Aela Marshwalker's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Aela Marshwalker had killed rats and snakes, but no beast worth a legend. She crouched at the swamp's edge with only a loincloth on her skin and a chipped bone knife in her hand. She wanted a weapon the tribe would remember, forged from fangs no one else dared to take. Tonight she had no such fangs. She had no spear, no armor, nothing but mud and mosquitoes and her own two hands. A point of light darted past her ear. Mina landed on a reed, her leaf dress catching the moonlight. The little fairy had guided Aela through the marsh since she was a child, and she never softened bad news. "You're going to die out here naked," Mina said. "But if you must be foolish, be foolish with a plan. There's a beast that sleeps by day. A Harvest Maw. Big as three men, fangs like sickles." Aela leaned closer. "Fangs I could forge into a blade." "Fangs that could gut you first," Mina said. "It only sleeps deep after it feeds. Wait until then. Move slow. One wrong step and it wakes." Aela found the creature past a sunken log, its scaled sides rising and falling. The stink of rot came off its hide. Yellow drool hung from its jaws. Its fangs curved out, pale at the root, black at the tip, longer than her forearm. She crept close. Her bare feet found the soft mud and pressed down slow. Mina hovered above, silent for once. Aela set the bone knife against the base of the first fang and sawed. The tooth cracked free. The beast twitched. She froze, then worked the second fang loose. It came away wet in her grip. The Maw's eye snapped open. Aela ran. The beast lunged, jaws slamming shut where her leg had been. She hurled herself over the log and sprinted through black water. Behind her, claws tore the mud. The creature was fast, but slowed by its full belly. She reached the tangled roots and climbed, fangs clenched in her teeth, until the Maw could not follow. She did not stop until she reached her home in the high canopy. Inside, she dropped both fangs on the workbench beside the forge. Coals still glowed orange. She pumped the bellows and the fire woke. Mina slipped through the window and sat on the tanning rack. "You got them," she said. "You also got noticed." Aela turned a fang in the firelight. "Noticed how?" "That Maw won't forget your smell. And it wasn't alone out there. I saw others in the deep water." Mina folded her arms. "You have fangs for one blade. But you have no hide for armor, and now a pack that knows your scent." Aela pressed the fang to the anvil. The forge roared. She had her weapon at last. She would need armor before she used it.