Fort Shatter-Shield was once an impressive edifice, built shortly before a great war, and abandoned shortly after. It was a time when the dragon knights thought themselves peacekeepers, intervening in the affairs of the continent’s nations to prevent stupid wars, be it by regulating a nation’s expansion, or defusing diplomatic incidents. It was a noble, if misguided, undertaking, a brutish attempt to keep the peace. One that was punished.

  The nations of that age grew tired, and their kings grew greedy. They viewed the dragon knights as an impediment to their rightful futures. And so, they went to war. Not with each other, no, but with the Knights that had for so long protected them from the monsters.

  Fort Shatter-Shield earned its name in that war but was soon thereafter abandoned as its knights left for other lands. Now, ruinously decayed though it may be, the fort was returning to life.

  David and his recruits had arrived in a mere two days and immediately got to work. Rubble was moved, a perimeter established, and the wards were repaired, all in anticipation of the caravan’s arrival. The caravan of workers and resources arrived a mere five days after their own arrival and immediately set to work.

  In just two weeks, the fort was functional. Certainly not in the best condition, but functional. This meant he could start training his recruits in the practices of the dragon knights. They’d already been given proper martial training, which meant they only needed the knowledge and instincts that formal dragon-knight training would have given them.

  They were akin to freshly forged blades, usable, but in need of sharpening, and he had the perfect whetstone for them.

  The Crimson Fjord Caldera. So aptly named for its fjord, which tends to run red with the blood of monsters during the bi-annual monster outbreak event, and the frenzy that runs concurrent with it. The extremely wide variety, and quantity, of creatures within the caldera made it a perfect grindstone to train new recruits in, letting them get some hands-on experience. Which is what he was doing.

  “KEEP THAT SHIELD UP, LUGAID!” He bellowed into a portal. He sat upon his Warg and watched through one-way portals as the recruits struggled, chuckling softly at the memories their struggle elicited. The recruits had been divided into seven squads of five and given an area of the forest to hold. They weren’t doing too well. Then again, the batch of cadets he had been part of hadn’t done much better.

  “This showing brings dishonor to your family.” Astrid deadpanned into another portal. She’d stationed herself next to him and had made it her duty to prevent any beast from approaching him, even though he’d welcome the chance for a fight. She had, to his surprise, proven to be far less of a hard-ass than his first impression led him to believe, though that was only whenever she wasn’t on ‘active duty’. Whenever she was on active duty, she returned to the cold professionalism from which his first impression had sprung.

  His thoughts, and eyes, soon returned to the battlefield he was observing, and he prepared to give his recruits some more pointers. “ADISA, STAB THE VENOM SACKS, NOT THE TAIL!” He bellowed, and a girl shown through another portal jumped in surprise at being addressed. Her squad was one of the better ones, seeing as they had remembered and made use of most of the weaknesses present in their foes, those that they’d discussed, at least. But they were not perfect, and that meant that they did make mistakes, one of those mistakes would soon have observable consequences.

  “Jagrenai are slippery bastards, but you never want to stab their tail, though it might be easier to hit as they burrow.” He explained to Astrid. “If you stab their tail, they’re liable to shed it and then they become that much faster.” As if to punctuate his statement, one of the aforementioned creatures, a nimble quadrupedal reptile with a long tail, did just that, and suddenly, its legs were a blur, and it was running circles around the group of recruits, spreading poisonous fog as it did.

  Until a lucky spear found its way to the creature’s head, that is.

  “It is a shameful showing on their part.” Said Astrid, ears flicking as she finally detected the big cat sneaking up behind her. She leaned low onto her warg’s back and gutted the feline as it pounced above her, it would have taken her head with its blade-like claws had she not ducked. “That they have paid so little attention to your lectures is a disappointment.”

  “They paid attention, Astrid, it's just that some of us learn better with hands-on experience, as you already know.” Said David. “Of course, we usually learn to learn from lectures and books, eventually, when it becomes clear that we won’t live very long if we don’t. It’s a dangerous line of work, and if you don’t know the weaknesses of the beasts you can expect to encounter, you’ll quickly find yourself becoming their prey. That’s the lesson today is meant to hammer into them. One moment-”

  “BJARNI! TELL YOUR SQUAD TO RETREAT, NOW!” He ordered. He’d noticed something odd in their area, now he knew what it was. The stone beast statues weren’t an artifice of a dungeon, which the caldera was, they were of another being’s make altogether. A being his recruits were not capable enough to handle.

  Of course, it’s that same lack of capability that led to them drawing said being’s attention. He sighed even as he converted an entire layer of his now four-layered core into mana to rip open a portal to their location. He’d been practicing his cultivation in his free time, and it was already paying off, he wasn’t too much stronger than he’d been before, but he was still noticeably stronger, faster, and more durable. He was going to need that, if he wanted to kill a basilisk on his lonesome, unless he used valuable resources like his alchemic compounds.

  He and Astrid led their mounts through his portal and onto Bjarni’s team’s battlefield. “TO ME!” He bellowed. The corpses of hundreds of beasts lay scattered around where he stood and four recruits retreated towards them, shields and arms covering their eyes. “Astrid, take the recruits, return to camp, I’ll kill the beast.”

  “My thane, my duty is-” She began to protest.

  “As your thane, I am ordering you to take the recruits and return to camp, huscarl.” He said as he began to arm himself. His shield gleamed, lightning crackled and arced off his sword’s blade, his warg growled beneath him. “Sorry, Lass, you’re going with them.” He said as he dismounted, his warg followed him until he sent her a glare, and she turned to follow Astrid and the recruits, as he’d told her to, back into the portal.

  He traipsed through the forest, senses extended, towards where the team had been when he’d given them the order to retreat. A new statue stood in the clearing, Bjarni. He couldn’t sense the basilisk anywhere nearby. Having analyzed the area for a foe, he approached the petrified recruit and pulled a vial of anti-petrification solution from his pouch.

  It was a solute of nitric acid and strong alcohol designed specifically to cause fiery explosions, though it could also shatter the layer of skin converted into stone by petrification, when not ignited, thus breaking the petrification’s stasis and freeing the person within unharmed, if extremely sore from having a layer of skin, and any armor they were wearing, converted into stone and rapidly regrown, and then having the stone stripped away. The reformed layer of skin would be sore and tender for a while after that. He uncorked the vial and tipped it over the petrified recruit.

  Immediately, the stone began to crack, falling apart to reveal skin, and armor. “Sir?” The disoriented recruit asked as his head was cleared of its petrification. The cracks spiderwebbed down.

  “You got yourself petrified, recruit.” David stated disappointedly. “Your comrades managed to retreat, having shielded their eyes to prevent them from seeing the basilisk’s own. You are going to have to flex your muscles to break your body out of the stone, and then you’ll walk back to your clearing and through the portal to camp that I left behind. In the meantime, I’ll go kill that basilisk.”

  He turned and left, following the basilisk’s serpentine tracks. He walked for nigh an hour before the basilisk decided to attack. By then, his recruits had all been ordered back to camp and Astrid had signaled their safe arrival, so he wasn’t worried about time constraints. When the basilisk attacked, lunging through a tree to bite him, he wasn’t very surprised, he’d been able to feel its gaze for a good while by then. He sidestepped the serpent as it barreled through the tree and brought his crackling blade up, and the massive snake cut itself as it slithered past, a mighty rent down its body.

  It hissed and coiled up, a writhing mass of scales, constantly shifting. He knew what came next, the beast would continually peek from its coiled mass and attempt to catch his eyes, to petrify him. He hefted his shield to block his face, sheathed his sword, and pulled out another vial. The beast was in for a nasty surprise.

  Indeed, when next it looked from within its coils, opening a gap from which its eyes might be seen, he launched the vial right into it. A blinding flash of light scoured the shadows from the clearing, the serpent writhed in pain, its eyes clenched. He charged forwards, aiming to stab through its head with his glaive, but was forced onto his knee by a sudden crash onto his shield. A rabbit charged with qi had jumped onto it, unleashing a barrage of kicks at his shield.

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  The qi had begun to return to the land with the ascendant’s flight, and this was a result. A spirit beast, as he had learned they were known by most beyond the region, the natural source of beast cores, the most important of enchanting materials. He let go of his glaive. His sword flew from its scabbard and onto his hand as his shield, now charged with qi, launched the rabbit away and charged. When his charge met flesh, his sword, like crackling thunder, lanced into the basilisk’s skull, and lightning tore through its body.

  He dodged its final thrashing in time to block the rabbit’s second flurry of kicks. Hateful, crimson eyes peered at him from among its pale fur as it bounded back onto the ground. This time he charged forth. His blade was dodged handily, the beast so much faster than him that his attacks would be as slow as a turtle’s movements, but he need not hit it himself to end its life.

  The thunder arced off his sword as he swung, and sought out the rabbit, which then recoiled in pain, its fur singed. He felt at the bond with his raven and called his familiar to him as he blocked a jump and took a qi-charged kick to his armored sternum, leaving an overlarge dent. His shield, reinforced with qi as it was, could stand the blow, not so much his armor, which groaned as metal dented.

  He might not have been able to match the rabbit’s speed, but he could outlast it, and he would. Already it was growing tired, he need only wait it out a little bit longer. Or he would have, had his raven, large as a martial eagle, not swept in and taken the rabbit in its steely claws. A single peck of its beak ended the spirit beast before it could attempt to protect itself.

  He took his time to gather his glaive and the resources from the slain beasts before returning, the materials were all highly valuable. For example, basilisk venom was known for its potency, a single drop being enough to kill ninety men, and being fully capable of melting through metal when not diluted. A special flask had to be used to contain the venom, luckily, he always carried an empty one in his spatial pouch. The scales of a basilisk too, were highly valuable, highly resistant to the elements, light, and exceptionally tough.

  The forest was positively brimming with such materials, but he only gathered his own kill before beginning the trudge back to his camp. He would have opened a portal, but he preferred to not have to sacrifice a layer of his cultivation for that.

  The sun was falling by the time he arrived, and he could hear the sound of merrymaking. The camp had, at some point, been joined by what looked like a band of merchants, which he knew to be agents of the jarl, and their traveling troubadour. They were celebrating a successful day of training, in the case of his recruits, and, no doubt, the countless valuable monster resources retrieved from it just waiting to make the merchants richer, with a small party. He joined his huscarl and the merchant caravan’s leaders at the center fire, pulling the basilisk’s eyes, preserved within a jar, from his spatial pouch for all to see. They were safe, now that the magic in them was inert, but the few merchants that recognized them still recoiled.

  “The basilisk is dead.” He announced.

  “I can see that, sir knight.” The caravan’s head of acquisitions stated. “I assume you know the value of the resources you got from it, especially the eyes?”

  “I do.” He answered. And he did, at the order’s prices, the pair of eyes alone was worth five hundred gold coins, half the value of a king’s platinum coin. Each fang was a good hundred, each roll of scales, four hundred, the flask of venom, a platinum, a liter of basilisk heart blood, five platinum coins. Monster hunting was a lucrative business, but extremely dangerous, one wrong step could easily end a hunter’s life. Even then, many became hunters, because while they would not match a noble in the grandness of their treasury, they would be able to live comfortably and let their friends and family do so too.

  “Six hundred gold for the eyes.” The merchant offered.

  “Deal.” He handed the jar to the merchant, who handed it to an attendant to stow away. “The venom is reserved for the order, as it is considered contraband in most nations, and the scales are to be used to craft armor for the recruits. That leaves the fangs.”

  “Two hundred and fifty for the fangs.” The merchant offered.

  “Agreed.” He handed the fangs to the merchant.

  “And, in my power as a representative of the jarl, a hundred and fifty for the service of culling half of the monsters from the caldera and killing a basilisk.” Said the merchant, handing him a platinum. A servant passed them and they both found themselves with a tankard in their free hands. “I hope, master knight, that you will keep these humble merchants in mind when you next need to sell something. Now then, Willem, a song of your choice, if you would.”

  “Gladly.” Said the troubadour, pulling a lute from thin air. Troubadours were always pompous bastards, this one especially. He loudly cleared his throat, tested his lute, and with no small amount of flourish, began to strum. “This song I learned in the far north, deep within a forest, sung by the muses themselves! ‘Tis a part of a saga, so stay and listen for the rest.” He declared and he began to sing.

  He was skilled, or the song’s writer had been skilled, its melody, so akin to a song he’d liked in his youth, painted a clear image. Or perhaps that was the mead? Either way, the tune was quite nostalgic. It went a bit like this:

  In the cold spring of a northern day,

  Cometh the hour,

  For us to sing of a coming day,

  And events that follow.

  In light so bright,

  In autumn old,

  Blood is shed on the morrow.

  It stains the tale we’re told.

  For one man,

  Hope seems to flee the light.

  He hides his pain neath mask so bold,

  A hero in the morn,

  But in the dark his pain is borne,

  Carried by him alone.

  None stands to help his ailing soul,

  Till hope is taken form.

  When tears they fall from scarred face,

  She ambles from the snow.

  She comes to hearth

  Where fire ignites,

  Alight in palest glow.

  They knew each other long ago,

  But each has changed,

  They know,

  The scars one bears now mar his soul,

  His pain has gone untold.

  The other,

  Bolder than before,

  Her heart as bold as gold,

  Her spirit yearns for something lost,

  Words left unsaid now told.

  What will they say?

  Where will they go?

  What things they’ll do,

  We don’t yet know.

  He did not remember the next songs.

  ..............................

  He did not sleep peacefully that night. One of his recruits had almost died for his negligence. Had he surveyed the land previously, he would have seen the basilisk and prevented the entire confrontation, and the recruit’s petrification.

  For whatever reason, his failure brought forth a once recurring nightmare. The scent of burning flesh, ash in the air, ash on his skin, on the rubble all around him. Irvendael, slain upon the rubble of a temple. Samara, devoured by a dragon. The corpses of his comrades strewn about the ruined city, many rendered to ash.

  It was a simple nightmare, with a simple premise; “Would I still have failed in Eidrahm, had I my comrades with me?”. The answer, in his nightmare, was yes. He awoke from it as he always did, drenched in sweat and gasping for air, though the soreness all over was new. It took significant effort for him to get up and go about his morning routine. He did notice Astrid snoring loudly from his cot. How long had she been there?

  Armor rattled loudly as he staggered from his room to... whoops and cheers? “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our victor!” One of his recruits announced boisterously, he recognized it as Bjarni’s voice. “Commander, how did you manage to tame the icy baroness?”

  “Tame the- what?” he asked bemusedly.

  “Come on sir, don’t act dumb, we all heard your ‘performance’ last night.” Said Bjarni.

  “What the fuck was in that drink?” David asked himself. “You’re implying that I-”

  “For three whole hours, you don’t remember?”

  It was at that moment that Astrid burst out of his tent, struggling to reequip her gambeson over the, admittedly massive, pair of obstructions she’d bound to her chest with bandages. “Nothing happened last night.” she said, accompanying her declaration with a glare in their direction.

  “I don’t even remember anything beyond the song last night.” He muttered to the recruits.

  “She was very impressed by your heroics.” One of the recruits whispered as Astrid stormed by. Another recruit had started singing a song about ‘two drunken fools’, a song he recognized from some of the taverns he’d been to, and one that earned the recruit a glare from the huscarl.

  He could tell that the recruits would keep pestering him and Astrid about this for a while and decided it would be better for all of their sakes if he gave them something to complain about instead. “Alright, get yourselves ready to depart, I want us gone by Midday.” He ordered.

  The journey to Shatter-Shield was quick, for the fortress was close by and none of them wanted to linger, as all wished to be guarded by sturdy walls and mighty ramparts. He'd dismissed the recruits as soon as they’d arrived at the fort’s courtyard and headed to his study, bypassing the areas of the fort still undergoing repair, they all needed a proper rest after the ordeal he’d put them through, and he had reports to read.

  The reports were mostly the same, messages from the newly arriving staff, like the smiths he’d recruited, or information about the fort’s surroundings, or reports on arriving resources. None of those were very important, they weren’t the message he was expecting, that one was buried beneath them.

  A report on a newly formed dungeon, one near the ruins of Eidrahm, with monsters that were too dangerous for the bronze adventurers that had first discovered it. It wasn’t the dungeon itself that intrigued him, but rather a name in the report, Deagan Lageson, guild master of the adventurer’s guild of the town of Wingfall. He hadn’t been that excited in years.

  He rearmed, resupplied, cleaned his armor, and was ready to go in under an hour. This was not a matter of serious importance, nor was it time-sensitive, but it was one that he needed to see to, and quickly. Of course, then he remembered the requisitions papers he had yet to approve and decided that he ought to approve them before the quartermaster decided to tan his hide.

  Once those had been filled out, however, he barged from his office at an arrow’s pace and almost ran into Astrid, who’d been standing guard beside his door. “Where are you going?” She asked, and he beckoned her into his office. They’d been awkward the entire journey to the fortress, partly because he’d started to remember the previous night, but also because of the heckling of the merchants that had chosen to travel with them and inviting her into his office was certainly still awkward.

  “To see an old friend, hopefully.” Said he.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me. As your huscarl, it is my d-” She began.

  “This is a personal matter, Astrid.” He interrupted. “Make sure the recruits continue to train while I’m gone. It’ll only be a day or two.”