The morning they faced real combat, the air tasted wrong—thin and metallic, as if the keep itself sensed what awaited them. Even the courtyard stones felt colder beneath their boots.
Kael waited for them near the iron gate descending into the lower tunnels, staff slung across his back. The lines in his face were sharper today, tension cutting them deeper.
"Ready up," he said quietly. "And don't be nervous."
That was all.
No speech. No comfort.
Arden fell in with the others—Miran, Lira, Nale, Cerys, and Jhalen—each of them stiff with the kind of silence born not of discipline, but fear.
They walked.
Miran took the front, shoulders squared, chin high. His close-cropped hair gleamed with sweat despite the cold, and a thin scar across his left brow—earned in training and spoken of far too often—caught the torchlight. His steps were loud, bold, impatient.
He wasn't pretending he wasn't afraid.
He was daring the dark to come get him.
Lira hovered just behind him, clutching her staff like a fragile truth. Her loose curls kept slipping over her eyes whenever she swallowed too hard. Her slight frame trembled, but her gaze moved constantly—measuring walls, counting shadows, recalling every instruction Kael ever barked.
Nale brought up the rear. Broad-shouldered, quiet, and endlessly deliberate, he moved with careful, calculated steps. His dark hair was tied back tight, and he tapped his thumb against his staff in familiar patterns—mapping fallback points, advantages, and escape routes.
Cerys, Arden and Jhalen flanked the group—steady breaths, steady hands, steady nerves.
Cerys moved with a quiet sharpness, her long ash-blonde braid swaying behind her like a tether anchoring her to discipline. A faint dusting of freckles stood out against her pale, sweat-sheened skin, and her eyes—flinty gray—never stopped measuring distance and threat. She held her staff low, knuckles white, every step controlled.
Jhalen, broader and heavier-footed, mirrored her on the opposite side. His square jaw was set so tightly a pulse flickered in his cheek, and the deep crease between his brows marked how seriously he took every heartbeat. Short, dark curls clung damply to his forehead, and his arms—thick with training—shifted with coiled readiness as he checked every shadow.
Bigger and stronger than Arden, but no less tense.
At the gate, Elder Marath waited—robes stirring in the cold draft rising from the depths.
"As tradition requires," he said, "your first combat marks the threshold between youth and responsibility. Watch for one another. Return whole."
The gate groaned open.
A cold breath of earth washed over them.
"Down," Kael murmured. "Quietly."
The air grew damper as they descended, shifting from crisp to wet chill. Crystal growths pulsed along the walls—dim, sickly, rhythmic.
Then:
Click. Click-click.
Not shifting rock.
Too deliberate.
Kael froze.
"Skitterlings," he whispered. "Spread out. Slow."
A shape darted at the edge of their light—small, fast, all glossy chitin and needle limbs.
Then it lunged.
"Miran!" Nale shouted.
But Miran was already charging—reckless and brave to a flaw. He swung full-force, too hard, too committed.
The skitterling veered.
Its pincer sliced a thin cut across his arm.
Miran snarled—more anger than pain—and smashed its head against the wall in a savage, furious blow.
A second skitterling burst from a crevice—straight for Lira.
She gasped—but didn't scream.
She pivoted, raising her staff with trembling hands. Her strike was too soft, too careful—
but it altered the creature's lunge just enough.
"Angle!" Nale barked.
He moved like he'd predicted it long before—stepping in with a clean, perfect thrust between the plates under the mandible.
The creature convulsed and fell.
Three more answered with clicking shrieks.
A skitterling lunged for Arden.
He stepped aside just in time, feeling the whisper of its pincer graze his ribs. He drove his staff upward into the soft plating of its throat.
Not elegant.
Not clean.
But enough.
Kael scanned them, jaw tight.
"Rough," he muttered. "But no casualties. Forward."
...
The path narrowed, skirting a deep natural pit. Fallen beams jutted from the walls like broken ribs. The air grew heavier—thick with musk and something like spoiled earth.
Then:
A growl.
Low. Wet. Hungry.
Three shapes lumbered out of the dark.
Not one swole-rat.
Three.
Muscle knotted under patchy fur. Coin-like eyes glinted. Incisors gleamed long enough to crack stone.
"Oh, unlucky," Kael exhaled. Then, louder:
"Do NOT let them clamp on to you. They don't Let go."
The first rat lunged.
It barreled straight at Miran—as if drawn to the loudest heartbeat.
Miran braced, swinging hard. The rat hit mid-strike, blasting the air from his lungs. He slid back, boots scraping.
"Hold it!" Nale shouted.
He wedged his staff under the rat's jaw, muscles straining, teeth clenched as he leveraged the beast upward.
"Move!"
Miran recovered and hammered the rat's neck—again—again—until bone cracked and it dropped.
The second rat tore toward Lira.
She froze—then forced herself forward.
Her staff struck the ground.
A burst of light flared.
Not strong.
Not perfect.
But enough.
The rat staggered—
Jhalen slammed into its flank, knocking it off balance. It snapped at him, incisors ripping through his sleeve.
Arden rushed in.
"Neck!" Kael barked.
Arden pivoted, gripping tight, and drove his staff into the exposed muscle. The rat writhed, trying to twist free—
Lira struck again from behind, trembling but unyielding.
Together, they brought it down.
They turned—
Just in time to see the third rat charge—
—and something else slither behind it.
A long, pale creature slid from the wall:
a tunnel leech-hound, skin translucent and slick, teeth arranged in grinding concentric rings.
Lira gasped, but Kael snapped:
"Calm! Common cave predator. Ugly, but small. Keep your heads."
Two monsters.
No space.
Cerys took the rat.
Arden took the hound.
The rat slammed into Cerys, almost driving her over the ledge. She held her stance, boots rooted like iron, teeth clenched. She jammed her staff sideways into its jaws.
It bit the wood—and wouldn't let go.
Arden faced the leech-hound alone.
It snapped, teeth gnashing like a spinning saw.
He dodged—barely.
His strike landed—thud. No effect.
Kael's voice cut through the chaos:
"The underside! Soft tissue!"
The hound lunged.
Arden dropped low, rolled beneath it, slime smearing across his shoulder, and drove his staff upward into the soft gut.
The creature shrieked and collapsed.
Cerys shouted—a raw, guttural cry—as she finally forced the rat's jaw wide and jammed her staff into the joint beneath its throat.
The beast spasmed, then stilled.
Silence throbbed over the tunnel.
Breaths shook.
Blood spattered their boots.
Real combat's taste settled on their tongues—copper and stone dust.
While they stood catching their breath, bootsteps began to climb out of the depths toward them.
Thaleus appeared—broad, armored, dusted with crystal grit. A walking wall of old battles and older scars.
Elder Marath followed, robes frayed, eyes sharp.
Thaleus surveyed the carnage.
"Not bad," he said. "Not clean. But not bad."
Marath nodded once. "You have crossed your threshold."
Kael leaned on his staff, smirking.
"What did I tell you? I'm a fantastic teacher."
Thaleus addressed the trainees:
"From this day, your training divides."
He pointed to Kael.
"Basic combat remains with him. He builds your foundation."
He tapped his chest.
"Field combat—real missions—falls to me."
Marath stepped forward.
"Ironwill will instruct you in monster parts, loot extraction, and the beastiary when he returns, Knowledge matters as much as strength."
The name hung heavy.
A wandering battlemage.
A storm dressed as a man.
Hearing the name, Kael raised an eyebrow, about to say something, when Thaleus moved past him and gestured toward the bodies on the ground
"Congratulations. You've earned your place."
Miran grinned through a split lip.
Lira wiped her forehead shaking hands.
Nale finally exhaled.
Cerys let her shoulders sag.
Arden looked down at the blood staining his staff—caught somewhere between thrill and unease.
He wondered how many fights it would take before the sight felt ordinary.
When their breathing settled, Kael waved them forward, and together they started their climb back to the surface.