Gase’s breath was heavy as he circled his opponent. He felt a sting as blood slowly trickled down his cheek. It was only the newest of the growing number of wounds. Numerous cuts showed on his arms, all of them just barely breaking the skin, a testament to the hunter’s monstrous control of his sword.

In contrast to himself, the man stood unmarred with a lazy smile on his face as he held his sword pointing at the ground in front of him. At first glance, it seemed as if he was leaving himself open, but Gase had long since learned that wasn’t the case.

He had been hesitant at first as they were both using sharp blades, but Holin had proved more than able to hold back. His thrusts passed him ever so slightly, just close enough for a shallow cut. And his slashes would often turn at the last moment to hit Gase with the flat of the sword. As for himself, he doubted he could harm the other man if he tried. And he had tried.

“Giving up?” Holin asked him. The words sounded mocking to his ears.

Gase raised his sword at his side and dashed forward before delivering a horizontal cut aimed at Holin’s face. Holin twisted his wrists and raised his sword next to his shoulder, striking Gase’s blade off course. Gase was pulled off balance as his slash passed over Holin’s head. He stepped back to regain his footing and raised his sword before bringing it down in an overhead strike.

Holin glided out of the way, the blade passing harmlessly past him. His own sword lashed out, twisting once more at the last moment to deliver a flat-sided strike against Gase’s knee. The knee folded and Gase sank to the ground.

“You’re overcommitting to your strikes again. And your edge-alignment was off on that last strike. I could hear it. If you had caught me on the shoulder, it wouldn’t even have gone through the leather. The blade would have rolled. And there are beasts with tougher skin than my armour.”

Gase stepped back, eyeing Holin as the man retook his stance.

He stood, wooden sword raised as he faced the recruit. He charged, coming in with a cut. He saw the recruit shift his stance to deflect the hit. Smiling, he dropped the tip of the wooden sword, changing into a thrust.

The younger man frantically stepped to the side and struck against the oncoming weapon. He managed to change its course enough to miss him. Before he could celebrate, Gase released a hand on the wooden sword and grabbed at the recruit’s wrist. The man’s eyes widened. Gase winked before yanking the recruit’s arms in one direction while sweeping his legs in the other.

The man hit the ground hard, and Gase placed the tip of the wooden sword against his chest.

Gase snapped out of the memory as Holin swung his sword. He leapt backwards, barely avoiding the tip of the blade.

“Don’t get distracted,” Holin said.

As much as Gase wanted to focus on the memory, he didn’t. He wouldn’t put it past Holin to take the opportunity to deliver another ‘lesson’. Instead, he pushed it aside and focussed on Holin. He dashed forward again, this time he raised the sword as if to cut before dropping the tip into a thrust as he saw in the memory.

Holin somehow saw it coming and brought up his sword to bat Gase’s thrust to the side. Before Gase could do anything else, he had already closed the distance and rested his blade against Gase’s neck.

“Better. But where’s your follow-up? You strike as if that is the end goal. Instead, you should strike while setting up your next. When you attack, you should do so from a guard, and when you are done, you should have ended in another guard. You need to flow from one movement to the next to be a swordsman. Otherwise, you’re just a thug swinging a sword.”

Gase swallowed, feeling the light sting against his neck. He stepped back and touched his throat, a few drops of blood clinging to the tips of his fingers.

“How can I plan ahead when you can do any number of things?” Gase asked, his frustration leaking into his voice. “I can’t ‘set up a strike’ if I don’t know how you’re going to move, can I?”

Holin chuckled. “No, of course, you can’t plan out everything. Even if you plan for nine out of ten outcomes, you’ll just end up dead if the tenth occurred.”

“So how?”

“Guards. Each has a number of movements it is already set up for. You’ll need to practice these and move from one guard to the next as you strike or defend, and choose the correct move at the moment.”

He moved a few steps away, to the centre of the clearing and raised his sword behind his head, over his shoulder. “This is the stance anger. Like most guards, its intention is clear. It wants to cut you in half. From it, I can step forwards and throw a downwards cut, either to my left or straight down. I can also spin the sword and cut down to my right.”

“If I cut down to the left,” Holin said as he slowly did so. His strike came to a halt in the same stance he had before, during their spar. “I end up in guile. Its intent is not immediate, and from here, I can move in several ways. I can step forward into a thrust. I can twist the blade and cut upwards. I can step back and extend the blade to gain distance. Say I cut upwards to my right.”

He twisted the sword and did so while pulling the blade back slightly. His movement stopped with the hilt of the sword next to his head, and the tip pointed straight forward. “Zeal. Good for defence. I also could turn and cut, but its main threat is as it appears; a straight thrust.”

Holin stepped forward and extended his arms in a forward thrust. “I could continue, but you should get the point. Instead of hacking like an idiot, I am left with this.”

Holin moved through the sequence with blinding speed, far faster than he had during their spar. His sword did not seem to stop once as his feet glided forward in an advance.

“You never showed me any of this,” Gase said.

“You never asked what you did wrong,” He said and turned back to Gase. “At the end there, you changed your attack to catch me off guard. At least you tried to. Feints are good, but they shouldn’t be your concern at the moment. You first have to get the basics right.”

Holin paused for a moment. “But… its not all bad. You adapt quickly enough, and you keep going. Honestly, I expected you to have given up long ago.”

“Wait…” Gase said, something in the man’s eye rousing his suspicion. “Were you just waiting to see when I’d complain?”

Holin shrugged unrepentantly. Gase gritted his teeth and glared at the man.

“Pain is a good motivator,” Holin said. “Besides, I told you I’d see how far that resolve of yours went, didn’t I? I am not going to hold your hand while you find your feet. I don’t have the time or the patience for that shit. And to be honest, neither do you.”

Gase bit back his retort and looked at the red lines of dried blood on his arms. They still stung, but none of them could even be called wounds. And he truly never did think of giving up. He looked up and Holin and nodded.

“Good. First, we’ll start with the ten basic guards. Pay attention. You’ll be getting to know them very well.”

Sometime later, Gase found himself on the ground, his sword lying next to him as he rested. His arms were heavy with exhaustion and sweat ran from his brow. Holin had been relentless. He would demonstrate a guard, then have Gase use it against him. Each mistake in posture was quickly corrected by a flat-sided strike of the man’s sword. Gase’s ribs ached, and the cuts on his arms stung as sweat ran onto the open flesh.

But it was worth it. Another memory had confirmed that there was some kind of link between actions and regaining his past. His thoughts turned to the small girl he had seen in his memories before, and he felt his chest constrict for a moment. If a few scratches were what it took to find out who he was – who she was – then he would gladly pay it.

The vision of him sparring with the recruit, as he thought of the young man, was another piece of himself. If he added that to what he already knew… He was almost certain he had been part of a cityguard. A guardsman in Eriston to be precise.

Gase looked up at Holin who was wiping down his sword with a cloth, cleaning any drops of blood that might have found its way onto the blade. Gase called out to him, and the man turned his red gaze towards him.

“Have you been to many cities?”

“I suppose. Thalsmen search for certain types of beasts and kill them where they find them, so we move around a lot. Though we only have a fixed presence in the north.”

“Have you ever seen a city or town named Eriston? Or heard of it?”

Holin thought for a moment before answering. “I can’t say I have, no.”

Gase racked his mind trying to think of something. The name was in another Langauge after all, perhaps he just didn’t recognise it? Then he remembered something.

“They have… ,” Gase pressed against his forehead, trying to remember the word. “Hounds. That’s it. They use them for hunting… I think.”

“Hounds?” Holin asked with a raised eyebrow. “An animal? What do they look like?”

Gase explained what he could of the memory and Holin frowned. “Steelwolves perhaps? Some people further south make use of them. Dangerous though, they are nearly as likely to attack you as anything else.”

“You mentioned them before,” Gase said with a bit of hope.

“An animal, not a beast. Similar to those hounds of yours by the description. Bigger by the sound of it though; they can reach about the height of your chest. Green eyes and, of course, the silver coat that gives them their name. The hairs are tough, almost like thin strands of steel. Cuts are nearly useless against them unless you can break their bones with the force. A good stab in the right place works, though.”

Gase shook his head with a sigh. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Disappointed?” Holin asked. “What’s so special about this ‘Eriston’?”

“It’s a place I need to find.”

“It’s not one of those Sanctuary stories of the Seekers, right?” Holin asked. “A place where there are no beasts?”

Gase looked at him in confusion. “I don’t know what those things are.”

Holin shrugged. “For the best. False hope is much more insidious than any beast and can kill just as easily. Trust me, your sword is much more reliable than any god.”

Gase frowned, his confusion only growing, but Holin sheathed his sword and strolled away, calling over his shoulder. “Don’t be late tomorrow.”

Gase watched him disappear between the trees before shaking his head and looking around the now silent clearing. Standing up, he made his way back the way they had come and found the stream. Kneeling next to it, he washed away the dried blood from his arms and face. The shallow cuts weren’t that painful, but they were starting to itch something fierce. It was all he could do to keep himself from scratching at them.

He removed his shirt and plunged it into the water trying to get as much of the sweat out of it as he could before splashing himself with water. As he did this, he noticed twelve black pinpricks on the side of his chest in a U shape, facing outwards. He ran a hand over one but felt no bumps or holes.

Some kind of bug bite.

He shrugged and put it out of his mind. It would probably fade over time. He pulled on the wet shirt and made his way back to Enmon and the other two.

Gase could tell that something was wrong as he made his way past the first of the people of the camp. There was a tension in the air, and everyone seemed to be on edge, more so than they already were. Then he heard the heart-wrenching wail from somewhere out of sight.

He found Enmon standing next to Aesmin and Hadi where they had slept. Enmon was holding his spear in his hands and eyeing the anyone passing by.

“What’s going on here?” Gase asked.

“Some bloody –” Enmon started and cut off as he turned to Gase. “What the hell happened to you?”

Gase glanced down at the red lines across his arms. They looked a lot better now that he had washed them. Better didn’t mean good though. “Training.”

“Training?” Aesmin asked incredulously. “What the hell kind of training do you do? You ran out of things to test the sharpness of that sword?”

Gase grimaced, then winced as the cut on his cheek was pulled. “I have a… strange teacher. So what happened here?”

Enmon gave him a final glance before nodding off to the side. Gase followed his eyes, finding a woman and a little girl crying over the body of a man some distance away.

“A couple of bastards tried to force the pair to hand over their food. The man refused. A struggle broke out. It ended with the man dead.”

Gase looked at the woman and girl, unable to pull his eyes away. They looked familiar. It only took him a moment to realise he had seen them on the road the first day. The woman had given the girl something to eat after she complained about the hunger. A few of the ones smart enough to bring food along.

He felt sick as he watched the scene. “Where are they now?”

“One of the guards got to them,” Enmon said and pointed to another corpse lying off near the edge of the woods. Gase noticed his boots and shirt were already missing. “The guard managed to get one of them. The other ran off into the woods.”

Enmon looked at him with a grim expression. “We might be needing these weapons sooner than you thought.”

---

 

Rhone sat on a boulder overgrown with moss. His eyes were closed as he focused on the pull of the horde. He felt it tugging at his awareness, calling to him. It was faint and easy to ignore, but then again, he wasn’t a beast.

Once he was sure it hadn’t increased or decreased during the night, he opened his eyes. He glanced down as the sound of footsteps reached his ears and saw Meera walking towards him, a large cloak hanging over her shoulders.

“So this is where the Beastbane of Kassus spends his morning,” She said in a mirthful voice as she stepped up beside the boulder.

Rhone suppressed a groan. A name given for being foolish and reckless. Earning the name had proven far easier than getting Meera to stop reminding him of it.

She pulled at the thin vines that grew among the moss on the boulder, ripping out a long piece. Tiny white flowers showed amongst the green leaves. She began wrapping the vine around the shaft of the glaive she held in her hands.

“The high priest of Tella’nash has been spreading rumours,” She said without looking up.

Rhone sighed. The god of runes’ followers have always been a bit indignant at so-called blessed that didn’t worship the god for their gifts. The history between the Order and the followers of Tella’nash certainly didn’t help things. “Is it going to be a problem?”

Meera shook her head. “I don’t think so, but you never know when people are scared. There has already been a murder this morning. People are starving and on edge, looking for someone to blame. Won’t be long before factions form. All it might take is the promise of retribution and food for things to go to shit, whether the finger is pointed at us or someone else.

And the cityguard seem to be disintegrating. Some have been hired by nobles, a few have been offered spots in some of the mercenary companies. But, we did help out a number of them and the hunters escape the city. I’ve been reminding them of that.”

Rhone turned to look at her with concern. She saw the look and waved away his worry.

“I’m not new to this Rhone, I won’t overuse my Aspect. But I think we need to keep an eye on things, and given their wariness of us, none of the others can. Except maybe Holin... if he hides behind trees and eavesdrops on conversations,” She said with a smile.

Rhone chuckled. “I’d pay to see that.”

“As would I.”

Her smile faded after a moment. “Perhaps we should be ready to go ahead by ourselves. We can’t save everyone.”

“Not yet,” Rhone replied. They should easily be able to make it to Lok by themselves. But leaving now might mean letting the bloodbath Meera implied happen. Even if they couldn’t save everyone, they could at least save some.

Besides, if they left now, they might give credence to whatever rumours the priest was spreading. And Rhone planned on staying in the south a while longer. He still had two behemoths to kill after all.