Chương 16: Chapter 17: Stalkers in the Greywash

Rain had stopped sometime before dawn, though the world still carried its weight. Mud clung thickly to the roads outside Dunmere's eastern gate, churned dark by wagon wheels and patrol boots until the earth itself resembled river silt dragged onto land. Mist drifted low across the Greywash beyond the palisades, blurring water and sky together beneath the pale grey morning, and my entire body ached in places I had not known sword work could reach. It was not the clean soreness left by labour or axe work.

This felt smaller and meaner, tension buried through the shoulders, wrists, hips, and fingers from holding unfamiliar stances too long. Even walking beside the patrol aggravated muscles I had never noticed before learning the sword, and Bren Maddock noticed almost immediately.

"You're walking straighter." I glanced sideways.

"That criticism?" Bren kept his eyes on the road ahead.

"It's suspicion." Jory Pike snorted from ahead of us while nearly tripping over a rut in the road.

"That's because yesterday he fought like somebody trying to beat a bear to death with kitchen cutlery."

"I killed the wolves." Jory glanced back.

"You nearly killed the sword too." Wade Corbett adjusted the marker posts strapped across his shoulder.

"He'll fit in fine with the guards then." The patrol moved south along the Greywash road in loose formation, Bren slightly ahead with his spear resting across one shoulder while Jory drifted constantly from side to side like an anxious dog trying to herd invisible sheep. Wade remained furthest from the river, eyes scanning the palisade markers and flood ditches automatically, as though he could not stop himself inspecting structures even while armed.

Dunmere spread behind us slowly through the fog, and from this distance the town looked less permanent than I remembered from childhood, more like something assembled temporarily beside the river and never fully trusted to survive the winter. The Greywash did not allow permanence easily. The river thundered beside us beneath the mist, broad and dark and cold enough to kill within minutes during flood season.

Even now, in calmer weather, the current moved with ugly strength around the ferry chains stretching from one bank to the other, while barges crawled across it like insects dragging themselves over the back of a sleeping beast. Jory looked toward the water and muttered, "River's high."

"River's always high," Wade replied. Jory shook his head.

"No, this is proper high." Wade did not bother looking.

"You say that every week."

"One week I'll be correct." Bren grunted softly.

"And then we'll all drown impressed." Jory brightened immediately.

"Exactly." I adjusted the borrowed sword at my hip. It still felt foreign there, too narrow and precise, while the absence of Desperate Counter unsettled me more than I wanted to admit aloud. Even now I occasionally caught myself reaching unconsciously toward the old instinctive readiness the skill had once provided, only to remember I had abandoned it beside the patrol road yesterday. The memory still sat badly in my chest. Copper. My first Copper skill. Gone. I understood the logic behind it.

Talvek and Bren were right. Desperate Counter was survival sharpened into reflex rather than true combat mastery. Yet logic did not stop the strange hollow feeling that accompanied losing the first ability I had ever truly earned for myself. Bren seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts.

"You still mourning it?" he asked. I frowned slightly.

"What?" He did not look at me.

"The skill." Jory perked up immediately.

"You can mourn abilities?" Wade muttered without turning.

"Course you can. Most people never get enough to lose one." Bren adjusted the shield on his back.

"Commoners treat their first skills like family heirlooms. Doesn't mean they should keep them forever." I looked toward the river.

"Easy for you to say." Bren barked a short laugh.

"Lad, I ruined my first build before you were old enough to hold an axe properly." That caught my attention.

"You ruined it?"

"Rushed it." Bren shrugged.

"Thought surviving fights meant I understood fighting. Took shield forms too early, mixed them badly with river spear drills, boxed myself into defensive evolutions that don't scale properly past Iron." Jory winced sympathetically.

"That's rough."

"That's common." Bren pointed the spear toward Dunmere behind us.

"Half the guards in that town are stuck where they are because nobody taught them progression before life forced decisions on them." Wade snorted quietly.

"Other half are stuck because the river steals half their wages before they can afford training."

"True enough." I considered that silently while the patrol continued southward through the mist. Advancement had seemed almost simple in my mind until recently: work hard, survive, grow stronger. Yet every conversation since the Crimson Elf attack had revealed another layer beneath the system, skill quality, merging, build paths, dead-end abilities, and choices made before a person understood they were choices at all. The world no longer resembled a ladder.

It resembled a forest of branching roads where most commoners apparently chose wrong while still running from the first thing trying to kill them. The thought stayed with me until the patrol stopped near a collapsed warning marker beside the eastern road, and Wade swore softly before dropping the replacement posts from his shoulder. The old post had been snapped nearly halfway through, deep claw marks carved along the timber.

Mud around the base showed signs of heavy movement, and the impressions resembled wolves at first glance, though longer through the claws and strangely deep at the front. Jory leaned closer.

"Boars?" Bren crouched beside the tracks.

"Too narrow." I stepped closer.

"Not wolves." Bren nodded once.

"Iron stalkers." Jory's expression tightened immediately.

"Thought they stayed deeper north." Bren stood slowly.

"So did everybody else." Wade set the replacement marker down heavily beside the ditch.

"Greater beasts push smaller predators out. Same thing happened fifteen years ago during the southern burning." I looked up.

"You were there?" Wade shrugged.

"Dock work followed the refugee barges. War moves people. People move problems." Bren's gaze remained on the tracks.

"Tracks are fresh." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Almost as if summoned by the words, movement flickered through the mist ahead, not one shape but several. The patrol froze instantly as Iron stalkers emerged from the fog in silence, lean bodies low against the mud while pale eyes reflected weak morning light. They were larger than wolves by nearly half again, though built lighter through the chest with longer forelimbs ending in hooked black claws.

Wet grey fur clung tightly against muscle and rib beneath the rain, and five of them circled into view with the patient hunger of animals used to winning. Jory inhaled sharply.

"That's too many." Bren's voice stayed calm.

"Formation." Everything changed at once. The easy patrol rhythm vanished. Wade moved left automatically, shield and hatchet already raised. Jory moved right faster than necessary, nearly slipping in the mud before correcting himself, and I drew the borrowed sword while my body screamed for the axe at my hip. Axe Strike pulsed inside me like restrained momentum begging release, but Bren's voice cut across the fog before the first beast lunged.

"Control." The lead stalker came first, and Bren met it with terrifying efficiency. No wasted force. No flourish. His spear drove forward in a short brutal thrust that punched cleanly through the creature's throat before it even reached shield range, and blood burst hot into the cold mist as the beast collapsed around the shaft. The second stalker hit Wade almost simultaneously. The carpenter fought differently from Bren, less refined and more practically violent.

His shield slammed sideways into the creature's skull hard enough to crack teeth before his hatchet chopped downward twice in rapid succession, burying itself deep through the beast's shoulder. Jory nearly died in the first exchange. His stalker came low through the mud faster than expected, and he reacted late, stumbling backward before recovering through pure frantic speed. His sword flickered wildly through the mist in nervous defensive arcs while he talked continuously through clenched teeth.

"No no no absolutely not." The creature snapped for his leg, and Jory's blade darted downward instinctively. River Guard Blade flashed through the movement like reflected water, fast and shallow, cutting clean across the stalker's snout, not deeply enough to end it, but enough to distract the beast while he pivoted away before the jaws closed. I barely noticed because my own stalker had reached me. The creature circled once before lunging directly for my throat, and I reacted wrong immediately.

I swung like an axe fighter, too hard and too committed, and the sword cut through empty mist while the stalker twisted sideways with awful ease. Claws tore across my sleeve before I managed to wrench backward through the mud.

"Again!" Bren barked. The beast lunged a second time. I forced myself not to overcommit, shortening the movement, cutting down the force, trusting the lighter blade to turn rather than trying to impose weight it did not possess. The sword moved awkwardly in my grip, still unfamiliar, but faster than the axe would have been. Steel met flesh, and the cut sliced across the creature's shoulder in a shallow line that sprayed blood warm across my hand. The stalker recoiled immediately, and something shifted inside me.

Not instinct this time, but structure. Guarded Blade settled deeper as the rhythm of the fight finally began aligning with the weapon instead of fighting against it. The sword no longer felt borrowed. It was not natural yet, but it had become usable. The fifth stalker came from the riverbank, fast enough that Jory could not intercept cleanly.

It hit Wade's shield side while the carpenter still struggled with the wounded beast at his feet, claws scraping sparks across iron-bound wood as Wade staggered sideways toward the ditch. I moved before thinking, but there was no panic in it. No Desperate Counter. Just movement. I stepped into the opening Bren had drilled into me across two days of humiliation, blade turning inward rather than outward, strike tight instead of wide.

The sword drove beneath the stalker's ribs while its weight still crashed against Wade's shield. The impact nearly tore the weapon from my grip, but the strike landed properly, and the stalker screamed as Wade finished it immediately with the hatchet. For several breaths the world narrowed into mud, blood, rainwater, and movement.

Bren's spear rose and fell with brutal precision beside me while Jory darted constantly through openings too small for comfort, his sword flashing in nervous silver bursts whenever beasts overextended. Wade fought like a man repairing a broken dock during a storm, each strike practical, irritated, and meant to make the problem stop existing. Then suddenly it ended.

The remaining stalkers broke toward the trees all at once, disappearing back into the mist with frightening speed while rain dripped steadily from branches, shields, blades, and torn sleeves. Jory bent double, breathing hard.

"I hate those things." Wade cleaned his sword against his sleeve.

"You hate everything with teeth." Jory nodded without shame.

"Correct." Bren wiped blood from the spearhead against the dead stalker nearest his boots. His eyes settled on me immediately.

"Better." I looked down at the sword still in my hand. The blade trembled faintly from exhaustion and adrenaline, yet something inside me had changed during the fight. The sword no longer felt like a stranger's tool awkwardly forced into my grip. It felt narrower than the axe, lighter and more disciplined, but no longer entirely wrong. The system settled quietly beneath my ribs.

The advancement arrived cleanly, without violent surge or savage panic tearing through muscle and bone the way Desperate Counter had evolved. ABILITY ADVANCED Guarded Blade has advanced from Common to Iron (early). You now better understand guarded recovery, short defensive cuts, controlled footwork, blade alignment, and the value of answering danger without surrendering posture to panic.

This ability grows through restraint, repeated exchanges, deliberate defensive structure, and survival without relying on desperation. The skill deepened gradually through me, calm and structured, settling into posture, timing, and instinct all at once. I exhaled slowly. Bren noticed immediately.

"There it is." Jory looked up sharply.

"You advanced?" I kept staring at the sword.

"Think so."

"During the fight?" Wade barked a short laugh.

"That usually happens during knitting." Jory ignored him completely.

"What's it feel like?" I considered the question honestly.

"Quieter." That seemed the closest word available. Desperate Counter had felt like drowning panic sharpened into survival. Guarded Blade felt deliberate instead, controlled, as though the system approved of discipline more than fear. The thought unsettled me more than I expected, and Bren, watching over the dead stalkers, seemed to understand enough not to mock it.

"Good," Bren said.

"Means you're learning." They finished replacing the warning marker while the dead stalkers steamed faintly in the cold mud nearby. Wade checked the post twice, then drove the final wedge with unnecessary force. Jory insisted on counting the tracks again and grew quieter when he found more impressions fading toward the north than there had been bodies left on the road. Bren said nothing about that, which made the discovery worse. The patrol resumed toward Dunmere beneath the slow darkening sky.

By the time the town walls emerged through the mist again, my arms ached, my boots were soaked through, and every muscle in my body longed for the familiar certainty of my axe. Yet beneath the exhaustion sat something else now, not triumph and not comfort, but structure, the beginning of a shape that had not been there before.

For the first time since leaving the forest with Orven's blood still drying on my hands, I felt the outline of a future that was not simply surviving one disaster after another, and the feeling unsettled me almost as much as the Crimson Elf had.