The howl rolled through the lines and the hairs on the back of my neck stood and the fire wobbled and I felt the trees move.
It wasn’t the wind moving the trees, it felt more like bodies.
The branches snapped and the bark flew, the shapes slid between trunks with eyes like hot coals and I counted three, then six and then more. They were too many and their hides looked burned and then cooled. Their teeth were black and glinted like glass, smoke leaked from their mouths when they breathed.
Rhea was already on her feet, her blade up but she didn’t say a word yet. Vesper stood up and flicked her rings and a soft green light crawled over her hands. I pushed myself up to my feet and almost fell because the charm on my chest felt heavier than iron. Alma was sleeping inside it and I could feel her like a small hum in my ribs.
The first beast lunged at us and Rhea stepped into it and cut it into half. The cut was clean and the beats ca apart then poured back together like hot sand cooling in a mold.
I grabbed the nearest branch, a thick and rough and still wet branch. The beast ca for my face and I put the branch into it’s mouth. It bit through the would like it was bread and my hands trembled. I tried to back away but my heel caught up in a tree root and I stumbled. I would have fallen but my body didn’t let .
The beast moved at again and I didn’t think, I slid under it. I felt the air of from its jaw on my neck and ca up behind it swinging what was left of the branch. It felt like I was swinging a door, the blow threw the beast into a pine and cracked the trunk and the sap ca down like it was bleeding.
I stared at my hands and they did not feel like my hands. Another beast hit from the side and it should have smashed but it pushed a step away
I pushed back and it went away or that was how it felt like. It hit a trunk and stuck there.
Rhea cut through two more of the beasts and Vesper chanted a spell and the third beast yelled away like a dog and hit the ground. The fire rose in fla and the night slled like soone had burnt hair.
More ca out from between and behind the trees like shadows. They split and rejoined around the trunks. They were not trying to hunt us, they had their eyes on the charm on my chest.
One lunged at and Rhea moved to block it. I moved faster than usual and grabbed the back of her armor and dragged her out of the way. She weighed nothing, we both looked at my hand shocked for a mont but did not have ti to talk about it.
The beast snapped at empty air and I stepped in and put my first into its jaw. There was a dull thud,it’s hair twisted and it fell. It tried to pour back together and failed and it lted into the ground like rain.
Vesper hissed and saw it too,she pulled a a thin bone from her sleeve and stabbed it into the dirt. Lines of light ran out in a web and the next beast that crossed the lines slowed like it had started to sink into deep water.
I ran at it, I did not an to run that fast, the world blurred in a small, tight way and the pine ahead of stretched and then snapped back. My feet ran faster than my head could process and I hit the beast at the shoulder. We both rolled and I ca up alone,it lay kicked open.
My chest burned cold and the charm pulsed. A faint line of text ticked across my vision.
[Anchor load high]
[Excess output spills to host]
[Temporary buff — strength and speed — active]
I laughed and it sounded scared but then I moved again.
Rhea fought at my left shoulder...She did not tell to stop,she did not tell to hide,she saw the speed,She accepted it like wholely and used it.
Two more beasts closed in on Vesper and Rhea called my na, I was there but I did not cross the space instead the space crossed . I grabbed both beasts by what counted as necks and slamd their heads together, their glass teeth rained on my boots and they lted into black paste and then into nothing.
Vesper spat a curse and grinned at with all her teeth. She snapped her fingers and an arc of light cut across a trunk.. The trunk fell and three more beasts vanished under it.
The pack shifted and they circled tighter with their eyes flashing when they looked at the charm. Their heat hit my face like the breath of a kiln.
One larger than the rest pushed through them, it had a crest like cooled slag. A line of dull red cut through its black chest where sothing had once opened it. It looked at like it wanted to eat alive and whole.
It ca fast,faster than the rest and Rhea stepped to et it. I went past her and the ground tried to suck at my boots. The air was brutal to my face and I tore through it. The world stretched again and snapped again and I was in the beast before it could lunge at .
I drove the charm into its chest,not the steel but my whole weight,my shoulder. The cold against its hot hide and there was a sound like fat hitting a hot pan. The beast scread without a voice and light ran down the cracks in its body. The red line in its chest flared white and then went out.. It fell and ca apart into dead ash.
I stumbled back,my hands shook like they belonged to soone who had run for a long ti and could not stop.
Both Rhea and Vesper stared at and then the line of text flickered and dimd.
[Buff decaying]
[Host at risk — hold or rest]
Alma’s voice brushed the inside of my skull like a breath behind a door and I heard three words with long breaks between them.
-Do not burn-
I swallowed hard and it tasted like copper. The beasts edged back,they were not angry,they were nervous,they had tested the fence and been shocked.
Rhea did not waste the mont,she pushed forward. One cut,two and then three, She did not flow,she chopped them up like a butcher and It worked...They fell and failed to rise.
Vesper drove two bones into the ground and spoke in chants,the words were small and an. The earth opened under a knot of beasts and they dropped into black and did not co back.
The rest turned and slid between trunks and they went the way they had co. A last low shape watched for a count of five and then it lted into the night.
The camp went quiet and the fire popped in the cold air,A pine moaned where it had split during the fight,smoke drifted low and the sll stayed in my hair.
I bent and put my hands on my knees panting but I did not throw up even though I wanted to. The ground heaved slow under my boots, my arms felt hollow and full at the sa ti.
Rhea sheathed her blade and she put a hand on my shoulder,the weight was firm. Her eyes searched my face for the weak point but she did not seem to find it.
"What did you do," she said.
"I do not know," I said, lifting the charm an inch. It was cold and bright. "This thing spilled into and I just moved."
Vesper blew out a breath and dropped onto a log...She fished in her belt for a small bottle and took a an little sip. "Anchor overflow," she said. "The scabbard is built to hold a kernel. It leeches power so the host does not explode and You did not explode...Good job Eight."
"That felt close," I said.
"It was close," she said. "Your eyes were wrong for a second."
Rhea still had her hand on my shoulder and her thumb pressed once against my collarbone. A test and I stayed upright. She nodded. "You saved us," she said.
That hit harder than a beast and I looked down so they would not see what that did to . I watched ash cool and it looked like snow back at ho during those lonely winters.
The forest quiet for a long ti...then it let it the silence faded and Owls started hooting again. A small animal ran through leaves and decided we were not worth it,a squirrel maybe. It felt like the world had gone back to normal and none of what happened a few minutes ago had happened.
I sank down by the fire and put my back to a log. The charm ward in small pulses against my sternum but I didn’t hear Alma again..her presence smoothed from a ragged line to a slower hum.
And her integrity ticked up by one.
[22%]
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