My hammer doesn’t forge weapons, but souls. A tempered soul is more powerful than a thousand blades. Weak souls suffer when my hammer strikes the anvil, but come! A soul can’t be tempered without whetting one’s throat with the finest brew.

~Goibniu, The God of the Forge and Brew

The fire crackled, sending sparks into the sky, and three people huddled around the roasting meat. They usually wouldn’t cook food in camp, but they’d reached their destination, which they’d fortified last time they visited this area.

“How strong are you now, boy?” Barnes asked, looking over at the youngest member of the group. Barnes was a notable presence at the Maddox clan, and the elders granted him a permanent residence within their ancestral grounds. Bards held high respect in all clans, and specialized in a specific area of research. Barnes gained the title Endless Rain because his ability with the bow was unmatched, and Crow had an affinity for the same weapon.

Bards had a specialized training method of training each other—having a Sage’s Mind provided certain advantages. Rather than spending years instructing their students, they’d show them each technique or ability hundreds of times, allowing the Bard in training to absorb the knowledge through observation. It would take a month to give Crow large amounts of information, and the rest was up to his comprehension. Barnes had stuck around for a year because of Crow’s natural aptitude for the bow and ended up staying longer because he’d found a protégé.

“How would I know? I only fight father, and he fights dirty.”

Conall lashed out, knocking his son back on his butt. Barnes laughed, seeing the two together.

“It’s not dirty. In a fight—”

“I know, I know. In a fight, there are no rules. There is just the strong and the weak. The cunning and the dumb ass.” Crow rolled his eyes, adding a twist to his father’s favorite advice.

“Hah! I’m stealing that,” Conall joked and tore a hunk of meat off the spit.

“Use it at your peril, old man.”

“Damn, listen to you two. How old are you now, Crow?” Barnes had joined team Maddox five years ago, but he traveled a lot because of his obligations as a Bard. However, he too looked forward to these outings, and it became a bright spot in his life teaching the boy. Unable to open his Source, despite all efforts, his life was approaching its twilight. Barnes hadn’t found a worthy successor for his legacy—until he met Crow. Knowing his time was short, he put a lot of effort into training the kid enough to gain Conall’s respect.

“Turned twelve shortly before Samhain.”

“You were born on All-Hallowe’en—or near enough?”

“The week before, and don’t go getting superstitious on the boy,” Conall grumbled between bites of food.

“Well, let’s see, that was months ago. Summerfinding is coming up, and you are old enough to attend the Flower Festival. You got a girl?”

“For what?”

“It’s a dance, dummy. What are you teaching your son?”

“Bards! You are all the same. Whenever a party is to be had, you all come flooding out of the forests.” Conall was laughing. “Crow is learning something more important than that—for now.”

“Well, I’m going to teach him some dances this trip. He isn’t a big buffalo like you, and the dances will help his agility.”

The evening went by fast, and Crow reminisced about the last eight years. He never felt cheated while other kids were out playing, relaxing, and enjoying life. He spent his time getting the hell beat out of him by his father. Knowing he’d lost his mother and the time he had left with his father grew shorter every day, he didn’t feel cheated—not even a little. He felt blessed that Mugna had spoken and given him this time with his father. It was a chance to accept the eventual outcome.

They didn’t stay in Oiche after talking with Mugna that first time. They came back to the Maddox clan’s Ancestral Grounds shortly after their visit—and rarely left. At that point, all Crow knew was training and learning.

True, he was mostly a stranger to his cousins, except for the few that came looking for him consistently. He had Otto, but he usually stayed in Oiche with Luthais. The Song sisters had grown distant, or at least Crow saw them maybe once or twice a year. Usually, on holidays that the father and son duo couldn’t avoid. It turns out, grandpa Niall was even scarier than his father.

All things said, he was happy. His ability to fight was probably on par with adults who hadn’t opened their Source. History and knowledge—there wasn’t anyone his age at his level, not unless they had also awakened their bloodline. Druids had many techniques, abilities, and cultivation methods, which came to Crow through a series of Bards that Mugna sent to him. His mind was like an endless sponge, but most of it was passive knowledge because he didn’t have a Source to use any of it yet.

Father gave him everything and hid nothing. At night, while they sat out on the porch looking up at the stars, they both knew what was coming, but neither mentioned it. They’d adopted this way of communicating in silence, and they didn’t need to say much. It wasn’t always peaceful because both had tempers that had slowly become a legend around the clan. Crow realized he was more like his father than he’d thought. It was to those thoughts that Crow slept, and when he awoke again, the fire had burned low.

“Watch is yours,” Barnes spoke softly. “Tell your father not to wake me when you two go out tomorrow. My old bones don’t like the morning chill. I’ll go hunt with you two after lunch.”

Crow nodded, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The next few hours passed while Crow did his morning exercises. He’d already worked up a sheen of sweat by the time he woke his father.

“Come, we hunt!” Conall grinned, and the two jogged out of camp at a ground eating pace.

As was their habit, they split up after a few kilometers but remained close enough to communicate in bird whistles. The method was simple and usually just conveyed direction or necessary actions like attack or fall back.

A sharp twill meant to go slow and use caution. It was a strong enough warning that Crow unslung his bow and prepared an arrow. After another hour of slowly stalking through the woods, Crow sent up a questioning whistle. The response was some distance away, but it was an all-clear.

It was strange; they were in a part of the forest called the Deep, and even the outskirts were dangerous to unskilled hunters. Almost no one came out here unless they had a Shield, and Crow only felt safe hunting here because he was confident enough to escape the low-level beasts until his father arrived to save him. That wasn’t the strange part—there were no beasts.

Some small game trails and markings of potentially bigger game, but otherwise, it was empty. Father once told him that a Druid’s focus wasn’t on nature but the natural order. Nature was just the closest thing to it and allowed them to hone their instinct for detecting anomalies in their surroundings. He related it to situational awareness, and his father practically beat eyes into the back of his head until Crow started to hone that sixth sense.

It was this instinct that made Crow sense a strangeness around him. Not just because there were no beasts, but he felt a sourness in his stomach too. Something he’d felt when those with Shields opened up their Source without controlling it. It was a heavy or oppressive feeling. The tightly packed trees and thick canopy didn’t help. The dark damp of the forest added another layer to the oppressiveness of this place.

A whistle pierced through his distracting thoughts. Crow didn’t immediately reply, because it was his father checking to see if everything was alright. It was also a gloating call—his father had scored a kill.

Another dozen meters and Crow found a light oasis—a clearing open to the sky, allowing sunlight through. The Deep didn’t have many of them, but he felt as if each was sacred territory. He had no basis for it, but he felt like each oasis was a safe place—especially out here.

Finally, he whistled back to his father, not willing to move beyond this point without him. While the light oasis might feel safe, he still hadn’t rid himself of his uneasiness. Near the clearing’s center, he found several large rocks. After he sat down among the large stones, shielded from sight, he waited.

The sunlight warmed his flesh and invigorated his soul. It had a strong calming effect on his nerves, but the tension remained. Allowing his senses to spread out, he closed his eyes to eliminate distractions.

Sitting as he was, he didn’t realize his body had taken on a warm golden glow, nor did he feel the tears that leaked out of the corners of his eyes. Places like these gave him a poignant sense of loss because they were locations he and his mother frequented when he was younger. While he had hardened himself to what happened, he couldn’t prevent the occasional crack in the barrier around his heart. Unconsciously, his hands rubbed at the scars on his palms.

Barnes was probably the only one who knew how strong Crow’s bloodline power was. The elders figured Crow’s memory of that day would dull, and for most Bards, that was true. They recorded the memory, but not the sensory input, which would fade with time.

Crow was different, his bloodline more pure. His memory recorded it all. The smells, sounds, sights, tastes—even his innermost feelings—were all captured. As a young child, this hadn’t fully developed, but it was enough that he captured some of it.

It also aged him faster than other kids. His intelligence and wisdom outpaced his age, and he balanced that by becoming more withdrawn from others and hiding his intelligence. It wasn’t out of being shy, but he had secrets to protect.

“Your mother still affects you?” Conall asked, breaking Crow from his thoughts. He’d arrived well before Crow entered the clearing but had also felt something was amiss. Instead, he waited in the shadows of the forest, checking to see if whatever was out there would reveal itself.

After a time, he understood a few things. First, the other party would not reveal itself until Conall entered the light. Second, he knew without a doubt that this wasn’t a fight they could avoid.

Crow’s eyes refocused, and his head snapped towards his father, who squatted on the rock above him. Despite his straying thoughts, he hadn’t let down his vigil. His father’s arrival hadn’t even triggered his awareness, which meant that the man had also sensed something. It was the only time he’d use his full power to hide—otherwise, he’d have turned it into a teaching moment. Danger was at hand.

“S-she does,” Crow answered and raised himself to a squat to use the side of his vision to inspect his surroundings. It was the best way to detect movement. “I can still see that day in perfect clarity—the smell of her hair. I’ll never forget. Nor will I forget grandpa Gideon’s red-lined irises, his evil grin, and aside from a small chip, his nearly perfect teeth. And who can forget the potent smell of blood on his flesh, or his perfectly manicured hands?”

“Good. Remember all of that. You are the son of Druids. It is not for you to forget, but to remember. Recording the truth is your obligation, every little detail of it. We pride ourselves on our ability to recall with impartiality. Most of all, remember your mother. We will be together if fate allows.”

While his father talked, Crow spotted movement, but his father was faster. The man moved like the wind. All those years of training had not gone to waste, and Crow tracked his father with his bow, arrow nocked but not drawn.

Thunk!

Conall’s large hand slammed into a tree, wood splintered, and Crow felt his mouth drop open. At the end of his father’s arm, trapped in the man’s beefy fist, was a creature Crow had only seen in books. Pulling it back into the light—

SKREEAK!

A wailing screech filled the oasis as the plant-like man writhed in his father’s hand. Its wooden humanoid body clacked as it flailed its limbs all around itself.

Crow paused before releasing an arrow. It was probably the hardest lesson his father taught him, always evaluate the situation twice before acting once. Then practice that again and again until he could do it in the blink of an eye. Honing a skill where he had to assess and reassess all before attacking an opponent involved him receiving a lot of beatings. His father told him honing it before opening his Source would give him an edge others would lack.

“Dryads! What are you rootless bastards doing here?” Conall growled, but his ax spoke before the monster did, and its severed head fell to the ground. Green viscous blood shot out of the remaining stump before the body followed the head. Without missing a step, he was already back in the clearing, halfway between his son and the tree line. “There is more, boy. Switch to bone arrows. They can control wood enough to neutralize your current arrows.”

Not hesitating even slightly, the arrow drawn flowed back into the quiver, and another one appeared in his hand. The pale yellow shaft made from a beast’s bones was more durable than wood. The movements were so fast and fluid that even Conall had to admire the boy’s skill.

“Were these things really cursed by Mugna?” Crow asked as he’d read about dryads. The Druid Order considered them evil and classified them as one of the Rootless—those that betrayed their own blood.

Dryads were supposedly cursed humans that could only survive by feasting off the corruption within a forest. Their curse also served as their penance, but it disallowed them a chance to settle down and grow roots. It forced them to stay on the move.

The wooden man-shaped creatures all hovered at the edge of the clearing before stepping forward. Crow released arrow after arrow, but the things had natural armor. Not that it stopped his father from hacking them apart with his dual battle axes.

“All Rootless are those people who were willing to betray their heritage for wealth and power. They are a people without history, and because of that, they have no souls.” Conall spat on the ground in disgust while hacking them apart.

An especially large dryad didn’t enter the clearing and stood nearly three meters tall. Its sunken eyes stared at the center of the clearing, and Crow noticed the attention.

“Join us, child. Your father lies; his knowledge of us is lacking. There is no power in this world that is good or evil. Only the person wielding it can make that determination,” the large dryad said. His ash-colored bark-like skin released a green haze when the sunlight touched it. A sickly ooze wrapped around him like a martial robe. Its fingers were long and thin, with leafy protrusions like that of small saplings. All of them were the same, just of varying sizes and coloring.

Each used a spear as they were born with it in hand. More than a few of Crow’s arrows were knocked aside with the deft movements of those wooden shafts. It was as if the spears bent to their will.

“Your overgrown tree did not curse us—we existed long before the Druids claimed this land. It was those bastards that stole our foundation and power. Join our ranks, and I can show you power—actual strength. Don’t you want to rescue your mother?”

Conall sucked in a breath, and even Crow’s eyes grew pensive. They both knew this encounter was no accident. They’d been ambushed.

A yellow light burst forth from Conall’s chest, his Shield’s power burning through his shirt’s weak fabric, exposing the Topaz Shield under it. The might of his power exploded out from him, and without using a single ability, he crushed half the dryads attacking them. They were the weakest of the bunch, but they were still annoyances.

Father and son looked at each other grimly. Crow knew his father had gone from calm to furious—both of them knew what this meant. Mugna predicted this eight years ago. It was the day Crow would lose his father.