Chương 136: Chapter 25: The Druid and the Knight- Part I

The Stoneclaw is considerably larger than I imagined when Elyrion first mentioned it. That realization settles almost immediately after we enter the clearing and find the creature standing among the trees on the opposite side, its enormous body partially concealed behind a pair of old trunks that would have hidden an ordinary bear almost completely. They barely cover its shoulders.

Dark brown fur hangs thickly across a frame built with the same broad proportions as the bears I remember from the forests surrounding Elarion, but everything about this creature has been exaggerated by mana and time, from the heavy forelimbs planted against the earth to the massive shoulders rising behind its head.

Patches of something darker interrupt the fur around those shoulders and continue down along its forelegs, and it takes me several moments to realize that I am looking at hardened mineral growth rather than exposed hide. The formations follow the contours of the Stoneclaw's body closely enough that they almost resemble natural armor, smooth in some places and rough in others, while the claws extending from beneath its paws possess the same dull grey-black color as the stone scattered across the clearing.

Nothing about the creature looks unnatural in the way I expected. There are no additional limbs, strange growths or obvious signs of mutation beyond what its affinity has done to a body that is otherwise unmistakably that of a bear. If anything, that makes the Stoneclaw more unsettling, because I can understand exactly what I am looking at. It is an animal that was already powerful before mana made it considerably more so.

Garrick stops beside me and spends several quiet moments studying the creature before his attention shifts toward Elyrion, who has remained several paces behind us since entering the clearing.

"You could have mentioned the size." His voice is calm enough that I glance toward him, expecting to find some concern hidden behind the complaint, but Garrick looks more curious than worried. One hand rests against the hilt of his sword while the other hangs loose at his side, and there is none of the stiffness I remember from the first few days after his Communion, when every new sensation of mana seemed to require conscious attention.

The change has become easier to notice now that I know him well enough to recognize what has disappeared. He no longer thinks about the mana simply because it is there. He stands with it as naturally as he once stood without it, which may be why Elyrion brought him here in the first place. The elf gives no indication that he intends to explain himself, however. His gaze remains fixed upon the Stoneclaw as he answers.

"You did not ask." Garrick looks at him for a moment before turning toward me.

"I dislike him more every day." I almost smile despite myself.

"You barely speak to him."

"And somehow he still manages it." Elyrion either ignores the exchange or decides it does not deserve a response, because his attention never leaves the creature across the clearing. Only when the Stoneclaw shifts its weight and raises its head does his expression sharpen slightly.

"Earth affinity," he says.

"Strong. Do not mistake its size for slowness." That finally pulls Garrick's attention away from him.

"Anything else?" Elyrion considers the question long enough that I begin to suspect another deliberately unhelpful answer is coming.

"It will try to kill you." Garrick exhales quietly through his nose.

"Excellent. I would have hated to discover that unexpectedly." The humor disappears from his expression when the Stoneclaw takes its first deliberate step toward us, and mine follows with it because I feel the creature's mana before anything else changes. Earth has always possessed a particular weight to my senses.

Even when I am not actively reaching for it, I can usually recognize the deep steadiness of the affinity when someone begins drawing upon it, but what moves through the Stoneclaw feels different from the controlled flow I associate with deliberate spellcraft. There is no separation between the creature deciding to use mana and its body responding. The two happen together.

Mana gathers through its shoulders as its muscles tighten, sinks into the enormous forelegs when they press more firmly against the ground and spreads beneath its paws with enough force that the loose soil around its claws compresses. I find myself watching that interaction more carefully than the faint amber light appearing in its eyes, because it tells me far more about what we are facing. The Stoneclaw is not shaping the earth around itself in the way I would.

It is drawing strength from the same affinity and turning that strength inward, reinforcing a body that already possesses enough natural power to tear a man apart without mana. Garrick must recognize something similar, because his sword leaves its sheath with a slow scrape of metal while he shifts one foot slightly behind the other.

"I'm assuming you're staying back," he says without looking toward Elyrion.

"Yes." The answer comes immediately. Garrick gives a small nod as though that is precisely what he expected, and when I glance back, Elyrion has already moved farther toward the edge of the clearing. There is no weapon in his hand and no preparation for a spell that I can detect. He simply stops beneath one of the trees and watches us, leaving little doubt that whatever his reason for bringing us here, the Stoneclaw belongs to Garrick and me. The creature settles that question a moment later by charging.

There is no warning roar or dramatic display before it moves; one instant its weight is gathered beneath its shoulders, and the next several hundred measures of muscle, fur and hardened hide are crossing the clearing toward us with a speed that makes Elyrion's warning suddenly seem inadequate. Garrick moves first, although not in the direction I expect.

Instead of retreating from the charge, he steps forward and slightly to the right, drawing the Stoneclaw's attention with him while leaving me several paces of open ground to his left. I understand what he wants only after the creature adjusts its path to follow him, but by then my hand is already lowering toward the earth. Mana passes through me and sinks beneath the Stoneclaw's front paws, where I push upward against the packed soil and force a ridge of stone toward the surface.

I intend to catch the creature beneath the chest and break its momentum before Garrick has to meet it, but the Stoneclaw feels the movement beneath itself almost as quickly as I create it. One enormous paw rises and comes down against the forming ridge with enough force to shatter the upper edge before it can fully emerge. Broken stone scatters across the clearing, yet the resistance slows the creature for the fraction of a second Garrick needs.

He steps across its path rather than away from it, turns his body as the Stoneclaw passes and brings his sword against the outside of its foreleg in a cut that would have opened most animals from joint to shoulder. Instead, the blade strikes the mineral-hardened hide with a harsh scrape before biting only shallowly into the flesh beyond it. Garrick's expression changes at once, but there is no time for either of us to consider what that means because the Stoneclaw reacts with startling speed.

Its head swings toward him while the rest of its body is still carrying forward, and one shoulder catches Garrick before he can completely clear its path. He is thrown several steps sideways, boots dragging through the dirt as he fights to remain upright, but he manages to turn the forced retreat into distance rather than allowing himself to fall. By the time the Stoneclaw finishes its turn, Garrick has already recovered his stance and raised his sword again. I start to move toward him before catching myself.

The instinct comes from years of fighting beside people whose survival often depended upon me noticing danger before they did, but Garrick does not need me to pull him out of this one. He sees the Stoneclaw coming, understands what went wrong with his first strike and is already adjusting the angle of his blade. More importantly, he looks toward me only once, briefly enough that someone unfamiliar with him might mistake the glance for uncertainty. I know better. He isn't asking for help. He is checking where I am.

That realization changes what I do next. Instead of raising another barrier between them, I reach beneath the Stoneclaw and loosen the ground under its rear paws just as Garrick begins moving to his left. The creature turns to follow him, transferring its considerable weight onto soil that had been firm only a moment earlier, and one hind leg sinks almost to the joint before it realizes what has happened. Its body tilts with the sudden loss of balance, which is all Garrick needs.

He reverses direction immediately, stepping back inside the reach of the creature's forelimbs while they are occupied keeping its weight upright, and his sword cuts across the exposed side beneath its shoulder. This time he avoids the hardened plates entirely. The blade disappears through thick fur and opens a long wound beneath it before Garrick pulls free and continues past the creature rather than remaining close enough for it to retaliate.

The Stoneclaw bellows and tries to turn after him, but the trapped hind leg prevents the movement, so I close the earth more firmly around it and feel the pressure of the creature's strength travel back through the mana connecting me to the ground. For a moment I think I can hold it there. Then the Stoneclaw pulls once, the soil around its leg fractures, and I realize how badly I have underestimated the amount of force it can generate.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I reinforce the binding instinctively, compressing the loose soil until it hardens around the trapped limb, but the Stoneclaw responds by driving both forepaws into the ground and wrenching its body forward. The spell doesn't fail all at once.

I feel cracks forming through the earth first, each one spreading through the structure I have created until maintaining it begins demanding more mana than the restraint is worth. Garrick has already moved clear, so I release the spell rather than wasting strength on a contest I have no reason to win. The Stoneclaw tears its leg free a heartbeat later and sends a spray of soil and broken stone behind it, but the sudden absence of resistance causes its own strength to work against it.

The creature lurches forward, and Garrick immediately takes advantage of the mistake by stepping in from the opposite side. His sword strikes the shoulder again, this time finding the edge between two hardened patches, and although the wound is not deep enough to cripple the limb, the Stoneclaw recoils before swinging toward him.

Garrick is already retreating when the claws pass through the space he occupied, and I find myself following his movement almost without thinking, shifting the earth beneath his next step into a firmer surface so that his boot finds purchase instead of loose soil. He feels the change. I know he does because his retreat stops a fraction earlier than it otherwise would have, allowing him to turn smoothly and face the creature instead of spending another step recovering his balance.

The exchange lasts only seconds, yet something about it feels different from the opening charge. I had not told Garrick that I would change the ground beneath him, and he had not asked me to trap the Stoneclaw's leg. Neither of us had planned the sequence before it happened. He saw what I was doing and adjusted to it, while I saw where he intended to move and made the path easier for him.

It is a small thing, perhaps too small to matter against a creature capable of breaking stone with its weight, but when Garrick glances toward me again there is a flicker of recognition in his expression that tells me he has noticed it as well.

"Again?" he asks. I look toward the Stoneclaw, which has finally turned to face both of us and now seems considerably less interested in choosing between its opponents. Blood darkens the fur along its side, though the wounds are shallower than I would like, while the stone-like formations across its shoulders remain almost untouched.

"Try the left side," I tell him.

"The plating is thinner behind the shoulder." Garrick studies the creature for a moment and adjusts his grip.

"And you're going to keep it still?"

"I can try." His mouth curves slightly.

"Comforting."

"You asked." That earns me a quick look.

"You've been spending too much time with Elyrion." Somewhere behind us, the elf remains silent, which somehow makes Garrick's accusation feel more justified. The Stoneclaw doesn't give us time to continue. Its forepaw strikes the ground with enough force that I feel the impact through my boots, but this time the movement is accompanied by a sudden surge of Earth mana that spreads outward beneath the clearing. I recognize the danger just before the packed soil beneath us shudders.

"Move." Garrick reacts to my voice immediately, throwing himself sideways as a short, violent tremor rolls through the ground where we had been standing. I push my own mana downward rather than trying to outrun it, anchoring the soil beneath my feet long enough to keep my balance while the surrounding earth shifts in a shallow wave. The effort works, though only barely, and by the time the tremor fades the Stoneclaw is already moving toward Garrick again.

He has landed badly from the sudden dodge, one knee almost touching the ground, and for the first time since the fight began the creature has caught him without his footing properly beneath him. I reach instinctively for the ground between them, but before I can decide whether to raise another wall, Garrick plants his sword against the earth, uses it to force himself upright and runs directly toward the approaching Stoneclaw. For one incredulous heartbeat, I think the tremor has knocked the sense out of him.

Then I see the angle he is taking and understand. The Stoneclaw expects him to retreat. Its charge is carrying it toward the open space behind him, where its greater speed would eventually make distance meaningless, so Garrick denies it the chase entirely. He closes the gap before the creature can build its full momentum and veers sharply toward its injured side, forcing the Stoneclaw to turn much more tightly than its weight allows.

I react before the opportunity disappears, pushing a narrow shelf of stone upward beneath Garrick's next stride. His boot lands against it without hesitation. The extra height carries him above the Stoneclaw's swinging forelimb, and his sword comes down across the same wound he opened moments earlier. The creature roars as the blade bites deeper, but Garrick is already using the downward force of the strike to push himself away.

He lands hard, rolls once across the ground and rises with his sword still in hand, while the Stoneclaw turns after him with blood now running freely through the fur beneath its shoulder. I realize I am smiling only when Garrick looks across the clearing and gives me the same expression in return. It isn't amusement at the creature's pain, nor the careless excitement of men who have forgotten what a fight can cost. At least, I don't think it is.

What I feel is the satisfaction of discovering that something works better than I expected. Garrick has spent most of his life fighting as an ordinary man among people capable of using mana, relying upon experience and discipline where others could rely upon abilities he simply did not possess. Communion has not replaced any of that. It has given those old instincts something new to work with, and watching him now, I begin to understand why the Grove might have chosen him.

The mana reinforcing his body allows him to move faster and strike harder, but the dangerous part is everything that existed before the mana arrived. He knows when to commit, when to retreat and when a small opening is worth more than a powerful attack. More importantly, he seems to understand my magic after only a handful of exchanges.

I don't need to tell him where I intend to raise because he has begun watching the ground around the Stoneclaw as carefully as he watches the creature itself, and I no longer have to guess whether he will recognize an opening once I create one. The Stoneclaw turns slowly between us, and as it does, the amber light within its eyes deepens while mana gathers once more beneath its fur.

The hardened formations across its shoulders seem darker now, their surfaces taking on the dull density of freshly broken rock as more Earth mana settles into them, and I feel its weight pressing into the clearing until the soil around its paws begins to crack. Whatever we have done so far has hurt it, but not enough to frighten it away. If anything, the wounds have made it more deliberate.

Its gaze moves from Garrick to me and then back again, no longer following whichever of us happens to be closest, and I realize that the Stoneclaw has learned something from the fight as well. It understands that Garrick's sword is only part of the threat. Every time it turns toward him, the earth moves beneath it. Every time it comes for me, Garrick finds its exposed side.

The animal may not understand the partnership between us in the same terms that I do, but instinct has already taught it the important part: separating us would make killing either of us considerably easier. Garrick begins circling to my right, and I move in the opposite direction without needing to discuss it with him. The Stoneclaw follows both movements for several moments before settling its attention on Garrick, perhaps because the wounds along its side have given it a more immediate reason to dislike him.

He keeps moving, never quickly enough to invite a charge but never slowly enough to let the creature settle, and I recognize what he is doing when his path begins drawing the Stoneclaw toward the rougher ground near the center of the clearing. Stones protrude there naturally from beneath the soil, some no larger than my fist and others broad enough to alter the creature's footing if its weight lands badly. I don't need to create anything. I only need to make what already exists slightly worse.

Mana sinks beneath the clearing while Garrick continues circling, and I begin raising the buried stones by fractions rather than forcing them dramatically from the earth. A few inches here. A slight tilt there. Nothing the Stoneclaw notices while its attention remains fixed upon the sword moving beyond its reach, but enough that the ground it is crossing becomes increasingly hostile to something carrying so much weight. Garrick notices first.

His eyes flick briefly downward before returning to the Stoneclaw, and the corner of his mouth lifts. He changes direction. The creature follows. Its rear paw lands against one of the stones I have tilted beneath the soil, and the ankle shifts just enough to disturb its balance. Garrick doesn't attack immediately. Instead, he waits for the Stoneclaw to correct itself and then moves farther to the side, forcing another turn. I raise the next stone.

The creature steps across it, stumbles slightly and grows more agitated. By the third, it realizes the ground itself has become unreliable and turns its head toward me. That moment of distraction is all Garrick has been waiting for. He closes the distance, strikes behind the injured shoulder and withdraws before the Stoneclaw can fully turn, leaving another line of blood across its fur. This time I do laugh, although the sound is little more than breath escaping through my nose. Garrick hears it anyway.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"A little."

"Good." He adjusts his grip on the sword while the Stoneclaw turns toward us again.

"So am I." There is something in the ease of his answer that settles into me more deeply than it should. The creature before us remains powerful enough that one mistake could change the fight immediately, and I know that. Garrick knows it too. Yet the knowledge no longer carries the same weight it did when the Stoneclaw first charged across the clearing. We have seen what it can do now.

We have felt the tremor beneath our feet, watched it break my restraints and learned how little Garrick's blade can accomplish against the hardened portions of its hide. None of those things have stopped us. Each problem has simply become another movement to account for, another adjustment made almost as quickly as the Stoneclaw can force it upon us, and somewhere during those exchanges the creature has stopped feeling like an unknown threat and begun feeling like something we understand.

The Stoneclaw lowers itself again, mana gathering through its forelegs until the earth beneath them compresses. Garrick looks toward me. I can already see what he intends to do and this time, I don't wait for him to move first.