Nolan Jareth's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Nolan Jareth once knelt before kings. Tonight he knelt in the mud with half a sword. The blade had snapped a year ago, the same week he turned his back on the realm that praised him. He carried the broken stub anyway. He meant to reforge it into a champion's weapon again. But a man cannot reforge steel if the wolves eat him first. Two grey wolves circled him on the road. Their eyes burned red in the dusk. The larger one lunged. Nolan swung the stub and caught it across the snout. The wolf yelped and fell back. The second wolf tore at his leg and found the gap in his cracked black armor. Blood ran warm down his shin. He set his back against a boulder. Two steps left before the stone. He could not run. He could not win. The broken sword trembled in his fist. An arrow hissed from the trees. It buried itself in the larger wolf's shoulder. The beast screamed and bolted. A second arrow pinned the ground at the other wolf's paws. That one snarled, then fled after its mate. A woman dropped from a low branch. An elf, lean and quick, bow already drawn with a fresh arrow. Her brown eyes stayed on the treeline, not on him. She loosed one more shot into the dark to be certain. "Stay down," she said. "They hunt in threes. The third is close." Nolan did not stay down. He forced himself up on his bleeding leg, sword stub raised. "I did not ask for help." "No one who needs it ever does." She finally looked at him. Her gaze dropped to the broken blade. "You brought half a sword to fight a pack. Brave. Stupid." "It is all I have." The third wolf burst from the brush behind her. She spun, but too slow. Nolan shoved past and drove the jagged stub into the animal's throat. It dropped. The force snapped another inch off his ruined blade. Now he held little more than a hilt. The elf lowered her bow. She watched blood pool at his boot. "That leg will fester before morning. You'll not walk far." Nolan stared at the stump of steel in his hand. The last piece of the sword that once made him a champion. It had saved his life and died doing it. He had nothing left to reforge now. Nothing to carry to any forge. "There is a bloom that stops rot," the elf said. "Blue petals. It grows a day's walk from here. I know the place." She slung her bow. "But I don't guide men who drive their rescuers off." Nolan closed his fist around the broken hilt. He had spent a year chasing a blade worthy of his old name. Tonight that blade was gone, and his wound could kill him first. "Sylvara Windwhisper," she said, and offered her hand. "Choose quick, knight. The blood won't wait."