The Drakwald Forest is not simply a wood; it is an infected wound in the side of the Empire. The trees grow twisted, roots looking like arthritic fingers trying to trip travelers, and the fog never truly lifts, hiding predators who have forgotten the meaning of mercy.
Geneviève had been riding for days in this green and gray nightmare, heading toward Marienburg. Duraz, the armored destrier, was nervous. His steel nostrils snorted rhythmic steam, and his ears swiveled constantly. Even he, born among rocks, felt that this place was wrong.
The attack did not come with a war cry, but with the heavy sound of snapping trees. From the fog to the right of the path emerged a Tuskgor Chariot, a war chariot pulled by mutant boars, driven by a Bestigor roaring orders in a dark tongue. The chariot struck Duraz's flank. Only the dwarven barding saved the horse from being disemboweled, but the impact was devastating. Geneviève was thrown from the saddle, landing heavily in the mud and rotting leaves.
She struggled to her feet, her head buzzing. It was not a group of isolated raiders. It was a Warherd. Dozens of Gors (beastmen with goat horns) were pouring out of the brush, armed with rusty axes and shields made of bark and human skin. And behind them, towering over the mass, was a Minotaur. A three-meter-tall mass of bull muscle, covered in ritual scars and shreds of chainmail, wielding two cleavers the size of doors.
"Duraz! Go!" yelled Geneviève with her hoarse voice. The horse, wounded in one leg and surrounded by boars, kicked furiously, opening a path to avoid being encircled, but leaving Geneviève alone in the center of the ring.
Geneviève drew her sword. The Gors charged. For the first few minutes, it was a butchery. Geneviève's technique, refined by the Dwarves and blessed by the Lady, was impeccable. Every blow was lethal. She parried, struck, broke bones. Her full armor was impenetrable to the crude weapons of the lesser beasts. But there were too many of them. Shield bashes, axe handles, hooves. They hit her from every side, denting her plates, knocking the wind out of her.
Then came the Minotaur. The beast charged through its own kind, trampling Gors who didn't move fast enough. Geneviève raised her sword to parry the descending cleaver. The impact was as if a cathedral had collapsed on her. Her knees gave way. The ground beneath her boots cracked. The parry held, but the kinetic force dislocated her right shoulder. Geneviève screamed in pain inside the helm, a choked sound.
The Minotaur roared, drool dripping onto Geneviève's plates, and struck again with the second cleaver, a lateral blow that caught her full in the chest. Geneviève flew backward. She crashed into an old oak with enough violence to crack her backplate. She fell to the ground, panting, the taste of copper in her mouth. The sword had slipped from her hand, landing two meters away in the mud.
The Minotaur approached slowly, savoring the moment. It raised a hoof to crush her skull. Geneviève tried to move, but her body was broken. Her right shoulder did not respond. Her ribs were shards of fire. She looked at her sword. Thrunbor's perfect blade, now covered in mud. It was not just a piece of metal. It was the only thing that had never betrayed her. It was her identity. Without that sword, she was just a dead girl in the mud.
In that moment of absolute despair, something happened. Geneviève stopped praying to the Lady. She stopped thinking of tactics. She projected all her will, all her soul, toward that inanimate object. You are me. I am you. She swore a silent oath, not to a god, but to the steel: I will never leave you again.
She felt a click in her mind. A mystical bond was welded. The sword vibrated in the mud. Geneviève reached out with her left hand (the healthy one). She shouldn't have been able to reach the weapon. But the sword seemed to leap into her hand, drawn by a spiritual magnetism. When her fingers closed around the hilt, the pain vanished. Or rather, it became irrelevant. The weapon became light as a feather. She felt the balance of the blade as if it were an extension of her nervous system. Sacred Weapon Bond.
The Minotaur brought his hoof down. Geneviève did not roll away. With a fluid, unnatural movement, she snapped forward through the pain. The sword lit up not with divine light, but with an aura of pure focus. She cut. Not a blow of strength, but a blow of absolute perfection. The blade severed the Minotaur's Achilles tendon, then rose in an impossible arc, cutting the femoral artery. The giant collapsed, roaring in surprise.
Geneviève stood up, swaying. She held the sword with one hand, but the blade was steady as a rock. She was ready to die, but she would take half the forest with her.
It was then that she heard the sweetest sound in the world: silver trumpets. A clear, crystalline horn that cut through the fog of the Drakwald. The earth shook, but not because of the beasts. From the path, a wedge formation of heavy cavalry smashed through the tree line.
They were splendid. Armor of mirror-polished steel with gold trim, round shields with the symbol of a blazing sun, helms decorated with high golden crests. The Knights of the Blazing Sun. The order devoted to Myrmidia, the goddess of strategy and perfect warfare.
"CHARGE!" yelled the Grand Master at the head of the formation, his voice accustomed to command. The impact of the Imperial cavalry against the herd was devastating. The Gors were trampled, impaled by lances, crushed. The wounded Minotaur tried to rise, but three knights surrounded it, their lances striking with surgical precision, finishing it in seconds.
The battle ended as quickly as it had begun. The Beastmen fled into the shadows.
Geneviève remained standing, leaning against the tree, sword still in hand. Her armor was dented, the dwarf cloak torn. The commander of the knights, a mature man with a groomed beard and a scar crossing his left eye, trotted his horse toward her. Behind him, another knight was holding the reins of Duraz, who had returned limping but alive.
The commander looked at the carcass of the Minotaur, then looked at the precise cut on the beast's leg. A masterstroke. Then he looked at the solitary knight, covered in mud, holding a greatsword with one hand despite an obviously dislocated shoulder.
"A remarkable blow," said the commander, removing his helm. He had the analytical gaze typical of Myrmidians. "Few men survive a Minotaur on foot. Even fewer manage to hamstring it."
Geneviève sheathed her sword. The gesture cost her immense effort, but she did not make a sound. She gave a stiff bow, then touched her right shoulder and grimaced, hidden by the helm.
"You are wounded, brother," observed the commander. "I am Siegfried von Kessel, Preceptor of the Order of the Blazing Sun. Are you traveling to Marienburg?"
Geneviève nodded.
"Then you will ride with us," Siegfried decided. "The roads are unsafe for a solitary knight, however skilled. And our surgeon must look at that shoulder before you become a cripple."
Geneviève hesitated. An Imperial knightly order. Discipline, communal baths, squires helping you dress. It was the greatest danger to her secret. But she looked at Duraz bleeding. She looked at her limp shoulder. She would not reach Marienburg alive alone in this condition.
"Thank you," she said with her gravel voice, raspy and painful. Siegfried arched an eyebrow at the sound of that horrible voice, but nodded with respect. "Save your breath. A warrior speaks with the blade, and yours spoke well today. Let's go."
As she was helped back into the saddle, Geneviève still felt the residual warmth in the hilt of the sword. She was no longer alone. She had the Lady. She had the Dwarves. And now, she had the Sword itself.