor, her eyes locked on the coffin in the center of the room. Picking up the lantern, Linara took a look inside.

A Hatharen stared back up at her.

Linara froze, but soon saw it was a trick of the dim light. The corpse did not stare back at her- its eyes were closed. Eventually, she let out her breath, and was able to look at the rest of the body. Perfectly preserved, hands crossed over the chest, the Hatharen lay in the coffin, completely still, face frozen with a blank, peaceful expression. The skin was pale, almost transparent. Stiff, short brown hair topped the head, revealing the two long ears sticking out.

“Is..is it alive?” Sal asked, slowly standing up, but not coming any closer. Leaning over, Linara reached out and brushed the forehead of the Hatharen, gently. It blinked.

Her body moved without any thought. In an instant, she pulled her hand back, stepping away and drawing her knife, all in one fluid motion. The spear on her back would be useless here.

The Hatharen coughed, thin, withered arms moving to grasp the edges of the tomb and pull themself into a sitting position. The dead rose from the grave and looked at Linara, confusion on their face.

Then it spoke. The voice came out weakly, almost squeaky, like a rusted hinge. A single word, in the Hatharen language. “Who.”

“If yer headin northly, follow th’ road, don’t try to take a shortcut through th’ forest. I know some of ya lone travelers hava habit of doing tha kind o’ thing, but I’ll tell ya. Ya go inta there, ya ain’t comin out. Nobody does.”

Ferene wanted to frown, but nodded at the man’s words. He had let her sleep in a corner of his chicken coop, the roof keeping the rain off her during the night. She had woken up with two of the birds poking at her, shortly before the rooster yowled, setting off a chain of noise from all of the fowl.

“Ic’n tell ya ain’t listenin.” The old man said, peering at her with his one good eye. His left eye was closed, but the right one stared intently at whatever was in front of him, in this case Ferene. “Cursed woods. Can’t count how many tried to push through and didn’ come back the next season. Lots, over the years. They never listen. Ya ain’t in a hurry like them, so don’ go tryin to cut through the woods. Monsters in there, gramps told me, rest his soul.”

Ferene nodded again, and turned to the road. She didn’t even know what forest the man was talking about. She followed the road north, just like she had for the past week. Riverhill, and her father, were far behind her. She did not know how long it would take her to reach Olentor, and she didn’t ask. She did, however, ask about Linara. Nobody had seen anyone with ears like hers, so she figured she was still too far south. Nothing to do but keep going north.

The further north she went, the more the grasslands faded, more and more hills popping up, becoming rockier and rockier. At first the road crested the rises, but soon gave up, instead winding between them in long, gentle bends. Ferene crested a few of these herself, before finding the climbs more effort than they were worth.

As the road curved back around one such rocky hill, heading straight out in front of her for what felt like the first time in three days, Ferene was greeted with a sight. Instead of another hill, the ground beside the road gently fell away, a barren stretch of land separating the road from what seemed to be a wall of darkness cast by massive trees with thick branches.

Ferene knew monsters. The Hatharen would not let any monsters into the human lands.

Another thought crept into her mind. If they had let monsters in, someone had to deal with them. A Hatharen. Or at least, something close enough to a Hatharen to be able to fight.

That was a terrifying thought. How many were in there? Three? Ten? A hundred? Looking away from the road, she saw the line of trees stretching far to the east.

Ferene specialized in running. She could run away, if things got bad. The mountain wall began far northeast of here, where the land met the ocean, and curved north and west. A stronghold should be there, somewhere, if she needed help.

If there were demons in the forest at all.

So Ferene entered the forest.

Here and there, light penetrated the canopy, leaving the forest floor heavily shaded but not entirely dark. Ferene advanced slowly, carefully, on the lookout for any signs of large creatures. She could hear the skittering of rodents and the flutter of birds retreating from her invasion of their domain, but nothing that stood out as dangerous. By the time she lost sight of the open daylight behind her, she still hadn’t encountered anything of note.

Despite the lack of evidence, something about the forest bothered her. It lacked the feel of a truly untouched environment. The underbrush wasn’t thick enough, lacking build up. The forest looked lived in, but no obvious signs were present. The trees were not trimmed or kept, but there weren’t enough fallen branches. Were they collected for firewood? The more she looked, the more she felt certain that something was here, hiding, waiting.

Did she turn and run, before catching a glimpse of what lived here? She could believe that people did not come out of the forest alive. Should she make it safe? Drawing her sword, she gripped the hilt, the feeling of it in her fingers, the weight of it in her arms calming her down, pushing the fear away. Ferene stood up straight, setting her jaw, and taking another step forward.

Something slammed into her from behind, violently. She fell, face first, onto the ground. It had gotten behind her, somehow. She pushed herself to her feet, turning, trying to find her attacker. Once more, she was hit in the back, harder this time, and she fell again, her sword falling from her hands.

She wasn’t given the chance to run. She felt a weight press against her back, pinning her to the ground. The forest would claim another overconfident victim.