48: Some Dreams Do Come True

Rudvik stepped forward. “I will not allow it.”

The knight appraised Rudvik with a bemused expression. “You!? Don’t embarrass yourself, lumberjack. What combat training have you had? Have you ever taken the life of another man? Will you behead me with that ungainly tree ax of yours?”

“Ye damn well know I’ll do whate’er it takes!” his father shouted.

The scene played out in front of Vir’s eyes, just as before. But unlike then, he was stronger now. This time, he could do something.

“No!” Vir shouted. “Father, you can’t take him on!”

“What kinda father can’t e’en protect his own kid, huh?”

Vir didn’t bother arguing. He saw the knight’s poleax in slow motion, promising death and destruction as it approached Rudvik’s back.

But this time, Vir would not let him. He Leaped to the knight, crashing into him, sending his enemy tumbling to the ground.

“Now, Maiya!” he said, jumping away.

Twin columns of fire erupted from his friend’s hands, arcing out, enveloping the knight. The warrior screamed, writhing on the ground, desperately trying to get free of the flames that burned him.

He failed. The knight’s screams grew weaker and weaker, until there was silence in the forest once again.

“Ye did good, boy!” Rudvik said, patting Vir and Maiya on their heads. “Couldn’t be more proud o’ ya.”

“I just wanted to make you proud, father,” Vir said, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Aye, ye—get down, boy!” Rudvik said suddenly.

An enormous spider descended upon the man, crushing him under its immense weight.

Vir hadn’t even had the chance to move. He watched helplessly as the light faded from his father’s eyes.

“Run!” Rudvik whispered.

— —

“Father no!” Vir wailed, jerking awake, katar already in hand.

He looked around, only to find a peaceful forest that was just waking up for the day. Peaceful, apart from the strange voices that always plagued the Godshollow.

Sighing, he put down his blade.

Not that dream again. This was the second night in a row he’d had that nightmare, though this time with the addition of a certain spider. And now he was shivering thanks to all the sweat that greased his back.

Great…

At least nightmares rarely came true.

Vir sunk further under the thick blanket he’d stol—borrowed from Riyan’s place. Even if the man had ordered him to set out right away to go hunt some beast, he wasn’t about to enter the Godshollow without adequate preparations. Warmth was key to survival.

The trip had taken six long hours on Bumpy from Riyan’s abode, but the forest was no place for an Ash’va. He’d been forced to leave the animal to graze near the northern edge of the forest.

The Godshollow—and specifically this task Riyan had set for him—brought with it a torrent of emotions. On the one hand, he’d just gained some powerful new Talents he was itching to test out, but dangerous situations put him at risk of the Reaper taking over again. The two thoughts warred with each other in Vir’s head, leaving him little peace.

After several minutes of working up the courage to escape the warmth of his blanket, he eventually managed it.

Vir stepped past the makeshift camp to gaze down on the forest floor, over a hundred paces below. He’d been to the forest a thousand times, but had never witnessed it from this high before. The canopy was a world unto itself, magical and mysterious.

He’d never realized just how truly massive the boughs of the great Godhollows were until he’d High Jumped and climbed his way up one to pitch camp up here.

Though Vir wasn’t afflicted with a fear of heights, climbing a hundred paces without a rope would scare anyone. And considering he hadn’t yet learned Light Step, a fall from that height would be his last.

So he made sure to never look down.

The bough he was on was over seven paces in width. He could comfortably lie down sideways and still had room to spare. As a platform, it was both sturdy and secure.

Riyan had been sparse on the details of this hunt, but he had mentioned three things. First, he’d given Vir the beast’s general location and said that, while dangerous, the prana beast wasn’t beyond his capabilities.

Apparently, it’d been wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem. Riyan seemed certain that if left unchecked, the capital would send out a scouting party. Any military presence near Brij was bad news for all of them.

Vir felt like that was all a lie, though. That the real reason was because Riyan wanted Vir to get some actual combat experience. It did feel like he was being thrown to the wolves on this one, but he was in no position to complain. If it helped him grow stronger, he was all for it.

Second, Riyan cautioned that there was safety to be found in altitude. The higher the better. That made sense to Vir on several levels—most of the forest’s predators had no means to scale the enormously tall trees.

Finally, Riyan had said that he’d benefit by observing and analyzing the enemy before making his move. He’d neglected to mention what exactly the enemy he was hunting was, or even what it looked like. Apparently, part of the value of this lesson was figuring out this information for himself.

Vir didn’t mind—he’d never been one to shy away from a challenge.

After eating some nuts and dried berries, Vir retrieved his weapons and departed.

He’d soon discovered that several of the Godhollows’ barkless boughs nearly touched each other, and where they didn’t, Leap and High Jump allowed him to bridge those gaps with ease. As such, he never needed to climb back down to the forest floor, and could traverse ground far quicker than those restricted to the ground.

He came to the end of a limb and waited several seconds as High Jump charged, before he sailed through the air onto another bough, dropping to his knees to absorb the impact of the fall.

The only issue with Talents up here was that they took far longer to charge than if he were in direct contact with the ground. A minor inconvenience in daily life, but a major drawback in the middle of a battle.

He’d spent two days in this forest now, and just yesterday, he’d found a lead on the beast he was hunting.

When he’d first laid eyes on the white monster, he had thanked Janak that Maiya wasn’t here. The giant spider would’ve had her curling up in a ball and wishing to disappear.

The critter soon came into view. It was never one to stray from its usual patrol, making its actions easy to predict.

The white arachnid was about three paces wide, and a single pace tall. Frightening for a spider, but overall, not too much of a threat, given Vir’s recent advances.

He’d taken Riyan’s advice to heart and spent all of yesterday analyzing its behavior from afar. He’d learned that its eyesight was poor, allowing him to sneak up on the thing with relative ease. The spider preferred to go after small prey, mostly—the kinds of tiny rodents and critters that called the boughs of the great Godhollows their home. Occasionally, it went after baby birds caught in their nests. That made Vir sad.

Its tyranny would end today. Vir High Jumped to the next higher bough that ran parallel to the one he’d been traveling on. From here, he had a perfect line of sight to the spider. He’d prepared the ambush site in advance, so all he had to do now was execute the plan.

Vir waited patiently for an hour, silent, as all good predators ought to be, before the spider finally came into view on the bough below him. Too far for an ordinary person to jump, but not too far for Vir.

He waited for the right timing to charge Leap, pulling blood higher up his legs to pull prana from the bough. Too soon, and he’d be forced to activate the ability before the spider had entered his kill zone. Too late, and he’d lose the window of opportunity.

His timing was perfect. Firing off the ability right as he kicked off of the limb, he shot forth. Not on an intercept course with the spider, but on a course that sent him above the arachnid.

Chakram in hand and with Prana Vision highlighting the spider’s heart in white and gray, he aimed from midair, and threw.

The deadly disk sailed silently through the air. The spider had no chance. It saw neither Vir nor the disk before the chakram sliced open its chitin.

The exoskeleton may as well have been made of butter. The chakram penetrated deep into its shell, ending the critter in moments.

Vir somersaulted midair and landed on his toes, just a pace in front of the beast. A flawless kill.

He looked upon the corpse with pride. For the first time ever, everything had gone according to plan.

Maybe I’ll even get home in time to use the grotto!

Eager to wrap up his time in the forest, Vir sliced off the arachnid’s head before recovering his chakram. Knowing Riyan, he’d be wanting proof of the kill, so as disgusting as it was, Vir threw the beast’s head into his rucksack and headed to his camp.

About halfway back, he stopped to take a quick water break.

That was when he heard the chittering. Faint, at first, but which grew progressively louder. They seemed to come…

From where I killed the spider, he realized.

He saw nothing when he stared in the direction he’d come, but he took no risks. Unwilling to linger any longer, he picked up his pace, arriving back at his bough camp in minutes.

Vir moved efficiently, stuffing his thick blanket into the rucksack, along with some food he’d removed to keep the pack light during his hunt, carefully keeping the food isolated from the spider head at the bottom.

It was after he’d cinched the last pack strap that he froze.

Something felt off. He couldn’t quite place it, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps rippled across his body.

The chittering that had grown progressively louder had stopped.

Vir turned slowly around… and came face to face with a dozen spiders. All identical to the one he’d just killed.

He burst into motion before he’d even processed the danger. Leap activated, blasting him into the air onto a parallel bough, some ten paces below. He turned back, only to find the spiders jumping one after another, effortlessly pursuing him.

Vir tore into a mad dash. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have his heart pump so fast. To be driven by primal, instinctive fear.

Yet despite his predicament, he forced his mind to remain calm, constantly eyeing new branches to High Jump or Leap to.

His pursuers were far more agile than he’d guessed. They had no issues keeping up, and in fact, they were steadily gaining on him. Riyan might’ve been able to outpace them with consecutive Leaps, but each Talent took Vir a good ten seconds to prime up here on these boughs.

Of course, the answer to his predicament was both obvious and tempting—seek the ground. The only reason he hadn’t was on account of Riyan’s warnings.

As he ran along his current bough to the trunk of a massive Godhollow, he knew he had to try something different. The spiders had chased him to a part of the forest that was unfamiliar to him, which concerned him greatly.

Vir paused, turned, and launched another chakram at the spiders. This time, he used a vertical grip, sending the chakram ripping through the air with deadly speed. The arachnids dodged, but being clustered so closely atop the bough, they had little room to escape. His disk cleaved through one, killing it instantly.

Unfortunately, the rest paid their fallen brother no heed. Without pausing, they relentlessly swarmed him.

Vir had seen what their pincers could do; he wasn’t foolish enough to allow them to enter melee range.

He turned and dove for the Godhollow’s trunk. Luckily, these ancient trees had plenty of handholds, allowing him to creep down the trunk.

Unluckily, climbing down was even harder than climbing up, and the worst part was he was constantly looking down, a constant reminder of the incredible hazard he was taking. A fall from here was a death sentence.

His pace was glacial. The spiders—if they could follow him on a vertical surface—would be on top of him in no time.

He’d taken a gamble… And it paid off.

The oversized white spiders all halted at the root of the bough, eyeing him with their black compound eyes.

Vir paused and heaved a great breath before continuing the long descent down to ground level at a slower pace.

He never imagined he’d be so happy to see dirt again. Cathartic relief flooded his body, but then he remembered Riyan’s warning. The forest floor was not safe.

Vir walked cautiously, alert for any sign of predators, but he saw none.

Once he’d put some distance between himself and those spiders, he planned to ascend another Godhollow. Hopefully, it would be enough to throw his pursuers off his trail.

He halted. Dread coursed through his veins as an epiphany dawned on him.

Riyan had mentioned a single beast. Not a dozen of them.

That meant…

A large drop of goopy water splat upon the ground beside him.

Odd, he thought. The sky was clear just a moment ago. Here in the Godshollow, it took a real squall for any precipitation to penetrate the thick canopy.

Drip.

Another one fell, this time to his left. He looked at the liquid, only to realize it wasn’t water. It was… thick. Almost like syrup.

Vir’s blood ran cold. Slowly, hesitatingly, he looked up…

And found a network of sturdy cobwebs that stretched from tree to tree. Camouflaged by a mat of leaves, which is why he never saw them from above.

Standing upon them, poised right above him, thirty paces in the sky, was an eight-legged arachnid, easily five times the size of the ones he’d dispatched. Surrounding it were a dozen of its smaller brethren.

This must’ve been the beast Riyan wanted him to hunt.

And he’d walked right into its trap.

The Clutch Rachna shrieked an enraged roar and fell upon him. Along with every one of its clutchlings. A coordinated attack.

All the color drained from Vir’s face.

Some dreams really did come true. Especially nightmares.