Chapter 3: The Heirs

The Heirs

After 16 years...

The forest of Penza was usually silent; the songs of birds and the scuttle of animals carried even beneath the highest canopy. From a high branch a single figure watched the floor, still as a shadow.

“Watch out!” someone screamed. At the same instant a knife cut the air where another figure had been standing, the blade hissed past and buried itself in a trunk.

“Damn, that was close,” said the figure.

“They’re coming from all around us,” said a man, scanning the trees.

“I don’t think we can get past them in time,” a woman panted, dodging a spear that thudded into moss.

“Let them come this will be their death. Here!” a man snapped, slamming his hammer-like weapon into the ground. Dust and leaves exploded outward.

“We should keep moving, or we won’t stop him,” another woman said, urgency cutting through the roar of their breathing.

Suddenly, fourteen shapes broke from the mist and closed around them. The figure in the tree straightened, eyes burning with a dangerous glow, jaw twitching as if holding something back.

A shout split the air one of the newcomers leapt high, spear spinning so fast the air rippled from the force. Another sprinted forward, twin knives blazing, flames licking up his forearms. A third advanced slowly, eyes locked on the group like a hawk tracking prey, and behind him strode a fighter with an axe heavy enough to fell trees.

The man with the hammer stepped forward, planting his stance. The spearman came down in a blur; point aimed for the head. Steel met steel with a thunderclap the hammer rose just in time, catching the blow, legs bending under the impact but holding firm. Dust burst outward in a ring.

To the side, the knife-fighter lunged for the man who had dodged him before, a flame-edged blade driving for the throat, the second sweeping low for the abdomen. The defender parried the low strike, twisted aside from the other, and drove his knee up into the attacker’s chest.
The hit folded him backward, fire scattering into the damp air.

The axe-wielder came next, roaring, his swings wild but heavy enough to shake the ground,
each cut dragging a wind of dust behind it. His opponent raised both maul-like weapons,
meeting every strike head-on in a blur of sparks and thunderous impacts. Each hit rang through the clearing like distant drums.

At the centre, three women stood back-to-back. Two more figures broke from the circle to meet them, saber-like blades flashing arcs through the smoke.

The first of the three drew a glaive that hummed as it cut the air. The second hefted a mace wreathed in dull light. The third brought up a short sword, her stance coiled and precise.
The clash of five weapons lit the clearing steel against steel, heat against air, a storm of motion.

Leaves fell like rain. The forest echoed with the rhythm of strikes, parries, and breath. Above, the watcher on the branch leaned forward, eyes glowing brighter, the faint sound of teeth grinding through the chaos below.

The mace swept low, aiming for an opponent’s legs. The target leapt clean over it, twisting in the air, and brought their weapon down toward the glaive-bearer. Steel screamed the saber locked against the glaive’s edge, the two blades grinding as both fighters strained for ground.

The glaive-user shifted weight, spun, and kicked. The strike caught the saber-wielder square in the chest, sending her stumbling backward into the air before crashing hard against the roots of a tree.

Another saber came from the side, a silver blur. The short-sword met it with a sharp, perfect block, metal ringing through the clearing. A heartbeat later, the mace slammed into the attacker’s ribs with a dull thud.

The blow drove the breath out of the attacker; staggered, lost balance, one knee sinking into the mud. Before she could recover, a fist struck their chest with crushing precision, the impact echoing through bone. They hit the ground flat, dust and leaves rising around their body as the forest swallowed the sound.

All around them, all attackers surged forward at once, weapons flashing, others charging barehanded.

A man met the knife-wielder head-on. With a sharp breath, he summoned his twin daggers; silver light rippled along their edges. He feinted with his left, then drove the right toward the man’s ribs but the opponent didn’t bite. The counter came fast, a headbutt to defender’s face, a knee to the gut. he dropped to one knee, gasping.

“Uruses!” Lyna shouted, twisting her glaive to parry a sword aimed at her head. She spun, swatting another attacker aside with the butt of her weapon.

“I’m ... okay, Lyna,” Uruses grunted, forcing himself upright.

He jumped, threw a dagger mid-air the attacker swatted it aside and caught a solid kick to the ribs for his trouble, crashing into the dirt. But the fall rolled into motion; he used it, scooped the dagger up again, and drove the hilt into another attacker’s stomach in one clean motion.

At the centre of the chaos, twin mauls met a pair of axes in a storm of sparks. Both fighters moved faster than eyes could follow, the rhythm brutal and balanced. Slowly, defender’s weight began to press the attacker back.

A flash of light a spinning star tore through the air toward him. He ducked at the last instant, elbowed the axe wielder beside him, swept his legs out, and hurled one maul toward the figure that had thrown the star. The impact cracked through the clearing; the figure flew backward, slammed into a tree.

“Cael! We could use some help here!” Ryra shouted, vaulting over an opponent. Her chained mace lashed mid-air, coiling around another attacker and ripping them off their feet. She landed low, smoothly pulling the weapon back to its shaft.

“Yes, Ryra! Because I’m clearly napping here!” Cael yelled back.
He sprinted in with a scream, twin mauls spinning in his hands. He hurled both, the heavy weapons smashing into two advancing figures, then shoulder-slammed a third before they could recover.

At the far side, Leon faced two more attackers one wielding a katana, the other barehanded. The blade came for his chest; he caught it on the flat of his hammer, sparks raining.
A fist flew at his head; he caught it in his palm. Both enemies leaned into him, pressing with brute force. He gritted his teeth until a blow from a shortsword’s hilt struck the katana-man’s side, sending him tumbling into his partner.

“Thanks, Nira ... like I needed your help,” Leon muttered, kicking both men aside.

“Yeah, you were doing great, all that grunting really scared them” Nira shot back, already leaping toward another foe.

Leon hurled his hammer after her, it whistled past, slamming into a man who’d appeared behind her.
“We’re even now,” he said, rolling his shoulders before turning toward another enemy.

At the center, Lyna fought three at once. Her glaive flicked a sword aside, ducked under a strike, spun, and caught another with a clean kick to the jaw. She saw Uruses cornered by four attackers, back against a tree, and sprinted toward him.
Her glaive left her hand mid-run, striking one of them clean through the shoulder. She hit the second with a full-body tackle, elbowed the third across the jaw.

Uruses drove his knee into one man’s stomach, caught another with a fist that launched him into a companion. Both collapsed in a tangle.

“Thanks, Lyna!” he called.

Then, loud enough for all to hear:
“Everyone, to the center!”

They moved without hesitation. Bodies battered, lungs burning, they closed ranks, back-to-back in a circle, weapons raised, surrounded on all sides. The attackers regrouped beyond the haze of dust, forming a loose ring around them.

For a heartbeat, the forest of Penza held still, as if watching to see which heartbeat would falter first.

The figure in the tree watched with something close to admiration, respect, even. A faint smile tugged at its lips as the chaos below froze in a strange, shared silence. Fourteen against six, both sides bruised, both unwilling to break the moment.

One of the attackers stepped forward, a curved sword with a short handle glinting in his grip.
He lifted two fingers and pointed at the ground barely a gesture, almost lost in the stillness.
But his people saw it.

Half of them moved up, weapons raised. The others shifted their stance, waiting at the back, ready to strike the instant that signal turned into motion.

“What are they doing?” Leon murmured, voice low, the question everyone else was thinking.

Uruses didn’t take his eyes off the line of enemies.
“The front rank’s going to hit us hard, fire, dust, wind, whatever they’ve got. They’ll blind us. The rest will come through the smoke. Don’t blink. You’ll die before you see who hit you.”

Even as he spoke, the air began to change. Some attackers started to spin their weapons, blades blurring into circles that bent the air around them. Others lit theirs in flame; a few formed jagged edges of ice along their weapons’ tips.
The ground beneath the back line started to tremble, pebbles dancing with each heartbeat. The six tightened formation.

Uruses’s daggers lifted from his hands, six blades hovering in a slow orbit, each facing a different direction, cutting faint lines through the mist. Lyna’s glaive shimmered, its edge frosting over until mist coiled around it like breath.

Flames burst along the twin mauls in Cael’s grip and climbed the head of Leon’s hammer.
Around Ryra and Nira, the earth stirred dust and small stones rising in a circle, drawn by the pulse in their feet.

None of them spoke now. The only sound was wind twisting between weapons. Every pair of eyes fixed on the enemy line, unwavering, waiting for the next breath to decide which side the forest would swallow first.

The leader raised his hand, two fingers cutting through the air, the signal.

Every weapon flew forward at once. Mist, fire, air, dust, and stone surged like a tidal wave, swallowing the defenders in light and roar. The ground shook, trees bent backward, the forest itself seemed to hold its breath.

The six braced for impact. Then, a new sound split the chaos.
Four shapes sliced through the storm, sickle-like weapons spinning so fast they screamed against the air. Fire burned along their clawed edges, small cyclones coiled around them, dragging dust, leaves, and sparks into their orbit. The storm twisted inward, pulled by their spin, a wheel of flame and mist edged with shards of ice.

And then everything stopped. A shockwave rolled outward, soundless but heavy.
The storm collapsed. Mist and debris sank back to the earth in slow, spiralling motion.

Weapons clattered down around all of them. Spears, swords, axes, even the curved blade of the leader’s front line every one of them deflected, scattered, harmless.

No one saw what happened. Not even the defending six.

As the air cleared, the back-line attackers stood frozen mid-step, their charge broken. A faint ring of heat shimmered across the ground where the clash had been.

And in the very center of the defenders’ circle, a new figure stood.

The sickles, still glowing, wheeled lazily through the air, weaving between the defenders without touching them, then slid into the figure’s waiting hands as if drawn by gravity itself.

He caught them without looking. Not a mark of strain on his face. Just a calm breath and eyes that reflected the fires he had just extinguished.

Everyone stood still attackers convinced they’d won, defenders confused by the sudden absence of impact. The silence stretched. Dust hung in the air like held breath.

Then something shifted, a prickle at the back of every neck. Six heads turned at once, weapons rising, stances tightening. Confusion flickered into nerves. A hint of fear.

Behind them, a figure stood, relaxed, grinning, hands raised in mock surrender.

“Hey, guys. It’s me.”

The relief came out as anger.

“Zyrian, where the hell were you?!” Nira’s shout cracked the quiet, sharper than her sword ever could. Her voice rarely carried that kind of edge.

“Uh ... up there,” Zyrian said, pointing vaguely upward toward the trees. His grin twitched; the gesture didn’t help.

Everyone exchanged looks half grimace, half scowl.

Cael was the first to speak. “What did you do to their attack?”
“Me? I thought it was you guys!” Zyrian shot back, confusion in his tone.

“Us? We” Lyna began, only for Uruses to cut in, his voice steady and practical as always.
“We can argue later. For now, we still have certain fight to finish.”

That sobered them. All six turned back toward the attackers now regrouping, shaken but furious.

A strange calm settled over the defenders. The earlier fear ebbed away, replaced by something sharper, focus, maybe even excitement. Because now Zyrian stood with them, sickles at his sides, eyes burning with that familiar mischief.

No one said it out loud, but the thought flickered through every mind all the same: With him here, we might actually win.

The attackers recalled their weapons, steel and flame snapping back into ready hands.
They re-formed ranks, seven stepping forward with weapons drawn, eyes locked on the defenders.

Zyrian stood at the center of the circle, still as stone. He didn’t raise his sickles. He simply watched.

Uruses moved first. Six daggers lifted from his side and shot forward two for each of the three leading attackers.

The blades screamed through the air.

“Cael,” Zyrian said, low but clear, “Two of them.”

One attacker spun his spear in a blur, deflecting a pair of daggers. Another crouched, sword slashing across the other four, knocking them aside.

Then both staggered their chests hit by something heavy. Cael’s twin mauls had left his hands the instant Zyrian spoke. The weapons struck clean, driving the men backward into the dust.

Zyrian didn’t pause.
“Leon, run.”

Leon surged forward at once, hammer in both hands. Two attackers turned toward him instinctively.

“Ryra.”

Two chained maces lashed out from Ryra’s side, the links whistling. They coiled around the attackers’ legs and yanked hard. Both hit the ground hard; wind knocked from their lungs.

Without a word from him, Nira and Lyna took care of the next pair, a flash of steel, a kick, and two more bodies dropped. The field thinned. Seven remained. They came on bare-fisted, shouting.

One hand swung for Uruses’s chest, another swing for his ribs. He stepped back, ducked, ready to counter...