Three hours later I was crouched low, hidden just below the ridgeline we’d originally followed to scout the thing’s den. Nora, Mika, and Ellen all waited back in the valley for me to lure the dead tusk to them. Beside me, crouched ever so slightly, was a small sculpture of a woman. Runic script flowed along her short-carved curls like dyed highlights. Her long finger tips carved to come to deadly points.

  Opposite where the golem and I hid, the creature finally returned from its hunt. Eight feet tall at the shoulders and at least two wagons long from tip to tail. The thing was massive. Individual purple scales dotted and broke up a hide of rust red.

  The beast was lean, its muscles visible underneath taught skin. Around the creature’s neck, a fleshy mane of folded skin hung down low enough to almost drag across the ground. Small spikes of bone jutted out from between the folds, like dividers in a file. What caught the eye the most were its namesake tusks.

  A pair of spiraled meter-long, gore-soaked tusks jutted out from its lower lip. A baby deer held impaled between the two. One tusk through the neck, the other easily pierced through its hip. The thing strutted back into its home, but the entire way its head was level. It didn’t move with the rest of its body as it walked.

  The dead tusk tilted its head slightly to stop its bovine-like horns, which flattened into protective like plates at the top of its head, scraping the sides of the cave.

  Unsure of its usual behavior with food, I let it enter its den before I crested the ridge to creep towards the cave. Hidden underneath a small alcove of stone, I waited just out of sight from the cave mouth for the sound of ripped flesh and broken bone to enter.

  The beast’s fixation on its meal and the assumption it was the apex predator would keep me safe in the moment. My lessons rarely focused on moving quietly in a cave, so I did as I would in the forest. With each step, I rolled my foot forward from heel to toe, only stepping when the dead tusk was loudest in the enjoyment of its meal.

  Deep within the cave, I spent an agonizing moment letting my eyesight adjust to the near dark of the cave. Within the dark, I couldn’t make out any details, but I could see the massive form huddled over the tiny. The dead tusk ripped its head up from its kill with each bite. A savage joy in the hunt kept the beast from focusing too hard on anything else.

  I stopped ten meters away from the dead tusk, crouched into the basic stance of the Willow’s Wrath. I banged my hammer against the metal boss of my shield like a runaway wagon picking up speed downhill until it reached terminal velocity. The hollow sound echoed around the cave louder than any snapping of bone

  Its head snapped in my direction and snarled. A set of viscera and offal covered flat teeth, meant for crushing bone not rending muscle, revealed themselves. I knew that even in the dark it saw me because I could see the beast’s massive acid green cat’s pupil eyes widen.

  With the grace of a rockfall, it lifted itself off its kill and stretched like a cat. After it stretched, I could swear the beast smiled at me. Cautiously, it sniffed the air for others as it came at me, completely at its leisure.

  Like clockwork, as soon as the beast stood, I ceased with my hammer and begun the War Hymn while I slowly backed out of the cave. Wordless, the Grace Mother designed the hymn for the soldiers of the Order of New Growth while they were in their battle lines.

  Only a couple of notes and easy to remember. The hymn lasted only five minutes. A soldier would hum as they joined the fighting and by the time the song finished, it would be time for them to rotate out again.

  Every member of the Cult’s military trained extensively to keep the song up in even the most intense fights. It was such an integral part of our combat style that the System had even accepted and acknowledged the skill Battle Humming. There had been a brief argument from some of the Order heads about giving the skill a more graceful name like ‘Battle Hymns’ or ‘Ylenian Battle Hymns’ but Iona submitted the skill and that was the name she gave it.

  Anyone who sung too fast or cut off early to rotate out was paid a visit by a member of the Order of the Wandering Leaf. Or summarily executed by their field commander. Cowardice when lives depended on your bravery was unacceptable, and morale could not be tainted by that weakness.

  Near the mouth of the cave, the dead tusk provided me with my first surprise. It coiled up on itself, hind legs compressed and ready to spring forward. It launched itself at me with a speed at odds with its massive frame and the inelegance it moved with normally.

  The echo from the impact of its tusks against my shield rang out louder than any of my hammer blows had. Aided by the force of the blow, I skidded back a couple of feet and fought to regain proper footing. Numb to the shoulder, the sensation of a million ants crawled up and down my shield arm, biting in time with my movements.

  I watched the creature settle back on its haunches to see if I would run and realized I had to reevaluate. If I ran like I’d planned, it’d gore me within minutes. Now that I’d seen the thing move, I knew there was no way I could outrun it.

  Wind rattled my chain mail veil as a tusk just barely missed goring me through the neck. The spike of my hammer skidded off the dense bone of the dead tusks’ snout with a long strand of flesh attached. A deep hiss of pain rumbled out from the dead tusk’s throat. The sound rattled off the cave walls and through my chest.

  It threw its head wildly to catch me with a tusk, eyes still closed from the pain. I danced away, barely fast enough to avoid twisted bone through the gut. Rushing out of the cave, I leaned against the stone wall and continued to hum the War Hymn. Listening as the beast thrashed out in pain and roared its fury.

  When it settled, I framed myself just enough in the entrance's sunlight. Hoping the creature would be furious with me and charge the small being who so dared to hurt it.

  It did. With a hasty step back, I left the cave mouth and whipped the spike of my hammer at its eye socket. Pain lanced up my wrist as the spike hit a pristine white horn and did nothing beside chip a small piece.

  The beast and I continued our exchange for a few passes. I waited for it to charge me, hit it just hard enough to make it angry and then danced back in the direction I wanted to lead it. Several times I’d watched Mika’s golem take a hesitant step forward to help, but every time the man changed his mind and kept the golem a safe twenty feet away from us.

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  While we fought, I never disengaged far enough that it thought I was running. The last thing I wanted to do was activate a two-ton lizard’s predatory instincts. I needed it to view me as another predator who’d issued a challenge for territory.

  A prey animal wasn’t worth the effort or pain I put the thing through. But another predator vying for territory wasn’t something solitary predators typically put up with for long.

  The mile-long walk back to the valley felt like an eternity as I lured the beast. My chain mail was now missing several links. Dented scales in my chest piece dug ever deeper gouges into my flesh as I moved.

  Each armor malfunction was a blessing, however, because it meant impalement had I been wearing anything else.

  I disengaged from it and backpedaled up the last hill. Behind me, the beast lumbered up the slope, talons ripping into the dirt with each step. Flags of flesh dangled from a ruined maw. Just as I was about to crest the hill, it coiled. Massive hind legs tensed and it launched itself at me.

  Tassels of stripped flesh swirled to reveal exposed bone as the dead tusk flicked its mangled snout. The spiraled tusk made it harder to calculate the trajectory of the blow. In a desperate attempt to avoid the tusk, I jumped out of the way but was too slow. I felt only the brief pinch of metal through cloth before I saw the bloody chunk of meat skewered on its tusk.

  Like seeing my flesh had reminded my brain to feel pain, fire spread out from my side. A slow heartbeat of torment. Without conscious thought, I flooded my bond with Ylena with my senses and pain.

  I’d been stabbed before and knew I had moments before I slowed. If I was going to survive this, I needed to push through. Before my blood touched dirt, I felt Iona turn her full attention on me. Her gaze was winter itself and like a blizzard through an open window she forced her power through my bond as Chosen.

  I sidestepped away from the beast’s follow through and felt Iona’s hand clasp around the back of my neck. She was hundreds of miles away, but even over all that distance, the presence felt like flesh. I could feel the frigid, cracked skin of her blackened hand and the points of her long nails press into my arteries.

  Iona squeezed once and released the Howling Winds within me. From her hands, the wind screamed into my body. Stagnation incarnate, the winds howled and moaned with all the voices of the damned as it raced through me. Sensations dimmed and halted one by one until my entire perception was on the dead tusk and space around us.

  I no longer felt fear, pain, anger, the rush of battle. All of it subsumed by the Howling Winds and the Touch of the Black Hand. My body still panted and movement to my left was harder with the chunk missing from my side, but none of that mattered. My will was Stagnation and my body no longer heeded the rest of the Cycle.

  My gait hitched as I stepped forward and struck at the exposed bone on the dead tusk’s snout with my hammer. Hardened bone rebuffed my effort again and the dead tusk hissed. The sound no longer vibrated my chest away from the terrible acoustics of its den.

  I tried to move into the valley proper, but the realities of my injury made me slower than was acceptable. The beast’s low cunning recognized the opportunity, and it rushed me. Cold acceptance forced me to realize I had no choice but to deflect the charge as best I could.

  Wood cracked, and the impact buckled my leg. Stumbling back, my foot clipped a small outcropping of rock, which launched me down into the valley.

  Pain spiked in my knee as I landed on a cluster of rock, but the Howling Winds assimilated that before the feeling could spread. My back hit a small log and again the Winds had stolen my pain before I could do more than register it’s coming. I tried to roll with the fall as best I could, using my shield at several points to cushion myself. But every time I failed, Iona’s hand squeezed a little tighter, and the Winds assimilated and fed on my hurts.

  When I finally landed in the bottom of the valley, I could hear the beast charge down the hill and threw myself to the side, propelled by my arms rather than injured lower half.

  Several tons of lizard cannot stop on a coin, so the dead tusk could only halt its charge after it’d reached the halfway point of the small valley. As it stopped, a golem bust up from the valley floor in a shower of wet clay and dirt. The marble figure of a baker raised its claws to the sky in supplication and swiped at the soft underbelly of the dead tusk.

  The golem was too short to do any actual damage, and Mika had his golem retreat too quickly to amount to much. With a fluidity that rivaled the Trainers, the golem ran from beneath the dead tusk. A claw passed inches in front of the golem when a shockingly flexible hind leg came inches from destroying the statue, but Mika escaped unharmed.

  From behind me, the golem that followed me this entire time raced by to join its sibling near the beast. Like a child clinging to their mother’s leg, Mika had his golems latch onto the beast’s front leg scrabble up. Distorted bear cubs in a tree. Small claws marks opened up gruesome footholds for their siblings to follow.

  The animal thrashed, hissed, and bucked in pain as it tried to throw the golems from its back. From atop the ridgeline, I tracked a small crescent blade of water scream towards the dead tusk. The magic blade kept its form perfectly to split the scales just above the tip of its tail and four small bone spurs.

  The tightly controlled water cut deep. Red mist sprayed in every direction. The blade stopped only by the dead tusks’ vertebrae. The animal’s wail of pain echoed off the valley walls. Even with its size, the beast was only a child; the pain and the ambush panicked the thing.

  Long honed instincts made me rush the beast. Each step brought a flare of pain and a wash of cold as the Winds swept that fire away.

  One, two, three blows to the same spot I had spent the entire chase attacking and the dense bone of the beast’s jaw finally gave. Fragments of bone tore at the inside of its mouth. With a crack like stone breaking, the follow through ruined one of the creature’s molars.

  The beast wailed again. The sound gargled by the blood in its mouth. With frantic effort, it tried to gore me with its horn but stumbled to the side at the last minute. It let out a keening wail as it tried to get away. Anger had vanished from the sound entirely, replaced by purest fear and pain.

  During the chaos, Ellen charged down the hill and swung on the dead tusks’ back right leg. I caught the pale white flash of exposed bone out the back of its leg at the same time I caught sight of another crescent of water amputate its tail.

  I cast my eyes at its back, expecting to see Mika’s golem digging through the thick scales to reach its spine. Instead, I saw Mika’s golems dance about its back, inflicting the occasional flesh wound, but more often they simply fought to keep stable on the moving platform.

  Stricken with panic, the dead tusk turned from me to get its new attackers off it. I punished the mistake with a hammer blow to the right eye socket. Its head jolted to the side, and it collapsed with a whimper. Overwhelmed by the pain and shock of its injuries.

  I looked at Ellen to see if she was injured, but she was fine. Her hands were on her hips and the head of her maul planted in the soft earth of the creek bed. A baffled look on her face as she contemplated the closed eye and rising chest of the dead tusk. Wholly unaware as to why it fainted.

  I wasn’t, however, and climbed onto its snout. Grabbing fistfuls of the torn flesh on its snout to pull myself up with my shield hand and planted my feet. Its maw was just wide enough for me to take a proper stance.

  It took five blows with the spike of my hammer to crack its skull. Another two with the blunt half to grant it mercy. To finally end its misery. With the creature dead, everyone gathered in the small valley. Ruby, Mika, Nora, and Maggie all came down from the ridgeline towards Ellen and I. Before anyone could speak, I stepped off the head and knelt before it.

  My knees sank into the blood-soaked earth, red staining my armor whenever I shifted. Reverently, I laid my hammer and shield neatly before its mangled snout. Like it was a chalice filled with holy wine, I cupped the creature’s muzzle. The finger nail like texture of its scales a horrible contrast to the wet tenderness of its torn flesh. Silently I bent over and brought my forehead to the cooling flesh of the beast and said a prayer.

  Grace Mother, Ylena. Hear my words. I have brought upon this creature its Stagnation in pursuit of my own Growth. May it go with grace into its next incarnation, and may you shelter it along its journey.

  I kept my forehead pressed to the bloody scales of the beast, aware of everybody around me. Their eyes and questions a physical weight on the back of my neck.

  Iona Black Hand, Mistress of the Howling Winds. See my deeds. I dedicate the Decay and Stagnation of this beast to you. I have asked your holiest Mother to guide this creature to Renewal. I ask of you to shelter its spirit from that which bites and scours on its way into the cycle. Let its spirit be whole and hale as it is Renewed.

  There were no verbal responses to the prayer. Ylena rarely used our connection to grant me audible instructions or messages, but I felt two hands grip my shoulders.

  Both lacked the weight of the physical, but were even more real for it. I knew whose hand was whose instinctively. Iona’s hand was cold and even though it lacked the physical deformity of the hand still gripped around the back of my neck, cold seeped through my armor and clothes to penetrate my bones.

  Ylena’s hand was gentler. She rubbed my shoulder with affection in the same way I’d seen grandmothers do to their descendants so many times growing up.

  I didn’t lift my face from the dead tusk’s until both goddesses lifted their hands from me. Blood had smeared onto my face and upright again, it cascaded down my face to drip off my chin. As if that first drop of blood from my chin had been the moment it waited for, the System sprang forward with a message I’d hoped to see but hadn’t expected.

  Congratulations! You have leveled up! [Grove Guard] is now level 2!

  +2 Constitution +1 Strength +1 Aura +1 Free Point Awarded!