Gods, protect him.
The wolf-man doesn’t have to rip its teeth into Basuin for him to know he’s too late. He swore to protect this forest too late.
He’s never been too late before. Bass was never one to turn down a fight.
Haaman darts into his vision, something half human and half spirit, landing on their feet. Feathers cover the backs of their arms where their scars line their skin, silver and sharp and glinting with the light of the fire that burns Gyeosi. They look back at him as if waiting.
Bass unsheathes his sword, giving it a swing to remember its weight in his hand. His fingers adjust, his grip is strong. Wordlessly, he charges first, toward the growing flames, and Haaman follows. Their steps are so light they look like they’re still flying. Bass feels like he’s flying, too. This is a homecoming; this is where he belongs.
He strikes first dishonorably—a soldier whose back is turned—sword run through the gut. And next, another who turns at the scream of death and rushes Bass, with a sharp swing to the neck. Bass kicks the body away as the head rolls.
Haaman, not too far away, fights with their whole body. It’s all fast lunges and quick dodges and swift, cutting movements that leave soldiers falling at Haaman’s feet, dead. Those silver feathers are hard spines, now covered in a viscous red.
Other spirits fight alongside them, and he shouldn’t be surprised but he is. They fight for their home, too. Basuin has seen so much rebellion before, but never on this side. Not until now.
The flames only grow as Basuin shoulders his way through the legion, his sword leaving bodies in his wake. It’s hot here—sweat drips from his hairline. The smoke makes everything hard to see. Coughing, wheezing as he ducks a backhanded dagger. Hacking and spitting right after he disarms a man with a pistol.
It feels like too much. But a surge of something burning red and dark wraps him up in its clutches until it physically aches. God magic, filling him to the brim, fueling him. Basuin shatters through the ranks of Xalkhan soldiers, breaking each one that comes within reach. He cannot see. Blinded by smoke and rage and the image of the wolf-man as it moves within him. It doesn’t matter—his body moves through the battlefield as if he’s walked it a million times, because he has. Because he’s trained to be a warrior.
Basuin is strong again, as strong as he once was when soldiers, allies and enemies alike, cowered beneath his shadow.
This is just like Valkesta, fucking Valkesta all over again. As strong as he is, and as he was, it never changes the outcome. He acted selfishly. His want for death, to ask the elder tree to sever his tie to godhood, resulted in this.
Gyeosi burns because his anger dragged the Forest God away. He was deified to protect them. He failed again.
Selfish bastard. He marched his own squad up the Valkesi Mountains to save one soldier—one they had lost due to his own fault. When the Grimmalians took Tomaas, Bass claimed there was no choice. No soldier left behind. He wasn’t willing to lose someone else.
Basuin knew it was a trap and he still led his squad to death. Gods damn him.
He braces his foot against a legion soldier’s shoulder blades for leverage as he yanks his blade from the soldier’s spine. Blood blooms across the man’s back, seeping out from underneath his armor. Ren’s body looked just like his.
It invades his mind, the warmth of her blood on his hands. How pale her olive skin looked under the light of day. Red is not a color he thinks of when he conjures the image of Ren in his head. He thinks of blue, and forest greens, and white. Not the red that trickled down her nose and marred her chin.
Ko promised they would help her; take her to Hou-tou, who could heal even the worst of wounds. Basuin doesn’t even know what happened to her, what injured her.
Whatever they did to her, they’ll pay for it.
A howl builds in his chest. A compulsion to throw his head back and cry for blood. The veins in his neck pulse, a heart beating. A heart he doesn’t own anymore. The wolf-man is loud enough for the both of them.
When he razed Ulenski to the ground, there was nothing left but soot and ash—no survivors. His bronze skin was painted in black, eyes wild and boots covered in offal. Far beyond, on an overlook jutting out from the Valkesi Mountains, a black wolf howled to its moon-mother.
Before he slaughtered them, the soldiers called it an omen. And when they died, they called him the Black Wolf.
You gave them a chance, Kensy lied to him. But if you had given them two, you might have lost. Remember that, Black Wolf, Kensy said with his unkind smile.
This time, he watches the men who were cut from the same cloth as he razes this village to the ground instead. His arms are covered in soot and ash and blood. But this time, there are survivors—only none belong to the legion.
Kensy was kind enough to warn Basuin—and Basuin wasn’t smart enough to trust him. He knew, just like he knew about Valkesta. But he never learns.
Burning Gyeosi just like he burned Yaelic’s den. Kensy will set this whole forest aflame to find what he’s searching for, whatever that may be. If the gods refuse to answer him, then the gods themselves must burn.
Somewhere behind them, to the north, a wolf howls. He turns, a cold shot of fear striking through him. Yaelic.
Without warning, Haaman muscles him out of the way and shields themself with their bloodied wings, blocking an attack meant for Basuin. He whirls around Haaman and dispatches the soldier with a clean, upward arc of his longsword.
“They won’t fucking die,” Haaman says through gritted teeth. “There’s too many, and the fires—”
“We’ll fight until they fall,” he says, adjusting his grip on his sword’s hilt. It’s sticky with blood and sweat. “Go to the creek, with Yaelic.”
