Date: June 15, 541 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The forest enveloped them in a prickly silence. Here, in the Fanged Thicket, the trees seemed like the broken fingers of a giant, clutching at the gray soil. The smell of ozone grew sharper—the background pressure from Alvost, reaching from the Iron Gullet, made the hair on the back of one's neck stand on end.
Dur went first, almost merging with the shadows. His energy worked in passive mode: he didn't expend strength on bursts, but smoothly distributed it throughout his body, making each step soft and deliberate. Regeneration, which had become more efficient after Divilla's training, allowed him to ignore the small cuts from dry branches, which healed in a matter of minutes.
Maël followed him, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His spirit constantly "scanned" the surroundings, reacting to energy distortions.
"Five," Dur mouthed silently, stopping by a fallen oak.
Ahead, by the dry bed of a stream, stood three wagons of the supply train. Several Agrim guards, pale with fear, huddled in a circle, their spears pointed outward. Gray shadows flickered around them in the twilight. The Spinebreakers were larger than ordinary wolves—their backs were covered with bony growths, and caustic saliva dripped from their jaws, hissing on the stones. These beasts intuitively developed themselves, strengthening their claws and fangs to the hardness of steel.
"Two are circling behind the wagons, three are getting ready to pounce from the front," Dur whispered. "Maël, take the ones by the wagons. I'll handle the center."
Dur didn't wait for an answer. He surged forward, and his energy instantly switched to active phase. He wasn't as fast as lightning, but his movement had a crushing inertia. The ground slabs under his feet buckled as he put the weight of his densified body into each surge.
The central Spinebreaker, the pack leader whose eyes glowed with a murky red light from an excess of raw energy, noticed the threat too late. The beast leaped, its paws with ten-centimeter claws outstretched.
Dur didn't dodge. He simply met the beast with his shoulder. A dull thud of impact sounded, as if two heavy boulders had collided. The Spinebreaker, a good hundred and fifty kilos in weight, flew backwards, its ribs cracking under the force of Dur's energy. The young man only staggered slightly. His density was greater than the forest predator's.
Not giving the beast time to recover, Dur closed the distance. His hunting knife, a gift from Gorn, flashed in the dim light. Energy allowed him to strike with such force that the steel easily passed through the toughened hide and the bony plate on the wolf's neck. Thick, dark blood spattered the stones.
While Dur dealt with the leader, Maël engaged the two other predators near the wagons. His style was different—the Spirit of Adaptability allowed him to change the rhythm of the fight every second. When one of the wolves tried to jump at his back, Maël's energy instantly densified around his shoulder blades, creating a temporary shield, and then he made a graceful turn, slashing the beast's muzzle with his blade.
Maël was stronger in terms of magical potential; his Spirit gave him an advantage in maneuverability, but Dur took things with pure, animalistic efficiency.
The remaining two Spinebreakers, sensing the leader's death, flew into a rage. Their intuitive energy entered a phase of self-destruction—the beasts' muscles bulged, and the bony growths on their backs began to glow. One of them lunged at Dur, aiming for his throat.
Dur caught the beast in mid-air. His fingers, now as hard as iron clamps, dug into the wolf's hide. The beast twisted and sank its fangs into Dur's forearm.
An ordinary person would have lost an arm, but Dur's energy had made his bones incredibly dense. An unpleasant grinding sound was heard—the wolf's teeth skidded over the bone, unable to crush it. Dur, without making a sound, struck the wolf with his fist at the base of its skull. He put all his weight, all the power accumulated during days of training, into this blow.
A distinct crunch was heard. The beast went limp.
Dur threw the carcass aside and looked at his hand. Four deep, ragged wounds were bleeding, but he already felt his energy gathering at the site of the damage. The blood began to thicken, and the edges of the wounds started to pull together. Regeneration was working. In a week, there wouldn't even be a scar, but for now he simply bandaged his arm with a piece of cloth, ignoring the pain.
Maël finished his opponents a second later. He was breathing heavily, his Spirit gradually quieting, returning to a dormant state.
"They... they were stronger than ordinary wolves," Maël said, wiping his sword on the grass. "Their energy was wild, but dense."
"They mutated under Valtorn's pressure," Dur replied, inspecting the wagons. The Agrim guards looked at them with superstitious awe. To them, these two young men, who had dispatched a pack of mutants in minutes, seemed no less monstrous than the Spinebreakers.
"The supply train is intact," Dur stated. "Divilla will be... not exactly pleased, but at least she won't send us back."
They emerged onto the road, where Divilla still sat motionless on her horse. She had seen the whole fight. Her gaze lingered on Dur's bloody bandage, then shifted to Maël.
"Five minutes," she said coldly. "Acceptable for recruits. Dur, you expose yourself to blows too much. Your physical strength allows you to survive, but that doesn't mean you should test your bones' strength at every opportunity. Maël, your adaptation was unnecessarily complex. Two simple strikes would have been more effective than five feints."
She turned her horse east.
"Eat on the move. In two days, we'll reach the anomalous zone of the 'Glass Wind.' There, your strength will face a real test. If you can't hold your structure under the pressure of crystallized air—you'll simply be turned into a sieve."
Dur jumped into the saddle. He felt the wounds on his hand pulsing, but the energy within him had already begun the process of recovery. He was a "talented middle-grounder," as Divilla had said, but today he understood one important thing: in this world, where magic breaks space, his simple, crude density was the most reliable thing of all.
They moved on. Ahead, the sky was growing darker, and fine, sparkling particles began to appear in the air. The Glass Wind was approaching.