Eryshae

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Sam

The Grove

Long before the first torch pierced the treeline, the roots had begun to tense. The Grove knew before they did. Sam felt it like a ripple in his veins. A tension building, a warning whispered through the earth. He stepped forward, just past the threshold of the old cabin where the scent of fire and memory clung to the rafters. His bare feet touched the soil. It pulsed beneath him. Not fear, readiness. Vael stood at his side, armed and silent. The vines that once coiled in sleep along Sam's spine now arced toward the door like antennae.

Then came the sound. Drums. Pawbeats. Steel. The trees trembled. The Grove's perimeter, a sacred barrier of thorned underbrush and root-stone monoliths, glowed faintly as torches began to surround them. Orange flickers spread like wildfire through the night. Raccoon mounts. Dozens. Dozens more. Soldiers in black and crimson livery dismounted, bows slung, blades drawn. War chants whispered across the trees. The torchlight reflected off dozens of polished helms. And at the center, a figure mounted atop the largest raccoon of them all.

Ruwan.

His golden eyes burned from beneath his hood. He lifted a blackened gauntlet, and the formation halted. From this distance, Sam could see it clearly. Ruwan didn't know. Didn't know Sam lived. Didn't know the Grove had awakened. Didn't know the Amber now pulsed inside his enemy.

Sam exhaled. The vines on his back curled like question marks. The Grove whispered its readiness in a tongue older than fear. He turned to Vael. Her fingers were tight on her dagger, her jaw set, her eyes never leaving the encroaching force. "He brought everyone," she murmured. "He thinks I'm alone."

"He thinks wrong." Sam stepped forward, vines spilling from his wrists like serpents made of breath and bark. Beneath them, the Grove pulsed again. Roots shivered. Bark split. The runes carved into the old stones of the perimeter ignited with ancient light, gold, green, and obsidian. Sam tilted his head, listening to the rhythm of the land. Then he looked at Vael, voice steady. "We don't run. Not this time." He turned back to the door, body aglow with silent power. Ruwan raised a horn. The siege had begun.

The first soldier through the Grove's perimeter didn't die right away. He was young. Eager. His helmet was too large, slipping slightly over one brow as he charged, sword drawn, torch raised. His boots crushed sacred moss beneath his feet, an unforgivable trespass. Sam met him in the clearing, half-shadow, half-bark, vines trailing from his arms like threads of fate. The boy shouted. Sam said nothing. He raised his hand, and the Grove answered. A single vine coiled upward from the earth, not sharp, not sudden. Gentle. Almost curious. It wrapped around the soldier's ankle like a child reaching for its mother. He hesitated. That was his mistake.

The vine jerked.

With a sickening crack, the boy's leg snapped backward at the knee. He screamed, barely, but the vine didn't stop. It dragged him backward across the moss and leaf-litter, ripping the torch from his hand as he clawed at the ground. Vael stepped from the trees, silent as moonlight, her twin blades gleaming with ancestral light. The boy saw her, eyes wide with terror, as she slid her right blade beneath his chin and whispered, "You shouldn't have come." One swift stroke. Blood met moss, and the Grove drank deep. The slaughter had truly begun.

The second intruder was bolder. He barreled through the tree line with two curved blades, teeth bared in a war-howl. His armor was heavier than the first, stitched with raccoon fur and engraved with Ruwan's sigil. A veteran. His eyes locked onto Sam as if already tasting the kill. But Sam was no longer just a man. His feet planted wide in the soft earth, bark spreading up his arms like wildfire in reverse. The Grove moved through him now, every pulse, every breath in harmony. The vines rose to meet the charge, but this one slashed them away.

"Aim for the throat!" the soldier barked, lips curling in scorn. "Vines bleed too, don't they?" Sam didn't answer. Instead, he stepped into the strike. The sword caught bark, but bark held. Then Sam lunged. His fist, gnarled and bark-clad, slammed into the man's gut. The force lifted the veteran off the ground. His ribs crunched. Breath left him in a sudden gasp of blood. But Sam wasn't finished. From behind, another vine whipped up like a noose and coiled around the man's throat, yanking him back midair. The soldier's spine bowed unnaturally as he hung suspended, gasping, flailing, and then Vael moved. She leapt, silent and beautiful, off a low branch. Her twin blades gleamed once in the torchlight. She landed as Sam caught her in his vines. The soldier's head hit the ground three beats later. The body never did.

A bowstring thrummed from the shadows. Sam heard it before he saw it. The arrow hissed through the night, aimed not for him, but for Vael. It flew low and silent, meant for the seam beneath her shoulder where leather split for movement. Sam didn't think. He moved. A vine snapped upward, catching the shaft mid-flight, the force of it spinning the arrow like a broken compass needle before it embedded harmlessly into a tree.

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"Sniper!" Vael called, already pivoting toward the hillside. Sam's eyes locked on the treetop above the ridge. He saw the archer, a young one, lean and sharp-eyed, crouched in a camouflaged blind, nocking another arrow with trembling hands. Sam's vines shot forward, three in parallel arcs, skimming over moss and bark like living tendrils of judgment. The archer loosed the second arrow. Vael batted it away with her blade in a fluid motion.

Sam's vines reached the platform a heartbeat later, coiling around the base of the tree in a spiral, then yanking. The trunk groaned. Bark splintered. The blind collapsed inward, and the archer screamed as the tree lurched sideways, pulled down by Sam's fury. The archer tumbled with it. He struck the forest floor hard, his bow lost, his ankle crushed beneath twisted roots. He tried to rise. Tried to draw his dagger. But Vael was already there. Her blades whispered like wind through leaves. One slash for the arm. One for the throat.

Clean. Quiet. She turned away before the blood finished blooming. Sam watched her silhouette against the trees. "Three," she said simply. Sam didn't respond. He was already listening for the next.

They came in pairs now, testing the edges, probing for weakness. Two spearmen broke through the thicket, flanking left, assuming Vael would draw their fire. One stayed low, crouched behind a broad-leafed fern, while the other moved with more confidence, boots silent over the mossy stones as he crept toward the cabin's rear. Sam turned slowly. He could feel them, not just see them. The tension in the soil, the shallow press of bootsteps in leaf mold, the way the Grove winced where iron kissed root.

The first man lunged from the undergrowth with a hoarse cry, thrusting his spear low to gut. Sam caught it barehanded. Bark cracked across his palm, thickening just in time as the spearhead met his skin. The shock jolted up his arm, but he held firm, and with his other hand, he drove a fist into the soldier's chest with enough force to send him flying back ten feet. The body struck a tree with a wet crunch and slid down limp.

The second man tried to flee. Panic bloomed in his eyes. But the Grove was awake now. A root curled out of the earth, slow at first, then snapping like a whip. It wrapped the fleeing man's ankle and yanked. He fell hard, and before he could scream, vines descended like serpents from above, coiling around his arms, legs, throat.

He gasped, But Sam was already in motion. He walked slowly to the bound soldier. One bark-covered arm extended, vines twitching like they hungered. He leaned down, eyes glowing faintly. "Everything that feeds on this land…" Sam whispered, "feeds through me now." And with a gesture, he slammed his hand over the soldier's face. The vines surged inward. Silent. Swift. Merciless. When Sam stepped away, nothing was left but armor, tangled in leaves.

From the treeline, another wave approached, archers this time. Quick, coordinated, loosing arrows through the branches with terrifying rhythm. One whistled past Sam's head. Another embedded into the ground near him with a dull thud. Sam gritted his teeth. He turned his shoulder toward the onslaught, and the bark along his arms began to split, revealing glimmers of gold beneath the surface. Not blood. Not flesh.

Sunlight.

The vines on his back twisted upward, forming a fan of green and gold, and from their ends, sunflowers unfurled, each the size of a man's chest, heavy-headed and radiant. They pulsed once. Then erupted. Blades of golden light lanced out, searing the air with a sound like thunder caught in a bottle. The beams tore through the underbrush, cutting down four archers at once, their screams lost in the blinding brilliance. Sam raised his arm and directed another bloom toward the far ridge. It charged, crackling, and exploded in a beam so bright it momentarily washed the night into day. A cluster of soldiers disappeared into the blast, their silhouettes gone in an instant.

Then, silence. Smoke drifted through the clearing, hot and sweet and tinged with ozone. Sam exhaled slowly. The sunflowers dimmed. But his body swayed. His limbs trembled. The Amber inside him was flickering. Dimming. That last blast had drained more than power, it had cost life. He dropped to one knee, gasping. Vael appeared beside him a second later, blades drawn, eyes scanning. He met her gaze and forced a crooked smile. "Worth it," he rasped. Behind them, the corpses still smoldered.

Sam knelt amid the fading smoke, breath sharp in his throat, the warmth of the sunflower blast still crackling through his marrow. But the light had dimmed. The Amber pulsed weakly now, its solar gift waning. He clenched his fists. The bark on his knuckles thickened, curling inward like armor, dark and gnarled, veined with glowing sap. Each joint clicked with pressure. His fingers flexed, heavier now, built for impact.

He rose. Ahead, another wave of soldiers surged through the Grove's broken edge, closer, louder, meaner. No arrows now. Just blades and snarling faces. Sam stepped forward. And charged. The first guard didn't even have time to raise his sword. Sam's fist caught him square across the jaw with a sickening crack, his helmet crushed like tin beneath a hammer. The man flipped backward, spine arched midair before he slammed into a tree.

The second swung. Sam ducked and answered with an uppercut to the gut, bark-covered knuckles caving in the man's breastplate. Ribs snapped like dry twigs. The soldier crumpled, vomiting blood. Behind him, Vael spun into motion, her twin blades gleaming. She danced with him, not behind, not beside, but with. Two halves of a weapon forged for war.

A spear came for Sam's ribs. He caught the shaft under one arm, twisted it free, and slammed his fist into the soldier's neck, crushing cartilage and silencing the scream before it ever formed. Vael parried high, reversed low, and cut through a thigh with practiced ease. Another came from the flank. Sam stepped into it, both fists raised. The bark on his arms flared, thorns erupting just as he drove a one-two combo into the man's chest, each strike a thunderclap. The man flew backward through the air and landed hard, his armor crumpled inward like tin beneath a boot. They moved like a storm, roots and steel. Back to back, breathing as one. Sam grunted through bloodied teeth. "Still with me?" Vael twisted, slicing clean through a kneecap, then drove her second blade into a neck. "Always." They turned to face the next wave.

Together.