NEVEN

Queasiness bounced along his stomach over the boat ride to the Oath posting — the true test of their character and all they learned. He sat on the railing with his boots over the edge, listening to the waves rumble against the keel below. His crescent blade sat at his hip. Icy magick filled the runes along the hook as they sailed into the docks of the island. Some people rushed out of their houses along the ridge to investigate their arrival, and Neven swung himself over to move with his Unit down the gangplank to meet the Storm Wardens.

"I am Captain Togrun," the Storm Warden at the front said, grizzled with a thick scar down his jawline, serrated from mangled claws — a survivor of a Derelict attack with a sum of luck. "I'm sure most of you haven't shaken a stick at a Derelict before, so we're going to change that today." He looked between them, and Neven drew his attention off his face. "We're going to change that because if I give you any leniency you'll have scars of your own. Even then, you might still get some if you're lucky to get away from death. Follow me." He swung on his heel and waved his hands at the other older Wardens, who departed into the small village.

Neven brushed his hands against the bark as they headed deeper into the forest. Each one, individual to the smallest leaf buds. Smooth. Stout. Tall. Flaky. The Warden Outpost circled around a large tree of bleeding hearts, where spikes created out of the watery moat for carrying magick. Some Wardens sat at a campfire, spitroasting a chunk of meat with quiet chatters. The line of defense for the town from the ward pillars on each cardinal.

"As I said, this is your first posting, so don't expect any leniency until your job is done," Captain Togrun said. "You're here to learn the whole truth of what we do — including the ugly parts." He unfurled a scroll with quick, dextrous fingers. "We have a couple concentrated infestations which have forced the people of this island to abandon some townships deeper in — so, I'll be giving some groups a job. One will clear out these concentrated infestations, the other will patrol around the area and dispatch any stragglers. Any questions?" He peered over the scroll.

Neven half-expected Kemal to leap up at the opening, but his surprising silence spoke to him loud and clear. Captain Togrun gave them a ferocious smile without fangs. "Good. We understand each-other." He brought a fist up to his heart, and Neven copied him with the rest of his Unit. "So, let's start with the patrol routes." He pointed at their fresh crescent blades. "Each one of you will have to kill a Derelict here if you want to finish forging those, so I hope you've been taught how to use them."

Evani leaned towards Kemal. "Does he think we're going to run?"

Everyone froze when Captain Togrun stepped forward with an eerie smile. "The first natural instinct will be to run — but you cannot run anymore. There is nowhere to run with Derelicts, they will hunt you, chase you, chew you to your bones and then some. So don't make it easy for them, if you give them a chase you give them the advantage. Derelicts are relentless. Depraved. The best Storm Wardens are Derelicts to the creatures of the Echo Obscura." He pointed at the posting job board. "I have your names written down with recommendations from your trainer of your strengths and weaknesses. Oh." He tossed a bag of runeflares to the ground. "You're going to want to take a couple of these. "They're loaded with magick, if you find yourself in a spot of trouble, send one up into the sky and help will come. Afterwards if none of you have died, we'll undergo a drill operation against a Derelict Goliath."

Neven waited as Captain Togrun separated them into small groups of two to four, and when it came to them, Togrun folded his arms. "Tyronai and Lotayrin?"

"Yes, we are, ser," Kemal said in one smooth, respectful flourish.

"You two will start your patrol on the eastern side of the island along the beach, I can say I recently cleaned it myself, but Derelicts are blasted things," he grunted. "Expect anything."

"And what if we run into one with just the two of us?" Kemal asked his typical questions, and it sent a shockwave of relaxation through him, though the subject matter was anything but.

"If you do, I expect you to do your job," Captain Togrun said and passed Kemal a couple of the runeflares. "Most of the bad infestations are deeper inland. You were taught survival skills along with bladework. Put them into practice, and pray to the Ancients you make it out alive."

"Anything else?" Kemal mumbled with an edge of sardonic irritation.

"Yes. Don't die. We get so few recruits as is."

Kemal grumbled in Hanekan.

"Thank you for the advice to not die, ser," Neven said.

Captain Togrun raised an eyebrow at him, with Kemal giving him the same side-eye. "Go on then. Get going." He shooed them to the forest edge. "'Fraid the people here don't live solely on fish. They rely plenty on the bounty of the forest. Derelicts kill their crops and drain the animals of any sustenance. Dispatch them as they come, and give these people a chance to harvest to outlast them too."

Neven prodded Kemal in his forearm and the two wandered out into the forest with Kemal taking the lead with his knowledge of the land. I wish I had a frost compass... which way is north, or east... are we actually going east? How does he know where he's going? He whipped around for any sort of indication, but Kemal moved with a confident stride. Is this east? Intuition proved a dangerous thing to trust out in the wastelands, but his heart quieted at the sound of waves crashing against a sandy shore. He let out his tension through his nose when their boots sank into the golden pebbles. Foam sprayed out the flames of the sun, and warmth added to the dampness along his neck as he took in another breath to stockpile any cold moisture inside his lungs. He raised his hands when Kemal turned to him. "Do not worry," he quipped. "I will not die of summer sickness."

Kemal shook his head.

Guess the joke didn't translate well...

They walked along the beach and studied tracks — skills to practice, looking out for any signs of the infestation. Neven sniffed the air, then scrunched his nose with a plume of smoke regulating the magick within his lungs. Waves of decay and mold. Not strong... but noticeable... it's like back in those ruins. Shivers rocked down his spine at the memory of unnatural, dissonant moans of hunger. So, that confirms what Captain Togrun reported, he cleared it out, but... they were certainly here and there's a chance they came back.

"You smell it too?" Kemal asked.

"Yes, but it could be from the last patrol." Neven waddled across the beach and his mind drifted to flying across the waves on a board. He inched closer to the forest, where the smell mixed with mossrot. "The infestation must've drawn farther in trying to avoid the Wardens clearing the beach out..." He noted it down in his own mind. Another survival skill for Wardens, a matter of life and death with all the information in his hands at any given second.

"I have a question."

Neven turned to him with a smile. "You always do, my curious friend."

"Do you have anything like this in Irimount? Severe Derelict infestations, I mean."

Neven bit on his tongue and shook his head. "No. Outside the walls is too cold for any to live, including Derelicts. It is also difficult to pick up smell with the constant windshear. Derelicts can freeze as much as we do."

"Well, in Haneka you can usually tell how long it's been since a Derelict infested an area, including the intensity and amount if you know what you're looking for." He stepped up to the bushes and withdrew his crescent blade. "The forest rot spreads the scene farther. Makes it more defined and you can usually pinpoint..."

As if in response to Kemal's lesson, the forest released an unnatural screech and moan. Bones cracked in his ears when a shadow molded out of the thick canopy and stretched out thick, slimy black tendrils. Neven raced forward to assist Kemal when the creature landed where he had been moments before when he took his own jump back, leaving a glyph of browns to meet it instead. As their tongue lolled out, it writhed and screeched out through its double-layer maw when the sand turned into glass at the focal points and drove its own serrated edges into its jaw.

The world's worst nightmare.

Mangled teeth broke apart the glass shards and bled its own gums, which it licked up with its slobber. Kemal raised his crescent blade when it took a thoughtless leap out of the spikes of sharpened magick glass. With a heavy, forward movement, Kemal swung his crescent blade downwards into the crown of its head. He brought it down to the sand, and shoved his armored boot into its cranium with a squelch. White bones stuck out in response and tried to chew at the armor and rang out with a terrible doomsong which set his feathers frayed. Kemal dug the blade deeper with a scowl, and Neven shuffled back when the bloodstained sand spread. Crimson filled the runes in Kemal's blade, absorbed by the magick ready for its arrival.

Left into golden ash, it blew with the ocean wind.

Kemal sheathed his crescent blade, then blinked. "Did you want that one?"

"Uh..." Neven licked his lips. "A little bit late to ask that question, is it not? Besides, it was a clean takedown, Kem."

Kemal rolled his grip of the blade to examine the crimson stained hook. Blood oozed into the runes. He sheathed the blade then looked around the beach, and when he took another sniff of the air, the decay and mold subsided further into the forest. "We're clear, for now, at least."

"You've had experience," Neven commented.

"It's one of the first things Hanekans teach children. How to track Derelicts." Kemal wiped his brow and hung his hand onto a low-hanging branch.

"To fight them?"

"No." Kemal sat down on a stray log. "I remember one day when I was younger, a sailor... or surfer I can't really recall... washed up on the beach and for a second I didn't realise it was a corpse." Kemal's lips folded inward. "It looked like a ribbon of red seaweed, but... then a black mass came bubbling out of the water and my Dad ran in and beat it with an oar — as it turns out, if you beat a Derelict enough times you can usually force them into reformation, which gives you enough time to run."

Neven nodded along, but sent his gaze upwards at a whistle of flames, and he widened his eyes when a flare flew through the canopy with a melodic hum, bursting into familiar particles. Kemal leaned backwards to catch a glimpse.

Yusari's yellow magick, mixed with Evani's oceanic blues.

"Evani and Yusari are in trouble." Neven ran past Kemal, who scrambled to his feet with ease, his heavy footsteps giving him a sense of his friend's constant, strong presence. The flare popped above their heads until it dissipated, and Neven burst into an overgrown clearing of weeds and brambles. He scrambled to a stop when the burrs dug deep, with nature swallowing a large house whole. Flashes of magick sparked through the thick fog oozing out of the cracks.

"Shit." Kemal hissed beside him.

Neven sent a tide of ice to cut away the excess fields to rush along its surface and slide to the side of the house, where the stone foundations held up rotted red wood. "Yusari! Evani!" he shouted over to the windows, then frowned when tendrils dug their claws deep.

"They stumbled right into the heart of an infestation!" Kemal snapped as he caught up to him.

Ice whispered.

He sat with his back to the statue of his ancestors when the Derelict clawed its frozen way to him. To his friends. To the innocent. Steam overflowed his lungs and set his soul to pure sudden light. Golden wisps curled around his feet, and Kemal swung his attention to him, though the colours, the voices blurred to let the song in. Neven drove his fangs into his lower lip and bonuced backwards with only one goal.

To fly, to fall, to shield and protect, as was his soul's decree.

Kemal swung himself into his way, and he leaped into Kemal's awaiting hands as he gathered the magick around him into glaives carved straight from the oceanic moisture. Glyphs met glyph, and Neven leaped upwards and landed straight on the broken boards of the scaled roof, using the glaives to drive a wedge straight through the living cloud.

To hear, to understand, to listen.

Claws drove themselves around his boots, a dream within the eyes of corruption.

Wood scattered into chips as the glaives went every which way into the thickest parts of the cloud, sending white light into the corners to reveal Yusari and Evani driving their blades into a wide Derelict, which split its jaw to stretch it forward to pierce their legs. He sent a leash of ice for them, splitting its jaw in half as they tugged their blades back.

No, not again.

He ran for a Derelict slithering its way through the floorboards, sliding himself to their backs as it lunged out with a screech. In a heartbeat, he drove his hand forward to grab the top of its jaw with a golden mirage of wings protecting him. Crescent blade in his other hand, he sliced the underbelly of the nightmare's doomsong. Overturned, he swung the hook upwards, and it split apart in golden sparks.

"Nev?" Yusari rasped.

Except her voice drowned out with the tempest when he twisted around to another formless shadow, sending one of the loose glaives straight into it to slam it back through the window, and the air from outside poured in. Sunlight pierced the cracks, and the shadows expanded as the front door rattled. Kemal burst through as he tossed a large board to the side with ease. "Out!" he barked. "This is too much and we need a better foothold outside!"

Neven formed a wall of ice to separate the infestation from his friends, throwing it forward when it melted. Yusari and Evani, crescent blades soaked with crimson, ran for Kemal and stumbled out of the infestation. Neven bounced on his heel and ran out after them the moment Kemal tapped his back. Out into the bramble fields, the Derelicts formed together to give chase. On the edge of the forest, Kemal scowled. "Not likely." He slammed his heel into the ground below, and the brambles pulsed and oozed with magick, expanding and driving themselves into the Derelicts, which scrambled and screeched.

"That should hold them long enough. Let's go!" Kemal pushed Yusari and Evani deeper into the forest.

Neven went after them as the steam rushed out of his nose, until they stumbled into a quieter clearing.

"Ancients," Evani rasped. "If you two hadn't come when you did—"

"That's what the flares are for."

Their voices came back in on a tidal wave, and Neven held his head at the sensory overload as he sank to his knees.

"What in the Infernal Hells was that?" Kemal asked and knelt down at his side, with Yusari and Evani on the other.

No... is it truly possible? But... no one, not a single Avaerilian has ever...

"Neven?" Yusari whispered.

He drew out of their hands with a startled gasp, holding up his hands with the mirage long gone. "I am sorry!"

"What? Why?" Evani asked and hauled himself off the ground. "We couldn't handle that all by ourselves. You helped us out, no need to apologise."

Neven hid his fangs behind his hands and eyed Kemal. "It... it is Avaerilian thing," he stammered out. "Unique to our physiology, I did not mean to startle you out of your duty!" He waved his hands once more. "It is rare and I have... no control over it." He sank into his shoulders, weighed down with shame.

It went silent.

"I thought it was awesome," Evani piped up through the tension. "I thought you turned into an actual wyvern!"

"No, no, no turning into wyverns here." Neven patted his chest. "It is just an expulsion of magick."

Of... my soul... just like last time when I thought that my friends were in danger it... came to me.

Kemal set a hand on his hip and turned back to where they retreated from. "We're going to have to tell the posting we'll need more than four of us to clear out that particular infestation," he mumbled. "We should go back."

Neven shuffled over to Yusari, his words jumbled on his lips as Evani and Kemal bickered back and forth as if their near death experience left them unfazed. "Are you—?"

"Hurt? No." He flinched at her cold tone, but she sighed and shook her head. "Sorry, that left me a little rattled... I appreciate the concern, Nev. As it turns out, guess I wasn't ready for them either." Her hand went to the back of her head when she let out a grunt of frustration.

"Oi!" Kemal called. "Let's get going!"

Neven nodded tight against his neck, then urged Yusari forward with a poke into her shoulder, careful to not let the touch linger over long as he kept to the back of the pack, with unseen wings outstretched to shield all the world he loved.