Boundless Evolution: The Summoning Beast

He didn't run; he cut in.

Step—step.

The left claw of the Netherbreed scythed—SKREE—missing him by a hand as sparks stitched silver through the fog of heat and ash.

The blow carved a groove in the dirt and peppered his cheek with grit.

From above, Vasa fell like a dropped shadow.

THWIP—THWIP—THWIP!

Feathers snapped into place around its brow and throat. The air seemed to bend as the feathers locked together into a tight black collar.

WHUMPF!

The feather collar caught the lunge and threw the heat back over its skull like a shield slamming shut.

The beast checked hard, stunned mid‑stride.

Kieran stepped through the shimmer.

He swung, this time with unrestrained strength. Both blades came down hard on the plates.

CLANG—CLANG! Sparks burst!

Kieran drove a boot into the jaw hinge and hacked a heavy cross‑cut across the brow.

KRUNCH!

The beast's head snapped sideways, heat flaring wild. The hum spiked; the glow flared, then wavered under the hits.

But it had not given up yet. Varkul lunged again on reflex, tail cracking the air—whip—jaws clapping on steam where Kieran had been a blink ago.

"Looks like you'll have to stay down permanently now," Kieran said, voice flat.

Shadow Stitch!

He slashed both daggers in a crossing arc and the blades dragged black behind them, like wet ink peeling off steel. The darkness didn't fall; it pulled tight and wove into cords that snapped around Varkul's limbs.

The beast's own shadow jerked. Barbed spikes of shadow-iron punched up from it—at the wrist joints, at the shoulder sockets, at the hock—thunk-thunk-thunk—pinning paws and shoulders flat. Plates creaked; a chill black sheen crawled a thumb's length up the pins.

Pain hit.

Varkul's roar broke into a hoarse bellow as the barbs bit through tendon and gristle. The right forepaw buckled; the left shoulder popped with a wet pop; one knee dipped and shook. It thrashed, but every shove only drove the spikes deeper.

"Vasa."

At that call, the bird fell from the smoke like a black comet—wings tucked, body one long spear.

WHOOM—CRACK!

It hit the crown and shoulder together and the shock sent Varkul skidding forward in a blast of ash.

The beast ploughed through the dust and slammed down near Eryndor's boots, coughing heat, claws gouging furrows as it fought for purchase.

It tried to get up—foreclaws dug, hind legs bunched—but pain ripped across the pinned joints; a hot tear at the knee, a sharp crack in the shoulder.

It shoved anyway, dragging itself a half‑length through ash, steam hissing between its teeth.

Just then, Vasa dropped again out of the smoke—wings flared, talons wide—and hit the crown and collar seam together.

THRUM—CRACK!

The bird rode the impact, both feet planted, driving the skull back to the dirt and holding it there.

Kieran stepped through the dust at the same beat. He set one dagger under the jaw hinge and the other at the throat notch beneath the lattice—the soft gap above the windpipe. He didn't have to push.

"Call him off," he said, eyes on Eryndor, "Or I take the eye."

Eryndor stared at the pinned beast as if the sight should return him to himself.

It didn't. He pulled for the field and found only noise.

Vasa's talons flexed on the collar seam; Kieran's blade didn't waver at the throat notch.

The beast's chest sawed, hot air steaming in quick bursts, ash lifting and settling with each breath.

His right hand lifted and trembled, then hammered the bark behind him once, twice—anger pretending to be control. Bark splinters bit his palm.

A broken laugh cut out of him and became a cough; blood webbed his teeth and slicked his knuckles.

He looked from the bird to the blade and back to Varkul's wide eye‑core, and the word that used to come easy would not shape.

"Stand," he told Varkul.

"Stand."

Then, softer, to some other place: "Stand, Eryndor."

The name didn't fit his mouth.

He dragged breath and the world tunneled.

Orders stacked in his throat and collapsed into syllables—"Ki—… Vark—… kill—" —each smaller than the last.

He tried to raise the air again and got nothing; the failure cracked something old and quiet in him.

"Not yet," he whispered, then louder, raw: "NOT YET!"

The beast flinched under the ring.

He sagged, laughter and a sob tangled in the same breath. His right shoulder shook; his left hung dead; the mask went with it.

For a heartbeat the commander was only a hurt man against a tree, eyes shining and lost, teeth red.

He pressed his forehead to the bark and stayed there, breath rasping, fingers clawing at the rank‑cord at his throat until the thread bit his skin.

"High Command said hold," he said to the wood, to the ash, to no one, "or be made an example."

The words ran out.

Silence took him, shudder by shudder, until only the rattle of his breath and the ring's low hum remained.

Step... step... step... step...

Then the ridge answered with its own sentence: a hollow crack from deeper within, and then the rasp of boots dragging through ash.

A figure shouldered through the haze at the edge of the bowls' light.

He climbed the ridge like a man cut out of wreckage: cloak in ribbons, cuirass heat‑warped and black, one sleeve burned away to bare a forearm crosshatched with cuts.

Dried blood crusted his collar; soot masked his face except where sweat had carved pale tracks.

He was gasping for breath, palm pressed to his ribs, pulling cinder‑rough air in short, uneven draws.

The noise snapped every head around. Through the haze they saw him at last—the battered figure on the ridge, Captain Voln.

Eryndor's eyes flared like a drowning man finding air; he pushed off the bark and clutched at the sight as if it were a rope.

"Voln!" he cried, hope breaking in his voice.

Voln flinched at the sound of his name, as if a hand had grabbed him by the chin.

He dragged his gaze up from his boots, past churned ash and boot‑furrows, through the wavering bowl‑light.

His pupils fought the glare. For a beat his eyes were empty—shock‑flat, the stare of a man who spent everything just to get here. A cough scraped cinder out of his lungs; he palmed his ribs and kept moving.

He read the ridge in a slow soldier's sweep.

Bennet stood first in the line of sight, set and steady, blade low, the ground underneath him unnaturally calm—as if the hill itself obeyed his stance. Next came Kieran over the bound Netherbreed, shoulders squared, daggers steady at the throat notch and jaw hinge; Vasa crouched on the crown, black talons biting the feather‑ring that pinned the skull. Heat steamed from the beast's breath in hard bursts. The hum of the collar settled like a low note in the bones.

Last, Voln found Eryndor pinned to the bark, teeth red, left arm dead, command wearing thin but still lit in the eyes.

Something kindled in Voln's face at that sight. The dullness cracked. A small spark took, fed by duty and memory.

His breath snagged; his spine straightened as if an old order had just been spoken aloud.

"Captain!" Eryndor blurted, hope breaking out rough, "Form line—take them—move!"

Voln's gaze slid off the knives and the bird and stayed on the man. He angled toward Kieran and Bennet first, measuring them by habit: the clean way the blades were held; the way the bird's talons never lifted; the way the ash didn't dare shift under the soldier in iron. He took steps their way—but as he got closer to within less than ten metres, he let the weight in his fist go.

Meanwhile, from Eryndor, the words piled, tripped, came again as threats and promises. "You'll be made if you—Voln, your sword!"

The sword slipped from his hand and fell point‑first into the ash with a tired chank. A chip leapt from the blunt edge and spun once before it vanished in the dust.

"Pick it up!" Eryndor snapped, grabbing for the collar of the order the way a drowning man claws at a rope, "Captain Voln—do you hear me?"

Voln didn't look down. He kept walking. Shoulders square. Breath scraping. Eyes fixed ahead. The ring's hum filled the silence between his steps.

He spoke as he came, voice raw and plain, without ceremony.

"The third file never cleared the cave mouth. The first blast brought the ceiling down. Jori and Pell—too young."

Another step.

"Lema was trapped when the charges went late in the lower galleries. She said to tell her boy she tried to come home."

Another.

"Tomas held the brace when the second fall came. He smiled when it took him."

He drew a breath.

"Wilbert…" The name stuck, then came out low.

"Wilbert was at the mouth when the first blast brought the ceiling down. He died in the first fall."

Voln's voice rose and cracked as he turned on Eryndor. "You ordered us to rush the cave, commander—no checks, no scouts. You drove them into the first blast. You buried them. You buried Wilbert."

Each line landed heavy, no heat in it, only weight.

Eryndor immediately retorted, not believing that Voln would blame him for the deaths of the men.

"But the traps in the cave—those were theirs," he snapped, chin cutting toward Bennet and Kieran, "Kill them, Voln. Finish it. They were the ones who killed your men."

Voln let out a short, torn laugh and even smiled, tired and cold, "HAAHAHAHAHA! Do you think that I am that fucking stupid? I know that it was them that set the traps that killed my men."

His gaze took in the summons, the weapons, the still ground. "Look at you… you couldn't beat them. What makes you think I can?"

Eryndor bared his teeth, "It is your duty."

"Duty?" Voln shook his head, "Then remember the first duty: protect your people. What use is this land if there's no one left to live in it?"

Eryndor had no answer; his jaw worked once and stilled.

Voln continued, "You'll die here—and you'll carry the weight of our dead when you do. I won't die without it being answered."

At this point, the gates that were holding Eryndor's sanity completely broke down as his mouth twisted, the mask tearing.

"You—useless captain," he snarled, voice jumping and cracking, "Traitor. Coward. You think this is on me? On me? I gave orders—you were supposed to obey! Kill them!"

He stabbed a bloody finger toward Bennet and Kieran, then back at Voln, "I'll have you flayed, stripped, erased—do you hear me? Voln! Dog! Get up! Stand! Stand!"

The words tumbled into curses and spit; promises and threats tripped each other, breath whistling through red teeth until language collapsed into a ragged, "I will not be the one to—"

Something in Voln stopped listening.

His hand slipped under the torn cloak and found the short dagger there. The draw was small and final. He stepped in close until he could smell the pitch and blood on Eryndor's breath.

"No more," he said, and drove the knife forward, "Goodbye Commander. Hell awaits us."

Puchi!

Eryndor stared at the steel in him as if it belonged to some other story.

His mouth shaped a word that never formed; understanding lagged behind the pain. His eyes flicked from Voln's face to the black ring, back again—unable to accept the shape of the moment.

Then his knees went. He slid down the bark, leaving a dark smear, and folded at the roots, breath coming in short, shocked pulls. The pulls thinned. His hand slipped from the hilt and found the dirt, fingers sifting ash as if looking for something to hold.

The light behind his eyes dulled; the last of his field bled off him in a faint shiver that never rose.

Blood welled and slowed around the knife; each rise of Eryndor's chest smaller than the one before. He tried a word that wasn't there, then let it go. One long breath left him and did not return. Eryndor sagged still.

Voln's breath rasped once. He kept his hand on the hilt, turned to Kieran and Bennet, and did not look away.

"Finish it," he said. "Kill me."