Mike the White's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Word of the beast reached Mike at the tavern that evening. Two farmers on the town's edge had lost sheep. Zara had told him the queen honored strength born from sacrifice. A beast slain, its head brought low, would carry that weight. But first he had to find the thing. He took his axe and shield and went to the fields at dusk. The farmers pointed him toward the treeline. Torn fence rails. Blood dried black in the grass. Mike knelt and read the tracks the way old hunters taught him. Broad paws. Deep claw marks. Something heavy dragged its meal off north. He rose and followed. The trail thinned in the dark. Twice he lost it and circled back. His side ached where the old wound sat under leather. He cursed and pressed a hand to it. Then a shape slid from the brush behind him. "You track like a townsman," Zara said. She stepped into the moonlight, ears flat, eyes sharp. She had followed him from the tavern. "Loud. Downwind of nothing." Mike turned, axe half raised. "You should be pouring mead." "You'd be dead by morning." She crouched and touched the earth. "It doubled back. It's hunting you now." She pointed to a game trail he had walked past twice. "There. It dens where the ground drops." He looked at her. "Why help me?" Her jaw set. "I know how to track things that took what's mine." She said no more. They moved together, quiet now. Zara set the pace and Mike matched it. She raised a fist. He stopped. Ahead, in a hollow between two roots, the beast slept. It was a boar the size of a horse, tusks curved like sickles, hide crossed with old scars. "Wake it and it charges," Zara whispered. "Stand your ground. Don't run." Mike unslung his shield. He struck his axe flat against it. The crack rolled through the trees. The boar woke and came. It hit the shield like a falling wall. Mike's boots skidded. His wounded side tore and burned. He held. The tusk caught the shield's rim and split the wood. Mike swung the axe down hard into the boar's neck. It screamed. He swung again. The beast dropped, twitching, then still. He stood over it, chest heaving, blood soaking his side. Zara stepped close and looked at the ruined shield, then at the dead boar. "That'll cost you," she said. "Good." Mike drew his knife and cut. He worked the great tusks free from the skull. He weighed one in his palm. Here was strength that had bled. A trophy that had cost him. This he could set before the queen. Zara watched him, quiet. Then she looked north, past the kill, toward something he could not see. "My turn now," she said. "There's a pack out there. And they have something of mine."