Grak and his party set out with a roar, their heavy, armored footsteps crashing through the undergrowth, their loud jests echoing off the stone walls of the valley. They are an army going to war. I wait until the sound of them has faded, and then I slip into the forest, a silent shadow moving in the opposite direction.
Grak thinks like a brawler. He will track the beast’s path of destruction, following it head-on. He seeks a direct confrontation. I am not the same warrior who left this valley. The Urog’s curse, a thing of horror and pain, left a gift in its wake. My senses are still… more. The world is a richer tapestry of information than it is for the others.
I close my eyes and breathe in. The wind tells me stories. I can smell the well-trodden path of Grak’s party, a foul trail of sweat, ale, and arrogant impatience. I can smell the clean, cold scent of the high cliffs, the damp earth of the lower slopes, and beneath it all, faint but sharp, the musky, predatory scent of the Razorclaw. It is old. Stale. Grak is following a trail from yesterday.
I open my eyes and set a new course, moving perpendicular to Grak’s path. Patience. Dina’s quiet, stubborn resilience in the face of absolute despair taught me the value of that. The Xylon of ten years ago would have charged after Grak, eager to meet his challenge with brute force. The man I am now knows there is a better way.
I move silently, a ghost in the ancient forest. My feet make no sound on the pine needles. My breathing is a slow, steady rhythm. I am not a hunter. I am a part of this mountain.
Hours pass. I find the true trail high on the western ridge. It is fresh. The scent is a sharp, acrid tang in the air, a promise of violence. I follow it, not with haste, but with a deliberate, measured pace. I find the beast’s lair just after midday. It is a deep, shadowed cave set into a sheer cliff face, a place accessible only by a narrow, treacherous ledge. The entrance is littered with the splintered bones of mountaindaeand, I see with a grim satisfaction, the shattered remains of one of Grak’s clumsy traps from his previous, failed attempt.
I do not charge in. I climb to a higher vantage point and I watch. I wait. Patience is a weapon.
The Matriarch emerges as the sun begins to dip, a nightmare of scaled hide and serrated claws. She is magnificent and terrible, larger than any Razorclaw I have ever seen, her movements a fluid dance of deadly power. I observe her patrol, her patterns, the way she tests the wind. I am learning her, understanding her.
My plan forms. I will not fight her in her cave, where she has the advantage. I will not fight her on the ledge, where one misstep means a thousand-foot fall. I find a small, relatively flat clearing a hundred yards from her lair, surrounded by a thick grove of ancient ironwood trees. The perfect killing ground.
I use the last of the daylight to prepare. I create a small rockslide, not to harm her, but to block the most direct path back to her lair, forcing her toward my chosen ground.
As dusk settles, I reveal myself. A single, sharp stone thrown against the cliff face is enough to draw her attention. Her reptilian head snaps toward me, her yellow eyes glowing with a malevolent intelligence. She lets out a piercing, challenging shriek, and charges.
She is impossibly fast. A blur of black scales and flashing claws. I meet her charge not with brute strength, but with acalculated retreat, leading her away from the cliffs, toward the clearing.
The fight is a brutal, exhausting dance. Her claws are like razors, tearing through my leather armor, scoring hot lines of pain across my arms and chest. Her powerful tail whips around, a living battering ram that I only just manage to evade. But I am faster. The Urog’s strength is gone, but some of its speed remains. I am a torrent of motion, my father’s axe a silver arc in the gloom. I do not aim for a killing blow. I harry her, I wound her, I wear her down, forcing her deeper and deeper into the ironwood grove.
She lunges, her jaws snapping, and I see my opening. As her attack overextends, I pivot, bringing my axe around in a powerful, horizontal sweep. The blade connects with her neck with a sound like a great tree splitting. It is a clean, deep, honorable blow. She stumbles, a look of stunned surprise in her reptilian eyes, and then she crashes to the ground, her great body shuddering, and then still.
I stand over her, my chest heaving, my body a symphony of pain. I take a moment to offer a silent prayer to her spirit, a sign of respect for a worthy adversary. Then, with my remaining strength, I sever the great, horned head from her body.
The trek down the mountain in the dark is slow, agonizing work. I am bleeding from a dozen wounds, my muscles screaming in protest. As I reach the lower slopes, I hear them before I see them: the sounds of arguing, of frustration.
I stop at the edge of a clearing and look down. It is Grak and his men. Their traps are sprung and empty. They are covered in mud, their bravado gone, replaced by a sullen, angry exhaustion. They are lost, following a dead trail, and now they are blaming each other.
I do not speak. I do not reveal myself. I simply walk past the clearing, the Matriarch’s massive, horned head slung over myshoulder, its dead, yellow eyes staring into the darkness. I am a silent specter of victory, and I let the sight of me, and my trophy, be the only judgment they need.
31
DINA
Xylon’s victory is absolute. He returns to the stronghold not just as a hunter with a kill, but as a leader who has proven his worth beyond all doubt. He carries the head of the Razorclaw Matriarch into the great hall, and the silence that greets him is one of pure, stunned awe. He drops the gruesome trophy at his father’s feet, and the clan explodes. The roar of their approval is a tidal wave of sound that washes away all the tension and fear of the past few days. Grak and his followers, who had limped back to the stronghold hours earlier, empty-handed and humiliated, can only stand in shamed silence. The political threat is over.
That night, the celebration is not just for the returned son. It is for the true heir. The drums beat with a renewed fervor, the fires burn brighter, and the ale flows freely. But through it all, Xylon’s dark, intense eyes are only on me. He is a king in his hall, a hero to his people, but every look he sends my way is a silent promise, a vow that this night belongs to us.
When the celebration is at its peak, he takes my hand. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. He leads me from the roaring heat of the great hall, through quiet, torch-lit corridors, to his private quarters.
The moment the heavy oak door closes behind us, the world narrows to this room, to him. The only sounds are the crackling of the fire and the frantic, unsteady beating of my own heart. He stands before me, a giant of a man, his olive skin gleaming in the firelight. The fresh wounds from his battle are stark and beautiful against the powerful cords of his muscles, a map of his strength and sacrifice.
His dark eyes, full of a raw, unguarded love, hold mine. All the barriers, all the control he has maintained, finally crumble.
“Dina,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotions that are rough and raw and utterly beautiful.
He closes the distance between us in two great strides. His large, warm hands come up to cup my face, his calloused thumbs stroking my cheeks with a reverence that makes me tremble.
“I thought I had lost you before I ever had you,” he breathes, his forehead leaning against mine.
“You have me,” I whisper back. “Xylon, you have me.”
The kiss is an explosion. It is a release of every moment of fear, every desperate hope. His lips are firm and demanding, yet impossibly gentle. He kisses me like a man who has been starving for a lifetime and has finally found his feast. I answer him with a desperation of my own, my arms wrapping around his neck, my fingers tangling in his thick, black hair.
