After the Fire - Pt. 3: Bravery

Soot knew that things in life could change in an instant. That was just fact. It didn’t mean that you entered every situation, every twist and turn, that life threw at you prepared. Far from it. In fact, if he weren’t busy dodging the whipping tails of corruption beasts, he would have laughed at the notion.

It was a school of only three, juvenile manta ray like creatures, but they had come out of nowhere. He let himself fall to the ground and rolled to avoid the stinger of one of the beasts, before jumping to his feet and slashing at it with a blade of wind magic. The beast scattered away; probably to look for easier prey, and less because he scared it off.

Soot looked around. A body was lying in the dust, and his heart sank as he realized it was their instructor. They could never win this fight without an experienced knight among their ranks. They were still in training after all.

He grabbed the next panicking recruit running past him by the scruff of their neck and shook them briefly to get their mind out of panic mode. If they hadn’t the skills to fight the beasts, they needed their wits upon them at least. The fellow trainee blinked and focused on Soot.

“I’ll distract them. Gather everyxyn and get them out of here!” Soot shouted, less because it was necessary; the other xyn was right in front of his face after all, but not to lose their attention again.

The trainee nodded hastily, mute from fear and looking disheveled, but concentrated on the task that Soot had given them. They ran off, shouting for their comrades, and Soot faced the critters that might as well mean their impending death. He sent some more wind magic flying their way before dashing right towards them, ducking between them and avoiding half-hearted swings of their tails. The corruption beasts were momentarily confused to see the xyn running towards them instead of away from them. But that changed quickly once he had his back turned again.

Soot heard a mighty roar, followed by two quieter whistles: The dominant of the beasts commanding the smaller ones to go after him and the latter complying obediently. He didn’t turn around but rushed towards a pile of tree trunks, to hide there or at least avoid the lashing tails. He slid below the trees just as the closest beast swung its stinger and buried it into the dead tree trunk, effectively getting stuck. It tugged a few times, wailing frustratedly, but its tail wouldn’t budge.

One done. Two left.

Soot peeked out of the pile of tree trunks and tried to mock them into losing their head. The other smaller one hesitated, seemingly intimidated by him outsmarting one of its kind. It turned around and attempted to scurry away, but the bigger beast would have none of it. With a quick slash of its tail, it felled its smaller “sibling”, not tolerating the insubordination, and focused back on Soot. He could swear he saw the eyes of the beast, glowing maliciously.

The beast roared again, surging forward, so fast that Soot hurried to dive back in between the trees, pushing his body forward and ignoring how the dried bark pulled out his fur and tore his skin open. Such injuries hardly mattered when you had corruption hot on your tail.

When he got stuck between two trees, Soot tried not to panic, even though he heard the splintering of wood as the beast buried itself into the pile, its stinger lashing madly, a roar of fury in the air. He dared to turn around and saw nothing but red, glowing eyes and tendrils of corruption reaching for him, and gave one more mighty pull, freeing himself at last. His move destabilized the entire structure, and the trunks came crashing down on the corruption beast still stuck under them. Its tail gave one last twitch and moved no longer.

Breathing heavily, warily eyeing the tree trunks, Soot paused when he heard clapping behind him and turned around. His fellow trainees piled out from the woods, applauding him, congratulating him on his victory. Soot could feel himself blushing. Wings loped around him comradely, some cheered, others told him they couldn’t wait to tell everyone in Moonreach how he saved them all. For a moment it seemed his fellow knights in training had lost all reservations towards him and Soot was surprised to find that he liked to belong. He smiled softly, basking in the moment and did not notice the movement behind him. Only when his comrades paled and looked up in terror did he sense that something was wrong.

He never saw the attack coming as the corruption beast's tail came down and tore his wings apart.