Chapter 7
SEVEN
KASTER
The shapes resolve into hunters before we clear the tree line.
Bigger than the pack from the ravine. Broader across the shoulders, with armor plating that catches what little light filters through the dead canopy.
The lead creature’s eyes track our movement with hunting intelligence—calculating approach angles, measuring distances, building a combat profile in real time.
Four of them spread across the ridge ahead, blocking the eastern route.
Two more flanking from the south. A seventh circling wide to cut off retreat.
Seven total. Coordinated deployment. No gaps in their formation.
I stop walking. Soreia stops beside me, close enough that her shoulder nearly brushes my arm. The proximity sends a spike of awareness through my nervous system—her scent, her magic, the rhythm of her breathing.
Too close.
Not close enough.
I crush the thought before it forms fully.
“How many?” Her voice is rough. Combat-raw. She hasn’t recovered from anchoring seven hunters in the ravine.
“Seven.” I don’t look at her. My eyes track the lead hunter’s movements, mapping approach angles and probable attack patterns.
“Stay behind me.”
“I can—”
“You can barely stand.”
I position myself between her and the closest threat.
The hunters hold formation.
They’re not attacking. They’re waiting. Watching. The lead creature—largest of the pack, scarring visible across its armored shoulders—tracks my movements with hunting calculation. It’s learning. Adjusting. Building a profile of how I fight and what I guard.
What I guard.
The phrase lodges in my skull like a splinter.
I guard territory. I guard hunting grounds. I guard the boundaries that keep complications out of my domain.
I don’t guard people.
The witch shifts her weight behind me. Favoring her left leg—the one she twisted in the ravine. Compensating silently. Moving carefully, the way prey moves when it knows predators are watching.
Careful. Compensating. Not complaining.
I notice the details without intending to. The tremor in her hands she’s learned to hide by folding her arms. The way her breathing stays controlled despite the fear I smell bleeding off her skin.
She’s been running for weeks. Fighting longer. Burning through her own life force to make deaths stick.
Too much. Always too much.
The observation serves no purpose I can name. I file it away regardless.
The first hunter breaks formation at dusk.
It comes from the left flank, angling toward Soreia instead of me. The others hold position—they’re not committing to a full assault.
They’re testing. Probing. Trying to force me into a defensive pattern they can exploit.
I intercept before thought catches up to instinct.
My body moves with lethal precision—pivot, strike, tear. The hunter’s throat opens under my claws, blood spraying across the dead undergrowth. It staggers back, god-given power already reaching for the wound, trying to knit flesh and seal the damage.
My second strike removes its head.
The body drops. Divine energy stutters around the severed neck, confused by the separation. It won’t regenerate immediately—decapitation buys time—but without her magic, it will return. They always return.
The remaining six hunters don’t react. They hold position. Watching. Learning.
They’re not here to kill me.
The understanding arrives with knife-edge clarity.
They’re here to exhaust me shielding her.
I retreat to Soreia’s position without turning my back on the pack.
She’s where I left her—pressed against a petrified trunk, hands loose at her sides. No defensive posture. No reaching for magic she can’t afford to spend.
That burns where it shouldn’t.
“They’re targeting me.” Her voice stays controlled. Deliberate. “Not you.”
“I noticed.”
“If I move away from you—draw them off—”
“No.”
The denial lands sharper than intended. She blinks, dark eyes tracking my face with an attention I don’t examine.
“It would be cleaner. You could pick them off while they’re focused on me. Better odds.”
“No.”
“Kaster—”
“You die, the kills stop sticking.” I force the explanation. “Without permanent kills, I’m fighting an infinite war.”
The lie tastes like ash. True enough to pass scrutiny. False enough that my jaw hurts holding it in place.
She stares at me for a long moment. Calculating. Reading.
Then she nods once and doesn’t argue further.
The second wave hits at full dark.
Three hunters from the north. Two from the east. The remaining two from the original pack closing from the south. Seven total, converging in a coordinated assault designed to overwhelm through numbers and angles.
They’re faster than the first group. Better armored. The gods have been iterating—taking what the scouts learned and building creatures specifically designed to counter my fighting style.
I adjust.
The first hunter reaches me two seconds ahead of the others. I catch its lunge mid-stride, redirecting momentum into the second creature’s charge. They collide—armor scraping, claws tangling—and I use the opening to tear through the first one’s spine.
The third one gets past me.
It angles toward Soreia with single-minded focus, ignoring the damage I deal to its packmates. Its orders are clear: kill the witch. Everything else is secondary.
I move faster.
Faster than necessary. Faster than smart.
The thought registers distantly as my claws punch through the hunter’s skull from behind. It drops three feet from where she stands, twitching in its death throes.
I don’t stop to watch it fall.
The fight becomes a pattern.
They attack. I intercept. They target her. I move faster, hit harder, place myself as a barrier against every approaching threat.
The calculating part of my mind registers the waste of it: I’m taking wounds I don’t need to take. Absorbing damage to shield someone who could survive a glancing blow. Fighting defensively when aggressive elimination would end this faster.
I know the optimal strategy. Kill the threats as they emerge. Don’t waste energy on defense when offense wins faster. Let acceptable damage through to preserve resources for decisive strikes.
The strategy makes sense.
I don’t use it.
Every choice I make prioritizes her survival over optimal combat. Every adjustment keeps her in my sight lines, keeps me between her and danger, keeps the hunters from reaching the witch they’re designed to kill.
I don’t let myself name what I’m doing.
A hunter’s claws rake across my ribs. I feel the blood—hot, immediate—but the pain is distant. Secondary. What matters is the angle of the next attack, the trajectory of the creature circling behind me, the exact position of the witch I won’t let them reach.
I take another wound across my shoulder. A third across my back. A fourth that tears through the meat of my thigh and makes my leg buckle before dragon healing kicks in.