Chapter Ten: The Grind

Chapter Ten: The Grind

The next few days blessedly passed without incident. They forged further into the Deep Green, away from where they found the boar. They took enough boar meat to feed a village, and left the rest for the forest to strip.

They marched through the daylight, shoving and hacking through greenery, detouring around titanic trees, and driving through tangled inclines and gullies. At night, they slept in huddles, never far apart, never far from their weapons. The watch rotated in shifts, staring into the shifting grey-scale landscape around them, their imaginations turning every noise from the forest into the creeping approach of some monster.

In Toms experience the fear eventually turned into a hard knot, an odd alloy of exhaustion and anxiety, formed like a diamond under unrelenting pressure. Every noise added another almost imperceptible layer to it, and eventually they would fuse. At long last the shift change would come, and sleep would overtake exhaustion as surely as a fox taking a rabbit. Even the distant sound of trees breaking or enormous wings beating was not proof against sleep. The small comfort that at least you wouldnt be the first to get snatched into the dark if an attack came made a surprisingly good pillow.

And so the days passed, the unit settled into as comfortable a routine as one could find in a Reaping.

On the third day, the unit found a stand of juvenile wood golems. The twisted creatures were incredibly resilient but, as with all golems, grew in power incredibly slowly. The unit surrounded them and hacked them apart methodically. The only real danger they posed to the concerted effort of the unit was tiring them out.

On the fourth day, a soldier went missing from a campfire while they broke for lunch. His squadmate had stood to grab some boar jerky from his pack, and when he turned around the man was simply gone. Hours of searching turned up only a single spatter of blood on a trunk several feet away. As they packed up to leave, one of the soldiers manifested Fear. The single skill he manifested alongside the Ideal made him immune to it. Tom knew he wasnt the only jealous one.

On the eighth day theyd been marching for an hour when a man stepped on a snake and died screaming inside of a minute, blood leaking from his eyes. The snake was quickly dispatched, being normal aside from its particularly potent venom, and they began to continue their march.

Within minutes, they began to hear a tumultuous cracking. It sounded like several trees being slowly broken or uprooted at once. Elenfield and the Guards pulled together, discussing in brief, urgent tones.

Eventually, Kawlstone and Gracefield slipped off into the forest towards the noise. Elensfield, Markhart and Clairvine stayed behind to protect the column. Everyone stood around, the odd whispered conversation withering under harsh glares from nearby soldiers. Everyone was tense. Nobody could concentrate over the bassy sound of wood splintering in the distance.

The Guards seemed mostly unaffected, but Tom was close to Clairvine, and could see her eyes flicking nervously between where he assumed her wisp was and the source of the noise.

Tom was watching her unobtrusively when her eyes went wide, snapping back and forth rapidly as she read something in the air. For several strained minutes she stood, alternately reading from her wisp and furiously whispering to it. At last, her face settled into a sombre expression.

Listen up, she said, obviously wanting to shout and not being able to. It didnt matter. Everyone was hyper focused on whichever Guard was nearest to them. Heads snapped toward her immediately. The other Guards began to issue orders around them as well.

We need to move. Quickly. Leave anything you cant carry at a run. she looked around at the nearest soldiers and citizens, making sure theyd understood. She nodded grimly. Follow me. We head north and east, fast as you can. If you fall behind, you get left behind. And if you do get left behind, whatever you do - dont call out for help. Now, go!

Tom didnt need telling twice. He was loath to abandon any weapons, but hed rather not die by stupidly clinging to one, and a sword wouldnt do him any good against something that could push multiple trees down at once.

He ditched his bastard sword, undoing its scabbard from the strap across his back and tossing it to the ground as he began to run. He kept his short sword. It wouldnt hinder his running, and he didnt want to be totally without protection if he lost his spear in the flight.

They ran in a long column, slowed by the logistics of moving around in the forest. Moving the amount of people through the haphazard spaces under the canopy was a trial at the best of times, but putting aside caution and throwing more brute force at the problem helped somewhat.

As the weeks passed, and some died, and others found power, Tom underwent a slow and strange metamorphosis. He longed for the Sword, even more than before, truly stretched for it with every fibre of his being, and still fell short. He killed monsters, threw himself at them whenever he could, volunteered for more watches than anyone. Some in the unit whispered that his recklessness was him trying to kill himself, but couldnt do it himself given the shame it would bring to his House.

They werent far from the truth.

He felt like his very soul was pulled into the same shape as a Sword, drawn long by his yearning and beaten hard by failure. At the same time, the revelations sparked by Ella softened him, made his efforts almost shy in a way. He understood, now, how he must have seemed to his peers, and was embarrassed for it. He didnt blame himself overly much though, knowing, as they didnt, how his life had pushed him into being that resentful person. All he could do was try to be better.

He found a new strength, in this shy softness, this vulnerability. He didnt know quite what to make of it, just yet. The revelation was only half-formed, but his intuition told him if he left it that it would eventually resolve into comprehension. Like a child attempting to sneak up on you, he could see it out of the corner of his minds eye, and all he had to do to lure it in was pretend he was oblivious.

And so it was that Tom found himself, tucked into his blanket one night after theyd made camp, staring at the canopy above him and thinking.

Hed spent his whole life trying for the Sword. His father had it. His grandfather had too. Most of his ancestors besides. He could feel it within him. He was a sword, but was that all of him?

There was something hed been neglecting. His mother followed Healing. Tom had been healed almost as many times as hed drawn a sword. Hed briefly tried to manifest other weapons before, but had never really considered that he might manifest something else.

Would Healing fit him? He thought it might. Your Ideals were something you intrinsically understood, something you had an innate affinity for. He knew he had an affinity for the Sword. He understood it inside and out. Could he find the same in him for Healing?

He searched himself, trying to see if he felt any resonance towards Healing. There was no way to tell for sure, aside from intuition. It felt like it could fit, but he was also excited by the thought of a path forward, and couldnt tell whether he was jumping to conclusions just yet. He would have to give it some time, and separate the idea from the emotion.

I am a sword, but the sword isnt all of me, he thought. What if it isnt Healing or the Sword? The sudden revelation was like a bucket of ice water down his spine. Have I truly been this stupid? It could be literally anything. Have I missed my Ideal, trying so hard for the Sword? I tried to manifest other weapons, but if the Sword isnt right then maybe theyre not either.

Have I hamstrung myself being so bitter over this all?If it could be anything, what could it be? He would have to do some thinking. He prided himself on his sharp mind, surely understanding wouldnt be his stumbling block. He was certain there must be more Ideals he had an affinity for. All he had to do was find them.

What is the core of me? he pondered. What do I understand more than anything else? As his mind wandered down completely new paths, he once again felt that corner-of-his-eye feeling. Another revelation waited. The knowing made his soul start to vibrate along some strange axis.

He thought of his father. If he came home with an Ideal, even if it wasnt the Sword, he could still save them from ruin.

He thought of Instructor Glass, and what she'd told him, and felt like she'd be proud of him.

His mind fumbled about inside him, reaching for something new. The tip-of-his-tongue suspicion gave the reaching some vague direction, some vague shape. The vibration grew stronger. What am I..? What could I be..?

A bloodcurdling scream rang through the camp.

UP! UP ARMS! GODDESS, WH- came a panicked shout.