There was a creature with a splendid panoply of scales and rows of razor sharp teeth residing beneath a waterfall. Its pond was one of many, fed by a vicious tributary ferrying water and minerals all throughout the forest. Fish fed and bred in these waters, and many found themselves coming to a sudden drop into a kingdom with but one resident. One monarch.

The water in that pond was hot. It was close to a vein of geothermal power. The fish would panic as they desperately swam, searching for a cold spot in this wet hell. Their search ended when a shadow enclosed around them from above and below, imprisoning them behind jagged bars. A conclusion to a tale as old as time: there was always a bigger fish.

The blackrock sturgeon was a solitary animal. They left their ponds once every decade to mate. So once every ten years, the wolves stayed in their dens, the faelk gathered upon hills to better see the land, and the arctursid bears tried not to leave their caves. The Bedazi would pack their belongings. Just in case.

Jorge broke out of the forest onto a clearing. The space was about as wide as a two lane highway, and probably just as long. The forest’s own temporary road. Uprooted trees made the safety railing, and compressed vegetation the asphalt. He could make out some unfortunate animals amidst the paving. Jorge rested the back of his axe on his shoulder and began to follow the arrows formed by the fallen trees. In the distance he heard tremors. Flocks of birds fled the green canopy, followed by the sounds of snapping trunks.

He walked along the road, whistling absentmindedly to himself. Fresh sprouts were already germinating amidst the destruction. Small, squirrely mammals rummaged at his feet, seemingly uncaring of his presence. There were cones of seeds split into pieces being ransacked by the furry creatures. Once the animals had stuffed their cheeks with the seeds they were off, spilling some along the way. Thus spun the circle of life. He had seen the tanhu cones before in his foraging. They had always been too difficult to break open, so he never bothered with them.

Scavenging cats and dogs fought each other for the road kill pressed into the earth. They stopped to stare at the strange two-legged thing walk past them, but lost interest when it was apparent the thing wasn’t another rival. Jorge retrieved a piece of what he called mash from his travel pouch. It was a mix of smoked meat and dried berries, reminiscent of pemmican. Then he took a swig from his wolf waterskin. The road was long. The sky was still dark when he had set out. It was high noon.

The heat used to bother him. In the summer, his shirts would stick to his skin. His feet would feel submerged. And something much more severe would happen around his pelvic region. They used to call him Swamp Canyon.

Jorge chuckled to himself. Distracted by woolgathering, he didn’t notice the loose tree fall towards him from the side of the forest road. His grip on his axe tightened. He swung off his shoulder, shattering the wood before it made it to his head. Splinters bounced off his exposed skin and stuck to the pelt he had draped on his back. He casually brushed the wood chips off.

The sun had lowered close to the treetops. Afternoon. He saw translucent plumes of steam in the distance. A large pond appeared around the corner. It looked like a hot spring. The surface of the water like a mercury mirror. Jorge felt the urge to dive in. A smooth wake moving deeper in the pond reminded him it was a bad idea. He let his axe drop, tightening his grip again when the strapping slid into his palm. He put one foot in the water. The wave diffracted outward towards the center of the pond.

Then all was still again. But only for a moment.

The sharp wave headed straight towards Jorge. The body displacing the water slowly rose. Its scales were black, enriched with the minerals of the land. Streamlined dorsal ridges bisected the water. The fish rose and lunged, its maw wide open. Jorge leapt out of the way as the jaws snapped shut.

The blackrock sturgeon was every bit as huge as he had been told. Eight pectoral fins with hooks in the end gave it considerable motive power, even on land. Lyosha warned that it could even outpace an arctursid for a few seconds. And it was easily several times as massive as one of those bears. Unlike the fur and hide that protected most forest mammals, the sturgeon relied on its mineralized scales, which almost nothing native to the Heldrazi Forest could cut.

Jorge gripped his axe with both hands and swung. The edge impacted squarely on the monster’s side. He might as well have been swinging at a semi-truck. The sturgeon recoiled to the side, then quickly reoriented to lunge again. It was too fast to evade to the side again. Jorge jumped above, lending the momentum of his fall into his axe swing. He struck like a guillotine on the sturgeon’s skull. The fish’s chin impacted the earth, splitting the ground. Within a second, it shook him off, sending him sprawling a dozen meters away.

Attrition was a battle for Jorge to lose. The fish could spend days on land traveling to its breeding grounds. This one had just come back, and was presumably exhausted after the round trip. The sturgeon pushed itself higher on its fins and made a hollow, bubbly sound, like a submerged ghoul. Jorge shouted back. They gathered tension into their muscles and leapt forward again, eager teeth versus raised axe.

--

Lisŗa watched as a cherry-red fountain gushed from her peer’s neck as the prisoner’s claws evacuated it. A trail of viscera and blood flew like ribbons, splattering on the ground. The prisoner cackled, licking his sharp nails.

“Run!” The tall recruit said.

Lisŗa didn’t need to be told. She scaled a wall and jumped onto a length of gutters headed deeper into the winding parts of the neighborhood. She’d lose the maniac there. The little mechanisms in her ears cringed in pain at another curdling scream. She recognized the voice of the tall recruit, his bulk no doubt too encumbering to evade the killer. Across the street, she saw the auburn haired girl. She didn’t spare Lisŗa a glance as she struggled to maintain her footing on the steep rooftops slick with rain. The clawed prisoner moved on all fours, scaling sideways up walls and onto the roofs. His claws met her abdomen. She screamed, and she fell. The prisoner’s eyes turned to meet Lisŗa.

Lisŗa continued running. Her footfalls left a trail of tapping sounds as she went from roof to roof. Soon she heard a set of four taps behind her, growing louder. Her mind raced. She descended from the roof, clenching her left arm over her face as she barreled through a second-storey window. Bits of glass cut through her uniform, slashing her forearm and shoulder. She sprinted down the stairs. She looked over her shoulder just for an instant to see the prisoner follow her without difficulty, running alongside the wall like an insect. Her eyes lingered on those claws for a fraction of a second.

Instead of jumping through the first-storey window, she opened it and vaulted.

“Mistake!” The prisoner screeched behind her. The delay her action took had allowed him to catch up. He reached for her back, claws extended. Lisŗa slammed the window behind her. The clawed arm struck through the glass with ease. She spun around and grabbed onto the arm with all her strength, then jumped to the side, dragged the elbow into the window frame and forcing the arm into a perpendicular angle. The resistance she felt while pushing was heart wrenching. The prisoner was screaming in pain. But she didn’t stop. She heard the pop and the many cracks that followed, then let go, falling onto her back. The prisoner crashed through the window, shattering the rest of it. One of his arms dangled uselessly. His eyes only appeared wilder than ever.

He jumped on top of her, yelling incomprehensibly. While on her back, Lisŗa placed his head in a pincer lock with her legs. She had neglected his other arm. He had struck her side. She felt warm steel wiggle beneath her ribs. The taste of iron surfaced in her mouth. Her arms grabbed his, stopping any further movement. The damage had been done. She could feel herself spill onto the pavestones as the prisoner’s face grew purple. The light was fading. The curtains were lowering on her eyes. The prisoner relaxed first, but Lisŗa didn’t let up. With all that remained of her strength she twisted her legs and felt something break between them. Then night fell.

Lisŗa was so tired. She knew how childish it was to feel this way at scarcely sixteen of age. What did she know of the world? The delusion it took for a teenager to fancy herself world weary was laughable. Killing wasn’t satisfying. It was just loss. No matter how horrible the victim was in life. She felt overwhelming guilt as much as exulting glee that she had ended that man. In that profound darkness, as her consciousness ebbed low, she didn’t think about who deserved what. She only felt the intense satisfaction that came with knowing she had got him before he got her.

So why did it take so long for her to die? She was satisfied, and death ought to get it over with. Except she was still breathing. And the night had lifted. Sitting beside her was a… thing. Arms, legs, heads. More than one head. And oh so brilliant, like it was made of pure sun. It unfurled a hand and showed her a spark, a low flame. It looked like a man, curled in a fetal position. Then its fingers closed around the spark, tightening into a fist. It struck her through the chest.

Lisŗa’s eyes opened in the medical tent. She sat up too quickly and pain jabbed her in the sides. Thick layers of gauze gripped her from her breasts to her stomach. She could barely breathe, but she was alive. She looked around. Everyone was alive. Even the one who had been filleted so thoroughly in the beginning of the fight. The victim was wrapped in a cocoon of bandages and tended to by a gathering of mages. Warm, green light drifted from their extended palms.

The tent flaps flew aside. Captain Yavi stepped through. He silently judged the recruits around her, noting their health before stopping by her bedside.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“What the hell was that?” Lisŗa yelled. Her torn side protested. The other recruits looked in her direction, visible shock on their face. “You nearly got us all killed for a test? I thought the Falerian military took care of its own!”

“You are being cared for as we speak,” Yavi said calmly.

“That-that fucking monster-!”

“Had been Compelled to be unable to land a killing blow. Although admittedly, he was capable of something a bit worse than death.” He glanced at the cocooned recruit. “We’ll wipe his memory of the event. His psyche will survive.”

“Do it to us as well, then.”

Yavi leaned on his knees, as one would cajole a toddler.

“No,” he said simply. “We need your drive, your experiences, in the Karavane. I’ve had my eye on you for months.”

“I’m not special. You’ve wasted our suffering.”

“You made yourself special. Your fear drove you towards strength. You pushed yourself to the extreme to overcome what might be. This is a gift that you will see in time.”

“Wait.” It was dawning. Emotions twisted her face. The mask she had built began to break. “Don’t tell me. This whole time…”

Yavi issued a couple additional commands to the healers, then began to leave. He stopped by the tent flaps.

“He had made a lock pick out of a poultry bone,” he said. “The Laplace child was… unfortunate. Since it already happened, I made use of it to see why the Archbishop recommended you in. It seems he was onto something.”

Month after month of excruciating fear reached its conclusion. Lisŗa covered her face with her hands. Hot tears crawled down her face. It was over, but she didn’t feel any better.