*Date: 33,480 Second Quarter - Iron Confederacy Borders*
The spear came down. Demir's body froze. His brain screamed move, but his arms were too slow, too heavy. "This is it," he thought bitterly. "After all the forging, all the promises, all the talk of changing the world, I die to a backwater goblin scout party."
Then the world blurred gray.
A streak of fur, silver under the morning light, slammed into the goblin. The creature shrieked once before its body was reduced to torn meat. Demir stumbled back, blinking at the sudden violence. The goblin had been alive a heartbeat ago. Now its spine lay bent in the wrong direction, blood spattering the roots of the trees.
The wolf.
The same giant beast from the goblin camp.
Demir's heart hammered. He barely had time to draw his sword before another goblin lunged, distracted by its companion's screams. Instinct roared through him. The blade flashed, crude but sharp, and in one desperate arc he hacked through the goblin's neck. Its head toppled, eyes still wide in confusion, as Demir stood locked in the pose of the swing, panting.
The wolf didn't wait. It ripped the third goblin in half with a sound like wet cloth tearing. Then it licked the blood from its muzzle, spat it out, and gave a huff as if offended by the taste. One massive paw batted the carcass aside.
Demir still hadn't moved. Sword dripping, shield half-raised, breath shallow. His mind had broken into a hundred shards: fear, awe, confusion, disbelief. The mutated beasts the goblins controlled scurried into the woods, tails between their legs.
The wolf padded closer, dragging one goblin corpse with its teeth, then dropped it on top of another. With deliberate care, it stacked them like firewood. Then it sat back on its haunches and stared at Demir, amber eyes glowing, tongue lolling between sharp teeth.
"Like it's taunting me," Demir realized.
He swallowed, his throat dry as sand. "Did I... spook you with the sword?" His voice cracked. Slowly, he slid the weapon back into its sheath. His knees bent in a clumsy bow. "Thank you. Again. But I have to leave now."
The wolf barked once. Loud, sharp, a sound that rattled in Demir's chest. Dissatisfaction. Almost a complaint.
At first, Demir thought it was following him to finish the job. The beast padded silently behind him, its breath a hot gust on the back of his neck. He tried to ignore it, to keep walking east like Marco had described, eyes on the broken-tooth ridge. Every instinct screamed to run. But he knew running would be suicide.
So he marched. Pretended he wasn't shaking.
Hours later, when hunger gnawed his stomach, he set a crude snare between two bushes and waited. A sparrow flitted close, curious. Demir held his breath, then yanked the rope. The bird squeaked, wings flapping desperately.
"Got you," Demir muttered. "Dinner, at least."
Snap.
A branch cracked. He looked up. The wolf returned, dragging something enormous in its jaws. A boar, tusks gleaming, body limp. It tossed the carcass to the ground with a thud, then sprawled beside it. When Demir plucked feathers from his sparrow, the wolf sank its teeth into the boar's belly, ripping it open with a wet crunch. The smell of blood and iron filled the air.
Demir gagged.
"Right," he whispered. "So that's how it's gonna be."
By the next morning, he thought maybe the wolf had left. His fire was nothing but ash, his sparrow roasted down to a scrap. He walked for hours, ears ringing with silence. No pawsteps. No shadow.
Relief almost washed over him. Then he caught a hare in the underbrush.
A rustle. A flash.
The wolf returned, hauling a stag that must've weighed as much as three men. It dropped the kill in plain sight, ripped off a leg with a single crunch, and chewed while staring at him. Its eyes said everything: "Oh, you caught a rabbit? Adorable. Look at this."
Demir's lips pressed into a tight line. "Very funny," he grumbled. "Show-off."
The wolf only licked its paw.
By the second day, Demir was living in a state of comedic horror. He would gather mushrooms and the wolf would return dragging a whole uprooted tree with beehives dripping honey. He would fish a single fish with bare hands from a thin river and the wolf would stroll in with a much bigger fish.
"Alright," Demir muttered once, waving his arms at the creature. "I get it. You're better than me. Stronger, faster, shinier. Congratulations, wolf. You win the survival contest. Now leave me alone!"
The beast only sneezed, spraying blood and dirt, and then stretched out for a nap where Demir could not miss it.
At night, its growls kept other predators at bay. Demir should've been grateful. Instead, lying awake beside his dying fire, he whispered curses at it, every bone in his body tense with both comfort and terror. He was safe, but only as long as the wolf wanted him safe.
On the morning of the third day, exhaustion clawed at him. His boots tore on stones, his back screamed under the weight of the ingots. Yet when he topped the final ridge, the sight below made him stop dead.
The secluded valley.
The jagged cliffs parted like gates, and smoke curled skyward, thick and gray. The sound of hammer on anvil carried faint but steady, ringing against the stone walls. For the first time in days, Demir felt something warm spread through his chest. Relief. Hope.
Brovick. His master. His gruff, drunken, maddeningly patient teacher. Still alive. Still forging.
Demir staggered down the slope, eyes locked on the rising smoke. The wolf padded after him, silent as always, amber eyes unblinking.
He had made it back.
And the forge awaited.