Chương 75: ANNOUNCEMENT: Slight Change to Chapter 56

Quick little editing update for Chapter 56. Huge thanks to HereEmiya for the feedback on Grub's fight with Hask. After thinking about the points they raised, I realized the original opening of the duel didn't fit Grub quite as well as it could have. Originally, Grub started the fight by engaging Hask in melee and only brought out Stone Spear later. The more I thought about it, the less that made sense for him.

Grub knows Hask is stronger, more experienced, and much better in a straight fight, while his biggest advantage is that Hask has absolutely no idea he can use outward magic. So I rewrote the opening. Now Grub tries to end the fight immediately with Stone Spear, taking advantage of the surprise before Hask knows what he's dealing with.

Hask barely avoids it, the Duskroot understandably freak the hell out at seeing Shaman-like magic, Dravak has to keep the situation from turning into a full tribal fight, and once the duel resumes, Hask knows exactly what Grub is capable of and does everything he can to stay in his face and prevent another cast. The rest of the fight still follows roughly the same path and reaches the same outcome, but I think the new version fits Grub's established character much better.

He isn't trying to prove he can outfight an experienced Chief. He tries to win with preparation and surprise, that plan fails, and the melee becomes him desperately surviving long enough to create another opportunity. So again, thanks to HereEmiya for pushing on that point. This is exactly the kind of feedback that helps me catch something I was too close to the chapter to notice myself. Original Version Level Nine. System-blessed. Four Levels above him. Grub exhaled.

He'd expected Hask to be stronger, but seeing the difference laid out so cleanly still dried his mouth. Goblin Trapper told him almost nothing about what Hask could actually do, and sixty Mana meant there was almost certainly more waiting for him than a spear and a bad temper. Hask sneered.

"That little stick won't save you." Grub said nothing. His heart was already hammering hard enough without helping Hask along. Dravak lifted one hand.

"Begin." The clearing went still as the two goblins began circling one another, frost cracking faintly beneath their feet. Grub kept his shortened spear low, its point angled toward Hask's chest while he watched the other goblin's shoulders, hips, and feet rather than the spear itself. Hask paced easily, his full-length weapon loose in one hand and his yellow eyes fixed on Grub's face.

"So this is what the Ironfang calls a fighter," he said.

"I expected something bigger." Grub ignored him. They circled once, then again, and on the third pass Grub moved. His short spear snapped toward Hask's ribs in a probing thrust with little commitment behind it. Hask knocked it aside almost lazily and answered at once, sweeping his longer weapon toward Grub's shoulder. Grub caught the strike against his shaft and turned with the impact instead of trying to stop it outright.

Wood cracked against wood, but he let Hask's strength carry the blow past him and hopped backward before the spearhead could follow. It tugged at the fur near his shoulder without touching skin. A few Ironfangs grunted in approval. Hask snorted.

"That was your best?" His weight dropped. Grub saw it happen. He just didn't understand what it meant until Hask exploded forward. Quick Feet carried Grub sideways as the spear punched through the space his chest had occupied an instant earlier, but Hask turned with him so quickly that Grub barely regained his balance before another thrust came for his stomach. He caught the shaft on his own and twisted. The spearpoint skidded aside, though not far enough.

Earthen Skin swept over Grub's arms, chest, and legs just before the stone struck his ribs. The impact cracked sharply against hardened earth and drove him half a step sideways, but the point failed to reach flesh. Grub dropped the Spell immediately, the earth scattering from his body as he moved, and just in time. Hask's next thrust flashed toward his face. Grub ducked, but a fraction too slowly. Stone kissed his cheek and opened a hot line from beneath his eye toward his ear. The Duskroot erupted.

"Look at him move!"

"Kill him, Chief!" Hask was already on him again before he could take a breath. Grub gave ground beneath a barrage of thrusts that came faster than they should've. He turned one aside, slipped another, barely caught the third, and quickly realized this wasn't simply experience or better Stats. Something had changed. Hask crossed the distance too quickly. His spear recovered almost the instant a thrust ended, and every time Grub thought he had created space, the Chief seemed to consume it before he could use it.

Even the long spear refused to become the weakness Grub had expected at close range. Hask shortened his grip smoothly and kept attacking. One thrust drove Grub's weapon toward his chest. He twisted beneath it and jabbed from barely an arm's length away, forcing Hask back for the first time. Only half a step. Grub followed. Too eager. Hask's spear snapped sideways. Grub jerked away, but the stone tip still sliced across the top of his right shoulder instead of missing entirely. Pain flared. Hask grinned.

Then he came forward again. The Quickleaf helped Grub read the tiny movements preceding each attack, but seeing the danger and escaping it were different problems. A thrust toward his throat became one toward his belly almost before he had finished parrying the first. Grub twisted aside, taking another shallow scrape along his hip instead of a spearhead through his stomach. Hask kept driving him backward until the shouting Duskroot stood only several paces behind him.

The Chief noticed, and his grin widened as he drew the spear back. Grub triggered Quick Feet again and he burst sideways the instant Hask committed, slipped past the thrust beneath his left arm, and came around Hask's flank into open ground. For the first time since Hask's sudden burst of speed began, Grub had room to move. His right hand dropped to the pouch. Stone met his palm. Mana surged. Stone Spear formed and tore away with a sharp crack. Hask twisted aside, far too fast.

The projectile buried half its length in the frozen ground behind him. The Duskroot fell abruptly quieter. Hask stared at the embedded spear for barely an instant before his eyes dropped to the pouch at Grub's hip. Then he smiled.

"Magic? You think your tricks will save you, little Shaman?" Instead of answering, Grub reached for another stone, but Hask attacked his right side immediately. Grub yanked his hand back and caught the thrust with his short spear. The next time he tried reaching for the pouch, Hask's weapon cut across the space before his fingers got close. He learned quickly. Wonderful. From then on, Hask kept Grub too busy to cast.

Every attempt to free his right hand brought another thrust, another sweep, another step that forced him to abandon the Spell and defend himself.

"Reach for it," Hask growled as their weapons cracked together.

"Go on." When the next thrust came low, Grub stepped away instead of countering. Another followed high, and he turned it aside. Hask pressed forward, but Grub retreated without fighting for ground he didn't need. His forearms burned. Blood warmed his cheek, shoulder, hip, and chest in thin lines. None of the cuts were serious, which felt important. Hask kept attacking. Grub kept surviving.

And once Grub stopped trying to win every exchange, he finally had enough attention left to study the goblin trying to kill him. The speed wasn't random. Hask drove hardest from his right leg whenever he surged forward, and before his longest thrusts, his weight committed more heavily than it did during the smaller attacks. Whatever Skill or ability was carrying him through those motions let him recover almost instantly afterward. Almost. Grub gave ground and watched. Another thrust. Another retreat.

Hask drove off the right leg again. Grub used Quick Feet to spring backward, opening several feet between them, and flicked his hand toward the pouch. Hask surged after him exactly as expected. Grub abandoned the cast and rolled beneath the spearhead as it hissed through the space where his neck had been. Still fast. But not quite as fast. Grub came back to his feet and kept retreating. Hask attacked again. His right foot planted. The recovery took a fraction longer.

Grub's breathing was ragged now, but for the first time Hask's movements no longer looked effortless either. Whatever had given him that impossible speed was fading. Grub didn't change anything. Not yet. He let Hask see the same retreat, the same tired defense, the same goblin being steadily driven backward. Hask followed. Another long thrust came. Right foot. Weight forward. Slower recovery. There. This time, Grub knew where the opening would appear before Hask committed.

The spear came toward his chest, and beneath the extended shaft Hask's right thigh opened for a single heartbeat. Grub couldn't avoid the attack and take the opening, so he stopped trying to do both. Earthen Skin hardened over him as he pivoted enough to shift the spear away from the center of his chest and drove his own weapon downward. The barbed stone head punched deep into Hask's thigh. Hask roared. His spear struck Grub's left upper arm almost simultaneously.

The point smashed through the earthen layer with a sharp crack. Stone fractured, slowing the thrust but failing to stop it entirely, and the spearhead punched into flesh beneath. Pain erupted through Grub's shoulder. He screamed and tore himself away, dismissing Earthen Skin as both goblins staggered apart. For several seconds, Grub heard little beyond his own breathing.

Blood ran freely down his left arm, and the hand gripping his shortened spear trembled badly enough that he had to tighten his fingers around the shaft. Across from him, Hask snarled and tried to put weight on his wounded leg. It buckled, and he caught himself with his spear. That was all Grub needed. His right hand was already moving. Hask saw it, and his eyes widened as Grub closed his fingers around a stone and poured Mana through it. Stone Spear formed and launched in almost the same motion.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Hask tried to turn, but the leg Grub had just crippled betrayed him. The projectile struck his shoulder with a brutal crack, punched through fur and flesh, and buried itself deeply enough that half the shaft remained jutting from the wound. The impact spun Hask halfway around. He stumbled, nearly fell, then caught himself while Grub backed away, his own left arm hanging lower now and refusing to obey him properly.

He still managed to keep the short spear clenched in his hand.

"Yield." Hask turned toward him, his face pale beneath the green of his skin. Grub forced air into his lungs.

"The fight is over." Hask bared his teeth.

"I can still fight." Grub believed him. That was the problem. His gaze shifted past Hask toward the first Stone Spear still jutting from the frozen ground. He raised his right hand and reached outward with his Mana. The buried spear exploded. Stone ripped through snow and frozen earth with a violent crack, carving fresh gouges into the ground before the fragments scattered to a stop. Silence swallowed the hollow as every eye turned toward the spear embedded in Hask's shoulder.

Hask looked down at it, then at the shattered earth behind him before finally returning his attention to Grub. Grub raised his hand toward the stone jutting from Hask's flesh.

"I can do the same thing to that." Hask's jaw clenched, and one foot shifted backward before he seemed to realize he had moved.

"Yield and live," Grub said quietly, keeping his hand raised.

"Refuse, and I'll shatter it." Neither tribe made a sound. Grub could feel his pulse beating inside the wound in his arm, blood slipping down his fingers and dripping from the end of his shortened spear. He had spent two weeks preparing himself for exactly this moment, and if Hask refused, Grub would do it. That didn't mean he wanted to. His raised hand lowered slightly.

"Please. Yield." The wind moved softly across the hollow. Hask remained silent for several long breaths before his gaze finally left Grub and moved toward the Duskroot gathered before their den. Hungry faces stared back at him, weapons still clutched in their hands, while beyond them the shapes of direwolves waited between the trees. His eyes dropped once more to the stone buried in his shoulder. Slowly, the point of his spear lowered. For another heartbeat, he held it.

Then his fingers opened, and the weapon fell into the snow.

"I yield." His voice was rough, but clear.

"Duskroot yields." Nothing happened at first. Then one Duskroot spear struck the frozen ground. Another followed, then another, the sound spreading through the hollow until weapons lay scattered across the snow. No one ran. No one even looked toward the trees. The fight had gone out of them all at once. New Version Level Nine. System-blessed. Four Levels above him. Grub exhaled. He'd expected Hask to be stronger, but seeing the difference laid out so cleanly still dried his mouth.

Goblin Trapper told him almost nothing about what Hask could actually do, and sixty Mana meant there was almost certainly more waiting for him than a spear and a bad temper. Hask sneered.

"That little stick won't save you." Grub said nothing. His heart was already hammering hard enough without helping Hask along. Dravak lifted one hand.

"Begin." The clearing went still as the two goblins began circling one another, frost cracking faintly beneath their feet. Grub kept his shortened spear low, its point angled toward Hask's chest while he watched the other goblin's shoulders, hips, and feet rather than the spear itself. Hask paced easily, his full-length weapon loose in one hand and his yellow eyes fixed on Grub's face.

"So this is what the Ironfang calls a fighter," he said.

"I expected something bigger." Grub ignored him and continued circling. Hask had four Levels on Grub and a lifetime of experience Grub couldn't make up for with two weeks of bruises and advice. Walking into spear range just to find out how badly that difference mattered would be stupid. His right hand dropped toward the pouch at his hip. Hask's eyes flicked downward, but by then Grub's fingers had already closed around a stone.

Mana surged through his palm, stretching the rock into a narrow spear that tore free almost as soon as it formed. Grub aimed for the center of Hask's chest, and for one heartbeat, he thought he had him. Then, suddenly, Hask's weight shifted, and his entire body snapped sideways with a burst of speed so sudden that the Stone Spear missed his ribs by inches before burying itself deep in the frozen ground behind him. Silence held for less than a second before the Duskroot erupted.

"Shaman!"

"Magic!"

"Chief!" Several goblins recoiled while others surged toward the fighting ground, spears coming up throughout the crowd. Two Warriors shoved forward from the front rank, one already swinging his weapon around as though he meant to enter the duel. The Ironfang reacted just as quickly. Ashpaw surged to his feet with a deep snarl, and the other direwolves rose around him almost as one.

Fur bristled along eleven backs, lips peeled away from teeth, and the sound that rolled through the hollow was low enough that Grub felt it in his chest. The Duskroot froze. Kesh already had her bow raised, an arrow drawn halfway as she tracked the nearest Warrior. Throk stepped forward beside her, weapon ready, while the Riders tightened their grips and let the wolves speak for them. For a horrible moment, Grub watched the entire reason for the duel begin collapsing around him.

He kept his shortened spear raised but made no move toward another stone. Hask had stopped as well, his weapon still leveled toward Grub even as his attention shifted toward his tribe. Dravak used the short silence, and roared, "BACK!" His voice crashed across the hollow. He stood at the edge of the fighting ground, broad shoulders squared and iron-capped teeth bared.

"Hask accepted the challenge. Any goblin who enters this ground breaks his Chief's word."

"He uses Shaman magic!" someone shouted. A growl moved through the Duskroot, but none of them had forgotten the wolves waiting only a few strides away. Dravak didn't budge.

"And Hask accepted the challenge." One of the Warriors looked toward Hask. Hask's face twisted with fury.

"Back." The nearest Duskroot hesitated. Hask slammed the butt of his spear against the frozen ground.

"I said get back! No one enters my fight." That finally broke the moment. The Warriors who had started forward withdrew, though their weapons remained clenched in both hands, and the rest settled more slowly behind them as shouting faded into angry muttering. The Ironfang didn't relax either. Kesh kept her bow raised for another few breaths before easing the string slightly, Throk remained where he was, and the Fangs held their wolves standing and ready.

Only when the space around Grub and Hask was clear again did Dravak look between them.

"Continue." Hask's gaze returned to Grub. The anger was still there, but his eyes flicked briefly toward the Stone Spear buried in the ground before dropping to the pouch at Grub's hip.

"Magic," he spat.

"You think your tricks will save you, little Shaman?" Grub tightened his grip on his spear, but didn't respond. Hask lowered his weight. Grub recognized the movement this time. It was the same shift that had carried Hask away from the Stone Spear, and knowing what was coming gave him just enough warning to trigger Quick Feet as the Chief exploded forward.

Grub slipped sideways while Hask's spear punched through the place his chest had occupied, but Hask turned with him so quickly that another thrust was already coming for his stomach before Grub had fully regained his balance. He caught the shaft against his own and twisted, knocking the point aside, though not far enough. Earthen Skin swept over his arms, chest, and legs just before the stone struck his ribs. The impact cracked against hardened earth and shoved him half a step sideways without reaching flesh.

Grub dismissed the Spell as he moved, scattering earth from his body a heartbeat before Hask's next thrust flashed toward his face. He ducked, but not quickly enough. Stone kissed his cheek and opened a hot line from beneath his eye toward his ear. The Duskroot shouted again, some of the fear in their voices giving way to savage approval now that their Chief was driving him backward. Hask gave Grub no chance to answer them.

He stayed close enough that the long spear should have become awkward, but shortened his grip without hesitation and kept attacking, each thrust flowing into the next while Grub gave ground and struggled to keep his shorter weapon between them. The Quickleaf helped. Grub could see the small movements preceding each attack, the turn of Hask's shoulder or shift of his hips, but seeing the danger and getting his body clear in time were very different things.

His right hand dropped toward the pouch again, but Hask's spear immediately cut across that side, forcing Grub to snatch his hand back and twist the shaft away with his own weapon. Two exchanges later, Grub created another step of distance and reached again. Hask ignored his chest entirely this time and stabbed straight for his hand. Grub recoiled, barely keeping his fingers. On the next retreat, he didn't bother reaching.

Instead, he twisted beneath a thrust and jabbed from barely an arm's length away, forcing Hask back for the first time. It was only half a step, but Grub followed before caution caught up with him. Hask's spear snapped sideways. Grub jerked away, yet the stone tip still sliced across the top of his right shoulder. Pain flared, and Hask's grin returned as he drove forward again. Kesh would have called following him stupid. Throk probably would have found a more insulting word.

Grub refocused and stopped trying to take the ground back. He retreated instead, catching one thrust, slipping another, then twisting far enough from a third that the point scraped across his hip rather than punching into his stomach. Hask stayed on him through every movement, using his greater reach and those sudden bursts of unnatural speed to turn each few feet of distance into little more than borrowed time. Before long, the shouting Duskroot were only a few paces behind Grub.

Hask noticed, and his grin widened as he drew his spear back for another long thrust. Grub triggered Quick Feet and burst sideways the instant Hask committed, slipping beneath the extended shaft and past his left arm before circling into open ground. For the first time since the duel resumed, there was real space between them. Grub's right hand dropped toward his pouch. Hask wheeled and came after him immediately. Grub barely managed to get his fingers inside before another impossible burst closed the distance.

He abandoned the stone and brought his spear up instead, catching Hask's weapon with a crack of wood against wood.

"Reach for it," Hask growled as he leaned into the bind.

"Go on." Grub shoved away and retreated. His forearms burned, his breathing had started to roughen, and blood warmed his cheek, shoulder, and hip in thin lines. None of the wounds were serious yet, but Hask kept attacking as though he had all day to turn shallow cuts into something worse. Grub let him. Once he stopped wasting attention on trying to win every exchange, he finally had enough left to watch the goblin behind the spear. The speed wasn't random.

Every time Hask surged forward, he drove hardest from his right leg. The longest thrusts came with a heavier commitment of his weight, followed by the same unnatural acceleration that had carried him clear of Grub's opening Stone Spear. Whatever Skill or ability was doing it also let him recover almost immediately afterward. Almost. Grub continued giving ground, deflecting when he had to and retreating whenever he could.

When Hask planted that right foot again and launched forward, Grub used Quick Feet to spring several feet backward before flicking his hand toward the pouch. Hask chased exactly as expected, so Grub abandoned the cast before his fingers closed around a stone and dropped beneath the spearhead as it hissed through the space where his neck had been. By the time he came back to his feet, Hask was already turning after him. Still fast, but the recovery had taken a little longer. Grub kept retreating.

Hask attacked again. His right foot planted, his weight drove forward, and this time the motion afterward was rougher still. His breathing had begun to change too, chest rising harder beneath his furs even while he continued pressing Grub backward. Grub gave Hask the same retreat, the same tired defense, the same little goblin being steadily driven backward. Every time the Chief surged, Grub watched that right leg and waited for the recovery to grow a little slower.

Eventually, another long thrust came toward his chest. Hask's right foot planted, his weight committed forward, and beneath the extended spear his thigh opened for a single heartbeat. Grub saw it before Hask had finished the attack. He knew he couldn't avoid the spear and take the opening at the same time, so he stopped trying to do both.

Earthen Skin hardened across his body once more as he pivoted enough to drag Hask's spear away from the center of his chest, then drove his own weapon downward with everything he had. The barbed stone head punched deep into Hask's thigh. Hask roared, but his own thrust had already been committed. The spear smashed through the earthen layer covering Grub's left upper arm with a sharp crack, fractured stone slowing the point without stopping it before it punched deep into flesh.

For an instant they were both caught there, each with the other's spear buried in him. Then Hask ripped his weapon free. Pain tore through Grub's arm as the stone point dragged back through the wound, leaving a clean yet serious wound. Blood followed immediately, running hot down his skin. Grub wrenched his own spear out at nearly the same moment. Hask's scream drowned out his.

The backward-facing barbs caught flesh on the way free and tore the wound wider, ripping through muscle before the bloody stone head finally came loose. Hask stumbled hard onto his good leg, one hand shooting toward his thigh as blood began soaking through the fur around it. Grub staggered away as well, dismissing Earthen Skin while his left arm dropped almost uselessly at his side. His shortened spear trembled in his right hand, its barbed head slick with Hask's blood.

Across from him, Hask snarled and tried to put weight on the wounded leg. It buckled beneath him, forcing him to catch himself with his spear. Grub's hand was already moving toward the pouch. Hask saw it. His eyes widened as Grub closed his fingers around a stone and poured Mana through it. Grub didn't aim for the shoulder. He aimed to kill him. Stone Spear formed and launched toward Hask's chest in almost the same motion.

Hask threw himself aside on instinct, but the leg Grub had just torn open couldn't carry him far enough. His upper body twisted away from the killing line, and the projectile slammed into his shoulder instead with a brutal crack, punching through fur and flesh before burying itself deeply enough that half the stone shaft remained jutting from the wound. The impact spun Hask halfway around.

He stumbled and nearly fell before catching himself, while Grub backed away with his left arm hanging lower now, refusing to obey him properly.

"Yield." Hask turned toward him, his face pale beneath the green of his skin. Grub forced air into his lungs.

"The fight is over."

"I can still fight." Grub believed him. His gaze shifted past Hask toward the first Stone Spear, still buried in the frozen ground where it had missed him at the beginning of the duel. He raised his right hand, reached outward with his Mana, and the buried Stone Spear exploded with a violent crack, fragments ripping through snow and frozen earth hard enough to carve fresh gouges into the ground before scattering across the clearing. The Duskroot reacted very differently this time.

Several flinched, and one goblin near the front muttered something Grub couldn't hear, but no one rushed forward. A few actually edged backward as their attention moved from the torn ground to the Stone Spear still buried in Hask's shoulder, and what remained of their muttering quickly faded. Hask followed their gaze. He looked down at the stone protruding from his flesh, then back toward the shattered patch of ground where the first spear had been.

By the time his attention returned to Grub, some of the fury had left his face. Grub kept his hand raised toward the Stone Spear in his shoulder.

"I can do the same thing to that." Hask's jaw clenched, and one foot shifted backward before he seemed to realize he had moved.

"Yield and live," Grub said quietly.

"Refuse, and I'll shatter it." Neither tribe made a sound. Grub could feel his pulse beating inside the wound in his arm, blood slipping down his fingers and dripping from the end of his shortened spear. He had spent two weeks preparing for this fight knowing there was a very real chance it would end with one of them dead, and if Hask forced him to finish it now, he would. He really, really didn't want to. His raised hand lowered slightly.

"Please. Yield." For several long breaths, Hask said nothing. The wind moved softly through the hollow as his gaze finally left Grub and traveled toward the Duskroot gathered before their den. Hungry faces stared back at him, weapons still clutched in their hands, while beyond them the direwolves waited between the trees. Hask looked down once more at the Stone Spear buried in his shoulder. Slowly, he lowered his own spear.

He held it for another heartbeat before his fingers opened and the weapon dropped into the snow.

"I yield." His voice was rough, but clear.

"Duskroot yields." For a moment, none of his tribe moved. Then one Duskroot spear struck the frozen ground, followed by another, and then another, the sound spreading through the hollow until weapons lay scattered across the snow. No one ran. No one even looked toward the trees. The fight had gone out of them all at once.