Lucien stepped into the smoke.
It wasn't mist. Not really.
It clung to his skin like a thousand unseen fingers coiling around his limbs with serpentine intent. It whispered against his thoughts; half-heard promises, fragmented warnings.
Then came the shift. Not violent, but profound. One moment, the bridge, the crushing weight of Mira's silence pressing against his ribs. The next… a disorienting lurch deep within his marrow, a sensation of being unspun and reknit in the space. The world dissolved into swirling grey, then solidified with jarring silence into an oppressive, ancient forest.
He didn't flinch. He had faced worse. But something cold and ancient crawled along his spine, raising the hairs on his neck.
Darkness enveloped him. Not the absence of light, but a place where light refused to exist. The air itself felt hollow, thick with a thrilling, oppressive energy that hummed against his skin, tasting metallic on his tongue. The forest floor was a treacherous tangle of exposed, bone-pale roots and decaying mulch that swallowed his bootsteps whole, muffling sound into nothingness.
He exhaled slowly, the sound unnaturally loud in the suffocating stillness. Observe. Don't feel. The old discipline, drilled into him through his years, rose like armour.
Yet, Mira's face pushed through the cracks – the way she hadn't looked at him back on the bridge, the fine tremor in her arms as she held the boy, the crushing, absolute silence since the bodies. It wasn't shock. It was the deep, inward-turning grief that stole words, leaving only a fragile, shattered space behind her eyes.
He should have spoken.
Should have touched her shoulder.
Asked… anything.
But his hands had been leaden weights, his tongue a useless lump of clay. Now, in this cursed hollow, the weight of his inaction pressed heavier than any armour, a cold stone settling in his gut.
If she slips further… I might not get her back.
The thought formed ice in his chest. He crushed it, focusing on the path ahead. His boots sank slightly into the damp earth with each being a deliberate step. The unnatural energy pulsed stronger here, a low, insistent thrum vibrating up through the soles of his boots, resonating in his bones. He pushed through a thicket of thorny vines.
Then, through a sudden, jagged break in the monstrous canopy, he saw it. A structure of impossible scale, glimpsed through the skeletal fingers of branches: a palace. Its stone was the deep, unsettling crimson of clotted blood, radiating a palpable malevolence that seemed to warp the very air around it.
His pace instinctively quickened, drawn towards the focal point of this dread. He moved with controlled urgency, weaving between colossal trunks slick with moisture, his eyes constantly scanning.
Fwip-CRACK!
Instinct screamed. No thought, only reflex honed by his experience.
Lucien pivoted on his heel, a dancer's turn turned lethal. His blade hissed free of its scabbard, a streak of silver light. He didn't see the weapon, only sensed the lethal intent slicing the air towards his spine. His steel met something hard, curved, and humming with dark energy in a deafening CLANG that shattered the forest's suffocating silence. The impact jolted his arm to the shoulder. He'd intercepted a crescent blade, obsidian black, deflecting it upwards.
But the weapon didn't fall. It arced, defying gravity, reversing its trajectory in a smooth, predatory whistle. It bypassed physics and returned to its master, thudding solidly into a massive, waiting palm.
Lucien's gaze snapped to the source, cold fury replacing calculation.
Fifty paces away sat a being who looked carved from the mountain itself. Beneath him, a creature that defied nature: a monstrous bear, easily twice the size of any forest beast, its matted fur thick with jagged bone spurs erupting along its spine. Sickly yellow eyes, intelligent and hungry, glowed above jaws lined with tusks, dripping thick saliva. The rider was a titan of scarred muscle and brute power. A bushy, dark beard, threaded with grey and braided with vicious-looking thorns, framed a face dominated by fierce, burning crimson eyes. He wore rugged leathers and furs dyed deep, forest green, a hunter's garb scaled for a giant. His bare chest was a roadmap of thick, white scars. One massive hand held reins of twisted sinew, the other casually caught the returning obsidian crescent.
Lucien didn't lower gaze. He met the giant's burning gaze, his own expression glacial, a mask over the simmering frustration that had driven him forward. The distance crackled with unspoken violence.
A deep, rumbling voice, like boulders grinding deep in the earth, echoed through the clearing: "By the Decree of Vathyls the Great One," the giant boomed, raising the crescent blade high, "I, Borak, Third Knight of the Crimson Watch, shall spill your blood upon this sacred ground. Now." He paused, the crimson eyes narrowing to slits of molten fury. "Name yourself, shadow pup. Even carrion deserves a name before the crows feast."
Lucien's lip curled in a cold sneer, sharp as his blade's edge. He shifted his stance, boots grinding softly on the loam. "You haven't earned the breath it would take to speak my name," his voice cut through the heavy air, colder than the deepest winter. "Especially when you won't be alive to remember it."
Borak's scarred face contorted, veins bulging at his temples. "ARROGANT MAGGOT!" he roared, spittle flying like venom. "You spit upon the very essence of honour! I'll carve your name from your screaming flesh!"
"Honour?" Lucien barked a harsh, humourless laugh. He jerked his chin sharply towards the spot where the crescent had struck. "You yap about honour after hurling steel at a man's back? You're a hypocrite wrapped in a hunter's rags"
A guttural, animalistic snarl ripped from Borak's throat, shaking the leaves overhead. "DISHONOURABLE FILTH!" He slammed his heels into the monstrous bear's flanks. "KRAKUN! GRIND HIS BONES!"
The bear, Krakun, erupted forward like a living avalanche of muscle, bone, and fury. Borak pushed off its back mid-charge, a colossal, double-headed axe materializing in his grip, descending in a brutal arc meant to cleave Lucien in two. The air shrieked with its passage.
"Tch!" Lucien exhaled sharply. His blade met the axe head-on with a blinding CLANG! Sparks erupted like furious stars. The impact shuddered through Lucien, driving his boots deep into the yielding earth. He absorbed the blow, muscles screaming protest, but held firm, teeth gritted.
Krakun, a creature of terrifying agility despite its size, didn't pause. It pivoted like a striking viper, a massive, clawed paw lashing out in a bone-shattering kick aimed at Lucien's ribs while he was locked with Borak.
Expected. Lucien's instincts screamed. Still braced against Borak's straining axe, he snapped his right leg up in a piston-like kick. His booted heel connected squarely with Krakun's descending forearm. "Ungh!" The jarring force rattled his teeth, but the monstrous bear ROARED in pained surprise, its attack deflected, stumbling awkwardly back a step.
Borak, bellowing in fury at the counter, wrenched his axe free. "Stand and die, pest!" He pressed forward, a whirlwind of green leather and deadly steel, his axe a blur of lethal motion. Lucien met him, not matching brute force for brute force, but with lethal footwork, precise deflections, and razor-sharp counters.
Whisper became a silver barrier. Clang! Parrying a horizontal sweep that would have felled a tree. Lucien ducked low, feeling the wind rip past his scalp as a brutal backhand axe swing passed overhead. Then he lashed out with his blade in a thrust that forced Borak to jerk his head back violently.
Clang! Clang!
Two rapid, jarring overhead chops from Borak, each met and deflected by Lucien, the impacts driving Lucien back a step, his boots skidding on the slick roots.
Krakun recovered, lunging low, jaws snapping shut on empty air where Lucien's leg had been a heartbeat before. Lucien spun off the evasion, His blade scoring a deep, grating groove across Krakun's spiked shoulder armour. The beast bellowed, rage mingling with pain.
"Coward!" Lucien laughed, deflecting another heavy axe blow, the force vibrating up his arm. "Hiding behind your overgrown mutt? Is this your 'honour' ?" He danced back two steps, putting a gnarled tree trunk momentarily between himself and Krakun's next lunge.
"A TRUE WARRIOR USES EVERY ADVANTAGE!" Borak thundered, relentless.
CLANG!
A heavy downward chop instantly followed by a vicious upward hook with the axe's beard that Lucien twisted away from with a fraction to spare "There is no shame in strength!"
Lucien rolled beneath another swipe from Krakun, coming up instantly to parry Borak's follow-up thrust, the force knocking him slightly off-balance.
Borak seized the moment, a wild, powerful swing aimed to crush. Lucien met it solidly, locking their weapons close. "Grah!" Borak strained, muscles corded, pushing his immense weight forward. Lucien braced, boots digging in, the strain burning in his shoulders.
With a grunt of effort, Lucien disengaged with a sharp twist, his blade slashing low towards Borak's lead leg. "Hah!" The giant knight leapt back, avoiding the cut but momentarily off-balance.
Krakun then charged from the left, a battering ram of fur and spikes. Lucien pivoted, meeting the charge not with his blade, but with a savage, armoured elbow strike directly to the bear's sensitive snout.
"YELP!"
Krakun recoiled, shaking its massive head, momentarily stunned.
Borak, enraged by his mount's pain, unleashed a furious flurry, high chop, then low sweep in which Lucien leapt over it. Then a spinning backhand. Lucien weathered the storm, parrying, dodging, the relentless assault driving him back.
"Where exactly is this honour you speak of?"Lucien said mockingly, blocking the spin, his breath coming in controlled gasps now. "You're just a thug with a fancy title." He used the momentum of the block to dart right, seeking clearer ground.
Smash!
Borak's axe bit deep into the trunk where Lucien had been a split-second prior. Lucien used the obstruction, darting past the embedded axe.
Krakun, anticipating, was already there, jaws wide enough to engulf his torso.
"Fuck!"
Lucien dropped into a desperate slide beneath the snapping teeth, His blade scraping sparks off the bone spikes on Krakun's belly as he passed beneath.
Coming up from the slide, Lucien drove a powerful upward thrust towards Borak's exposed side as the knight struggled to free his axe. Borak twisted with surprising speed, the blade scoring a deep line across his green leather jerkin instead of flesh.
"Rgh!"Borak roared in pain and fury.
Off-balance and enraged, Borak slammed his free shoulder into Lucien.
"Ungh!"
The impact, like being hit by a falling tree, sent Lucien staggering back several yards, boots digging deep furrows in the mulch. He caught his balance, breathing hard, arm throbbing from the blow. Krakun ROARED, circling menacingly, cutting off his retreat. Borak wrenched his axe free, chest heaving, crimson eyes blazing with pure, murderous intent. He hefted the massive weapon, the obsidian crescent gleaming wickedly at his belt.
"Enough skittering, shadow pup" Borak's voice was a low growl, thick with promised violence. "Now… you DIE."
The distance between them crackled, thick with bloodlust and the oppressive energy of the hollow woods. Lucien settled back into his stance, Whisper held steady despite the tremor in his arms, his icy gaze locked unflinchingly on the giant and his monstrous beast. The ancient forest seemed to hold its breath, the only sounds the ragged breaths of the combatants and the low, hungry growl rumbling in Krakun's throat.