"AHHHH!"
Hazar swung his sword hard. Then again, and again…
He swung and swung. The wooden post in front of him was on the verge of being shattered by the relentless attacks.
But that didn't mean the attacks were effective. The reason it was breaking apart was days of merciless strikes.
Hazar's attacks sometimes slipped and missed the post entirely, sometimes landed weakly and couldn't do even the slightest damage.
Heavy sweat ran down every part of his body. His breathing had grown labored, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Hazar looked at his hands. They were trembling. He could barely even hold the sword. His arms ached, his chest burned.
"You should stop and rest a bit." The voice belonged to Garrun.
"Yes. Right now you're just wearing yourself out." This time it was Sevda.
Hazar looked first at the sword in his hand, then at the wooden post. Then he looked up—at the sun and the two stars.
He hadn't even noticed it had begun to grow dark.
Just as Hazar was about to open his mouth, Garrun spoke again.
"I know you feel inadequate. That's understandable. But overtraining is harmful too."
This time Hazar couldn't answer. He dropped the sword in his hand. The sword fell to the hard ground. Then Hazar let himself drop to the ground. His legs had suddenly seemed to melt away.
"Keep circulating the Erk through your arms and legs."
Hazar looked toward the voice; Yalaz was teaching Tunay martial arts.
Tunay held the sword with both hands, his eyes closed and focused. Like Hazar, he was drenched and breathing hard.
'Why am I so clumsy? Why?'
Two days ago Yavuz had split the post in two with a sword. He'd just swung it, in a single motion. Even before it struck the post, Hazar had understood that something was different. It was as if Yavuz weren't holding the sword—the sword was holding him.
Sevda was the same. They both were.
Hazar still couldn't understand where the sword wanted to go.
He looked at the broken sword on the ground. 'Maybe it's this old sword,' he thought, but took it back at once.
Yavuz and Sevda could do it with the same swords.
He sat for a while. His hopeless thoughts went on multiplying in his mind.
"Ugh." Hazar grunted as he got to his feet. He bent down to the sword on the ground and took it in hand. He clenched his fist and tried to grip the sword but couldn't. There was no strength left in his hand. Hazar didn't care.
He swung the sword, swung it, and swung it again.
Meanwhile Garrun, who had left for a while, had come back and was watching Hazar. In his hand, instead of the metal-shafted spear he normally used, there was a simpler-looking spear with a wooden shaft.
He waited a few minutes, kept watching. Then he called out.
"Stop."
Hazar looked at Garrun and stopped.
The sword hung in the air for a moment, then slowly came down.
Garrun approached the post.
With his hand he felt the places that had been struck.
"Not the same spot," he said.
Hazar looked at the post. Each of his clean hits had landed in a different place.
"Again."
Hazar raised the sword.
This time he swung more slowly.
The sword hit the post but it was weak.
Garrun tilted his head slightly.
"Once more."
Hazar clenched his teeth.
He aimed at the same point.
This time he missed.
Garrun looked at the post. "Look," he said.
"You're not hitting this."
"I'm trying," Hazar said in a short voice.
"I can see that, but sometimes effort alone isn't enough."
Garrun bent down, picked up the sword on the ground, weighed it.
Then set it down again.
"Not everyone is the same. Some are suited to the sword, some to the dagger, some to the spear. You don't feel the sword."
Hazar looked up at once.
"What do you mean?"
Garrun didn't answer. He turned away and took a few steps.
He picked up the spear he'd set on the ground a few minutes earlier.
He held it out to Hazar.
"Try this."
Hazar looked at the spear, then at Garrun. The shaft of the spear was different from the sword. Longer, lighter. In Garrun's hand it almost slid, but Hazar didn't know whether it would do the same in his.
"I…" He stopped. "I've never used one."
Garrun shrugged. His voice hadn't changed, no warmer, no colder.
"A week ago you'd never used a sword either."
Hazar took his stance. He braced himself, readied to thrust the spear.
He took a deep breath.
His hands were still trembling, but something seemed different.
There was a small crumb of hope inside him.
He felt the Erk, directed it to his shoulders, then to his arms, and finally to his hands.
The Erk resisted, leaving a familiar ache where it passed.
He let out his breath and then drew another deep one.
He drove the spear at the post with all his strength.
"CRACK!" came a cracking sound from the post.
He looked at the post; he'd aimed his strike at the post's center. But the spear had slipped and struck the edge of the post.
The wooden post couldn't withstand the attack, and the spot the spear had hit was punched through.
He'd missed the center.
But… for the first time, one of his strikes had been effective.
Before Hazar could decide whether to be upset he'd struck the wrong place or glad his attack had worked, Garrun called out again.
"Again!"
Despite his trembling hands, Hazar pulled the spear back quickly. That night, until the moon ruled the sky, the only sound rising from the training ground was the sharp crack of a spear tearing through wood, a little more decisively each time.
The sound of the spear gradually mingled with the other sounds… and was lost.
That night, for the first time, Hazar was able to sleep peacefully.
While Hazar was taking up the spear, somewhere else Esen was running about again.
"Yavuz, look! How beautiful that rock is!"
Yavuz looked at Esen's 'beautiful' rock.
A little further into the cave, up above, there was a rock four or five meters tall. It leaned against the wall behind it.
He looked carefully; the rock resembled a star.
"Strange…" he said, and went on looking at the rock.
"Don't move on without gathering the plants around you, you little squirts!" Miren's voice was a bit sharp.
"Okay, okay! We'll gather them, granny," Esen answered.
Then she went up to the tree beside her. She plucked the yellow-orange grasses around the tree and tossed them into the basket in Sedef's hand beside her.
"My hands are all dirty now," she said, holding them up.
"I could have gathered them too," said Sedef.
"Does it matter?" Esen went on pulling up the grasses.
Sedef only said, "It doesn't, but…" and couldn't finish.
Meanwhile Yavuz was still looking at the rock. For some reason the rock had caught his interest, but he had no idea why.
He approached the rock…
When he got close he stopped and studied it carefully. There was nothing unusual about this rock apart from its shape. There were black marks on it too, but he couldn't make out what they were.
"It's just a rock…" he murmured, and walked toward the group.
"RUSTLE! RUSTLE! RUSTLE!"
When Yavuz heard the sound he gripped the hilt of his sword in alarm.
'What was that?'
He looked at the bushes around him but couldn't see anything. There was nothing but the wind swaying the bushes.
'It must be the wind…'
He wanted to believe the wind had made the sound.
When he noticed the sound didn't come again, he went on walking toward the others.
"RUSTLE! RUSTLE!"
Yavuz's eyes went wide; he looked behind him. His trembling hand gripped the sword tight.
But again he saw nothing.
There was nothing but bushes, flowers, and trees.
He began to back away with quick steps, looking behind him as he went.
"RUUUSTLE! RUUUSTLE!"
As Yavuz ran he turned his head and looked. Something was different in the shadows.
'A tree… No. It wasn't there a moment ago. Is that tree walking?'
Before Yavuz could even finish his thought, the air rippled for an instant.
Two arms appeared in the air. One held a goblet, the other a dagger.
The arm holding the dagger drew back, readied, and hurled the dagger at a tree. After the dagger was thrown at the tree, nothing happened to the tree.
Only something red flowed out of it.
The hand holding the goblet let it go, and a purple liquid spilled onto the ground.
The arm yanked Yavuz toward the group in an instant. Yavuz couldn't resist, the arm was too strong.
He found himself in front of Miren.
Yavuz looked at the old woman with bewildered eyes.
"Mira, call Legless! Erya, protect him! NOW, QUICK!"
Esen and Sedef still couldn't understand what was going on.
The old woman went on. "Yavuz, protect Mira until she calls Legless!"
'Legless? Protect Mira? Me?'
Yavuz's breathing had grown erratic and he was trembling. On top of that, he had no idea what was happening.
"Esen, Sedef, you two stand behind me!"
The old woman's shouts set off a slight scramble.
Esen and Sedef were holding each other's hands. Mira had closed her eyes and was doing something. Erya was beside Miren.
'Me, and fighting?'
Yavuz looked at his rusty sword. The hilt had grown slippery with sweat and he could barely hold it.
Then he saw Esen and Sedef again. Sedef was trembling… Esen was looking ahead, at the trees.
He took a deep breath.
'I have to do it.'
He gripped the hilt even tighter and braced himself.
"RUUUSTLE! RUUUSTLE!"
Yavuz saw them.
There were trees ranging from one or two meters to five or six meters tall. Parts of their bark were red, and at times they oozed a fluid that resembled blood.
Their branches were like any tree's branches, with one difference: for some reason, instead of fruit and flowers, corpses hung from these branches. Human, animal, monster…
Yavuz even saw an insectified Hound on one of them.
At first Yavuz thought they used their roots as feet to move. But that wasn't it…
Even though they were inside the soil, their trunks advanced, almost gliding.
No. That wasn't the right word. They were swimming through the soil…
As if the soil were a sea to them.
"They're coming! Yavuz, Erya, the ones that get too close are yours!" Miren cried.
Yavuz looked at the countless trees. It was as if the whole forest were coming toward them.
The air rippled again.
The arm that had thrown the dagger a moment ago hurled daggers one after another, vanishing and coming back again.
The arm holding the goblet flew through the air. It circled above the forest and poured the liquid from the goblet onto the trees.
The liquid never ran out. It burned the trees it touched and made smoke rise off them.
The liquid even burned the soil where it landed.
With every movement Miren moved her own arms too, breathing fast and hard.
Terrifying sounds began to come from the trees. Some drew back, some… sped up.
They groaned, they cracked, they even screamed.
The floor of the cave was different now. The green grass had been dyed a deep crimson.
Yavuz's back went cold, and he was sweating all over.
His stomach turned at the smell. The cave had filled with a thick smell of wine and blood, and the smell grew stronger every second.
Miren went on with her attacks one after another. With each attack her breathing got worse.
"GUHK! GUHK!"
Miren coughed and looked at her hand; she was coughing up blood. She ignored the blood on her hand.
She didn't stop, she kept going.
When the old woman coughed convulsively, Yavuz saw the dark, hot blood filling her palm. Miren was breaking down. In that moment a truth struck Yavuz's mind like lightning.
Even Miren was struggling.
This place, these ill-omened Ruined Lands, were an enemy to everyone…
No one was safe.
Just then a two-meter tree escaped the heavy attacks and had drawn dangerously close.
"It's coming!" Miren shouted.
The tree drew near, raised its branch, and readied to strike Yavuz.
Yavuz's body didn't move.
But his heart… was screaming.
"BZZZT!"
Just as the tree was about to strike, a beam of lightning hit its trunk.
Erya had saved Yavuz.
Seeing the staggering tree, Yavuz came to himself. He shot Erya a brief glance and turned.
'I have to do it. I have no choice.'
He gathered his courage. He gripped the rusty sword with both hands.
He tried to push the Erk to his shoulders, and from there to his arms.
The energy resisted, advancing and leaving a searing ache in his arms.
Yavuz didn't care about the pain.
Esen was trembling. Sedef was trembling. He was trembling too. He didn't care. He swung the sword.