THE MARTIAL HEALER

Chapter Three – The Weight of Flame

The sun rose slow over the wastelands of Oakwood, bathing the ruins in gold that did nothing to warm Rashford’s soul.

His limbs ached with every movement, but the forge within his chest pulsed steadily like a second heart beating molten fire. Each breath he took carried a weight he had never known before. Power. A strange, intoxicating pressure.

He walked through what remained of the village. Ember-crusted stones. Bones charred black. Bent iron tools left where the hands that held them had fallen.

He found his mother’s necklace near the well. The chain half-melted, the small oak pendant scorched but intact. He clutched it tightly. Not for strength. But to remember what had been taken.

He needed answers. He needed strength. And above all, he needed to disappear before Taren returned with more. There was one place. The only one. Grayvine Cradle.

A lawless region of twisting cliffs and monster-filled ravines. It was said no man walked into Grayvine and returned the same. If they returned at all. But Rashford had no choice. He headed west.

Two days into the journey, Rashford’s supplies had run dry. His boots were shredded from mountain gravel, and sleep came only in broken bursts. The forge sustained him, dulling pain, sharpening senses but it came at a cost.

The more he drew on it, the more he changed, His memories frayed. Dreams flickered with strange scenes: robed warriors standing in fire, a woman screaming his name in a voice he didn’t recognize, hands soaked in blood… his own. He shook them off, It wasn’t real. Not yet.

On the third night, as he scaled a narrow path above a gulch, the air shifted, He paused. The forge pulsed hard. He spun, just as the arrow flew. It missed his heart by inches, grazing his shoulder. “Ambush!”

He dove behind a rock outcropping as three figures emerged from the cliffs. Bandits by the look of them scarred, armed, and moving with martial skill. “Core signature detected,” one growled. “He’s the one. Bounty’s real.”

Rashford drew his blade. His shoulder screamed, but the forge surged. The pain dulled instantly. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“Funny,” the leader sneered. “That’s what the last one said before we buried him.”

They struck fast. Too fast, The first came in with a staff laced with energy runes. Rashford parried, sidestepped, and slid a counter-slice across the man’s leg. Blood burst. He screamed.

The second hurled daggers each charged with poison mist. Rashford activated a pulse of the forge, and the toxins vaporized mid-air, But the third attacker a silent woman with silver war fans was different.

She moved like a ghost. Every blow pushed him back. Her fans were more than weapons they cut through energy, She landed a strike that knocked Rashford off his feet, slamming him into a boulder. His breath exploded from his lungs.

She approached slowly. “Not bad, Forge-boy. But you’re still raw.”

She raised a fan and a black arrow pierced her shoulder, She shrieked and dropped, Another figure landed beside Rashford, cloaked in dark red, bow drawn. “Get up,” she snapped. “Unless you want to die curled up like a leaf.”

Rashford blinked. “Who ”

“No time!”

The stranger moved with blinding speed. She knocked two more arrows, dropping the remaining attackers before they could regroup. Silence fell.

The woman turned to him, eyes sharp and golden. A half-mask covered her face. “You don’t know it yet, Rashford Oakwood,” she said, “but you’ve stepped onto a path that doesn’t let you walk alone.”

He stared. “How do you know my name?”

She didn’t answer, Instead, she dropped a crest at his feet a silver oak wrapped in flame, He recognized it. His mother’s ring had the same symbol, She turned to leave. “Follow, or die. That’s your choice.”

Rashford looked at the bodies. Then at the path ahead, The forge whispered within him, warm and knowing, He followed.