"When you have soone to protect, you can do impossible things."
***
He was eight years old again.
Sitting beside Elara’s bed in their cottage.
The fire crackled in the hearth. Cast dancing shadows on the walls. Outside, the wind howled around the eaves. Brought with it the distant sounds of battle.
Goblin raid. Another one. They ca so often that year that they started to blur together.
Elara couldn’t have been more than five. Her small fra was dwarfed by the thick quilts their mother had piled around her. So many quilts that she looked like she was drowning in wool and cotton.
Even then, the sickness had been there. A pale cast to her skin that never quite went away. The way she tired so easily when other children her age ran and played without pause. The way her coughs rattled in her chest like stones in a dry gourd.
"Tell about the knights again, Rhys."
Her voice was barely audible above the wind rattling their shutters. Barely more than a whisper.
But he heard it.
He always heard her, no matter how quiet she spoke.
Rhys had pulled his chair closer to her bed. Took Elara’s small hand in both of his. Her fingers were so thin. Like bird bones wrapped in paper. Like sothing that might break if he held too tight.
He could feel her pulse beating weakly beneath the skin. Each beat a small miracle.
"Which story do you want?"
"The one about the knight who saved the princess from the dragon."
He’d smiled. Even though he’d told her that story dozens of tis. Even though she knew every word by heart.
"Once upon a ti, there was a knight who wasn’t the strongest or the fastest. But he had sothing more important than that."
"What?"
Elara asked. Though she knew the answer. Her eyes were bright despite her fever.
"He had soone to protect. And when you have soone to protect, you can do impossible things."
She’d squeezed his hand with what little strength she had. The pressure was barely noticeable. Like a butterfly landing on his palm.
But he felt it.
He felt it in his heart more than in his hand.
"Like how you protect ?"
"Like how I’ll always protect you," he’d promised. "No matter what happens. No matter how far away I have to go. I’ll always co back to you. That’s what big brothers do."
Elara had smiled then.
The sa smile that lit up even their darkest days. The sa smile that made the cold winters bearable and the goblin raids endurable. The sa smile that he carried with him when he left for the academy.
"And I’ll always wait for you. That’s what little sisters do."
The mory shattered.
The hobgoblin’s axe whistled past his ear. Close enough that he felt the wind of its passage ruffle his hair. Close enough that he could sll the blood on the blade.
The shaman’s magic tried to drag him down. Tried to pull him back into that dark place where mories beca prisons and hope beca despair.
But the mory of Elara’s smile was a fire in his mind.
It burned away the ache in his shoulder. Turned the pain into sothing else. Sothing useful. Fuel for what ca next.
The exhaustion in his limbs didn’t evaporate.
It was scoured away by a sudden, violent clarity.
His muscles scread. Not in fatigue. Not in surrender.
They scread with a final, desperate command.
Move.
He had made a promise.
He intended to keep it.
The hobgoblin saw the change in him.
It hesitated. Its yellow eyes narrowed. The pupils contracted to vertical slits as it tried to process what it was seeing.
This wasn’t the broken, defeated prey it had been toying with monts before.
This wasn’t the easy kill it had been savoring.
This was sothing else entirely.
Sothing that made the creature’s instincts scream warnings. Sothing that made it take a half-step back before it could stop itself.
Rhys lunged forward.
His spear thrust aid at the creature’s throat. A desperate, reckless attack. The kind his father had always warned him against.
"Never overcommit, boy. Never throw everything into one strike. That’s how you end up dead."
Good advice.
Usually.
But desperation made him fast.
Terror made him faster.
And love made him fastest of all.
The hobgoblin barely managed to bring its axe up in ti to deflect the blow.
The spearpoint scraped along the axe’s edge with a shower of sparks. Steel t steel with a shriek that echoed through the tunnel.
But Rhys was already moving.
Already using the montum to spin around and strike at the creature’s exposed flank. His body flowed from one position to the next without conscious thought. Years of training taking over where his mind failed.
The hobgoblin twisted away.
But not quickly enough.
The spear’s blade carved a shallow line across its ribs. Drew a line of black blood that splattered across the tunnel floor.
The wound wasn’t deep. Wasn’t anywhere close to fatal.
But it was there.
It was real.
It was proof that this human could hurt it.
The creature roared in anger and pain.
Swung its axe in a wide horizontal arc that would have taken Rhys’s head off if he hadn’t ducked. The blade passed over him close enough that it clipped a few hairs from the top of his head. He felt them fall across his face.
He ca up inside the hobgoblin’s guard.
Too close for it to use its massive weapon effectively.
His spear thrust upward.
The creature tried to step back. Tried to create distance. But Rhys stayed with it. Pressed forward. Gave it no room to breathe.
I made a promise.
Another thrust. Another dodge. Another spray of black blood as his blade found flesh.
I’m going to keep it.
The hobgoblin snarled. Brought its fist around in a crushing backhand that caught Rhys in the ribs.
He felt sothing crack.
The pain was white-hot. Blinding. The kind of pain that should have dropped him to his knees.
He kept fighting.
Elara is waiting for .
His spear found the gap between the creature’s armor plates. Sank three inches into its side before the hobgoblin twisted away with a howl.
I promised I’d co back.
The creature swung wild. Desperate now. Its attacks no longer controlled but furious.
Rhys ducked under one swing. Sidestepped another. Let a third whistle past his shoulder close enough to draw blood.
Then he saw his opening.
The hobgoblin had overextended. Its massive axe buried in the stone wall where his head had been a mont before. For just an instant, its chest was exposed. Unguarded.
And I keep my promises.
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