The leader moved first, faster than his size suggested he should, closing the distance in three long strides with the knife already rising. Garrick barely got the black sword clear of its sheath in time, catching the strike on the flat of the blade with a jolt that ran up through both arms.Move your feet, Asterion said, sharp and immediate. You're standing like a post. Give ground, don't plant it.Garrick stepped back, and the second attacker came in from his left before he'd fully recovered, a short sword slashing low toward his thigh. He twisted away from it on instinct, felt the blade catch fabric instead of skin, and swung the black sword in a wide arc that forced the man back a step.Behind him, Garrick heard the merchant pulling his family further from the fighting, and the courier's satchel thumping against his side as he too retreated toward the tree line, none of the travelers willing to simply stand in the open while steel was being swung so close to them.Two more bandits

The report reached Zephar's study nearly two days after the crypt meeting, carried by one of his own household agents who had been specifically tasked with gathering every rumor circulating through the kingdom's market towns, however unlikely it seemed on its surface."A story out of Millhaven, my lord," the agent said, laying a folded paper on Zephar's desk. "And three towns beyond it since. A young swordsman, alone, defeated four bandits on the forest road south of the capital. Spared three of them outright. The fourth turned on him after surrendering."Zephar unfolded the paper slowly, scanning the account written in his agent's careful hand. "A black sword," he read aloud, quiet, more to himself than to the man standing before him."That detail repeats in every version I've heard, my lord. Consistent enough that I don't believe it's embellishment."Zephar set the paper down and stood, crossing to the window of his study, looking out over the estate grounds without truly seeing the

Captain Cedren Halvor had been three days on the road when the story finally reached him, told secondhand by a garrison sergeant in a small town whose name Cedren had already half forgotten among the dozens he'd passed through since leaving the capital."Strange tale going around, Captain," the sergeant said, over a shared meal in the garrison's modest hall. "Young swordsman, black blade, took down four bandits alone on the south road a few days back. Spared most of them too, from what I've heard. Only killed the one who wouldn't stop coming at him even after he'd surrendered."Cedren set down his cup slowly. "A black blade, you said.""That's what they're calling it. Strange color for steel. Nobody local claims to have forged anything like it." The sergeant shrugged, clearly not attaching much weight to the detail himself. "You know how these stories grow with the telling, Captain. Probably just an ordinary blade gone dark with age, and the color's grown a life of its own by the thir

Garrick woke to the sound of screaming.He was on his feet before his mind had fully caught up with his body, the hayloft's rough boards cold beneath him, the black sword already in his hand though he had no memory of reaching for it. Outside, the night had turned to chaos. Dogs barked in a frenzy. Someone was shouting for the men to get their weapons. Beneath it all, a low, guttural snarling rose from somewhere near the livestock pens, closer than anything that sound should ever be allowed to get.He scrambled down the loft ladder two rungs at a time and burst out of the barn into a scene that stopped him cold for half a heartbeat.Wolves moved through the village in the moonlight, larger than any wolves Garrick had ever heard described, their fur dark and matted, their eyes catching the torchlight with a wrongness that made his stomach clench. One of them had already shattered a section of the pen fence, and the livestock inside were screaming in a way that carried under his skin."

The outpost at Millbrook Crossing was little more than a garrison house and a stable, but it had a fast courier route to the capital, and the bounty hunter had ridden through the night specifically because he knew it.He dismounted stiffly, legs aching from hours in the saddle, and pushed through the garrison door before the sun had fully cleared the horizon.The officer on duty, a heavyset man barely awake behind his desk, looked up with irritation that faded fast once the bounty hunter dropped the folded wanted notice in front of him."I've seen him," the bounty hunter said. "The Arundel boy. Village called Ashbrook, two nights' ride northeast of here. He killed a pack of Ironfang Wolves without so much as a scratch that slowed him down. Black sword, just like the notice says."The officer sat up straighter. "You're certain?""Certain enough to ride through the night instead of sleeping." The bounty hunter tapped the parchment. "That reward's substantial. I want it logged that I'm t