The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

The Hollow gnaws even at my kind's memory. Its hunger is older than this age. I recall fragments and shadows in the dark where even my kin that dared not glide.

Kelvin's grip on his glaive tightened. That was not a reassurance rather, it was a warning.

Salaris perched on a jagged boulder, wings which was half-folded, feathers were crackling with ghostly shadow-light.

The hawk-beast tilted its head, releasing a sharp screech that echoed against the crater walls. It sounded like a determination or maybe nervousness that is hidden behind pride.

Lyra glanced at her partner and nodded once, as if it was taking the sound as confirmation that she was not alone in her unease.

Rhoam, the armored behemoth, pawed at the stone beneath him. Sparks leapt where his hooves struck the ground, and his chest plates thrummed like a war drum.

The beast lowered his horned head, snorting steam, as though it was daring the Hollow itself to try him. Darius placed a heavy hand on Rhoam's plated neck, and the war-beast remained still, though the fire in his eyes did not get dim.

There was silence among the Crest, but it wasn't peace. It was the silence before a storm, the kind that knew blood was coming.

Kelvin was the first to step closer to the edge. Loose rock was crumbled under his boots, falling away into the glowing abyss. The sound of pebbles that were clattering against stone was swallowed instantly, as if the Hollow did not permit echoes.

He stared down, and for a moment he swore the fissures were pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. He pulled back sharply. Lyra caught the movement, her sharp eyes was narrowed. "It pulls at us." she said.

Kelvin did not argue. He just exhaled through his nose and steadied himself. The glaive's shaft felt warm in his hand, almost feverish since he reforged it with the necrotic fang.

Darius spat onto the ground, the fleck sizzled where it landed. "Let it pull, we will tear back twice as hard."

But even as he said it, his eyes was darted again to the endless spiral of the crater. The moaning did not stop. It rose and fell like a tide, it was never loud, but never fading, either. A constant reminder that countless dead things waited within.

Kelvin finally looked back at his companions. His face carried its usual resolve, but something lingered behind his eyes, an edge of fear that he couldn't shake off.

He knew they could see it too and that was fine. They were all carrying pieces of fear into this place. "This is it," he said simply. "The Hollow."

Xerion's coils was tightened, his shadow stretched across the ridge like a shroud. His voice was returned, lower now but more intent.

Remember this, Crest. The Hollow does not merely kill, it feeds on it's prey. What you give it like fear, regret, weakness and it will grow fat on.

Stand together, or it will devour you piece by piece until you welcome its maw. The words slithered into Kelvin's chest like ice. Lyra glanced at him, brow furrowed, then turned back toward the abyss.

Darius muttered something under his breath about old serpents loving to spook mortals, but he did not laugh. No one did because the Hollow did not allow laughter.

The group lingered only a moment longer before turning from the edge. They needed to prepare, to sharpen their weapons and their resolve. But as Kelvin took his last look over his shoulder at the glowing pit, he knew something had already begun.

The Crest didn't march straight into the Hollow. They stopped at the last ridge before the descent, a jag of stone shaped like a broken tooth jutting over the abyss.

The wind here carried more than cold, it carried the stink of rot and metal, thick enough that breathing felt like drinking old blood.

Kelvin dropped his pack against a flat rock and crouched. "We will camp here." His voice was short, stripped of anything but necessity and no one argued with him.

They moved without wasted words, every motion was sharpened by the understanding that tomorrow wasn't promised.

Lyra swept the ground while setting stones in a small circle. Darius unslung his hammer, smashing loose shale into usable slabs for their tools. Kelvin spread a cloth and laid his glaive across it like a priest before an altar.

The beasts ringed them in silence. Xerion coiled, his black scales catching the green lightning from the sky, each flicker raced across his body like veins of shadow-fire.

Salaris perched above on a tree. Rhoam planted himself like a fortress, bulk hunched, his breathing a steady rumble through his horned chest plates.

It wasn't just a camp. It felt like a ritual. Kelvin set the necrotic fang down beside the glaive's broken shaft. The fang pulsed faintly with green lines crawling across its surface like veins under the skin.

His hands lingered on it a moment longer than needed. It was not fear but it was weight. Xerion's head lowered, its massive jaws close enough that Kelvin could feel the serpent's breath stir his hair.

The beast's voice slid into his mind, deep and steady.

Do not hesitate. It is not a mere weapon. It is a vow. Bind it with your life, or it will bind you.

Kelvin inhaled sharply and nodded. He pressed the fang into the glaive's core, with sparks spitting where corrupted bone touched reforged steel. The weapon groaned as if it was alive. He braced it with both hands and sweat running down his temples.

"Now," Kelvin muttered. Xerion opened his maw. A thread of void-flame, black edged with violet, poured from his throat which is not to burn, but to weld.

The aura wrapped around the glaive, hissing, fusing bone and steel. The green veins of the fang flared, then sank into the weapon's spine until the whole blade shimmered.

When the light faded, the glaive was no longer just his weapon. It was a shard of himself that is tempered with Xerion's breath and the Hollow's own stolen fang.

He lifted it, and for a moment it felt weightless, as if the serpent's shadow coiled along its edge. Kelvin exhaled, sharply and said. "It is done."

Lyra sat a short distance away, her bow was across her lap. She had stripped its old string and laid out coils of Veil-thread taken from shattered wraiths. The threads glowed faint with silver, rippling as if it is alive.

Her fingers worked carefully, while weaving. But she did not look at her hands, as her eyes were far away and fixed on nothing.

Salaris shifted above her, feathers were rattling and it let out a low cry. Lyra blinked, with lips pressed thin and then went back to her task.

She drew the threads tight, knotting them into place. When she pulled, the bow hummed like a chord struck on an unseen harp. The sound was not clean but it was layered, half moonlight shimmer and half abyssal whisper.

Then Salaris bent forward, extending one wing. The bird's feathers glowed, shadow-light flickered at the tips. Lyra caught the glow, while guiding it down into the arrows laid beside her.

One by one, their shafts drank the eerie radiance until each arrowhead gleamed like it had been dipped in a starless night. She flexed her bow once, the Veil-string thrummed against her palm. The arrows pulsed in response with shadows rippling around their heads.

Lyra smiled faintly in that is not joy, but something harder. "Good. Now anything I fire doesn't just pierce. It lingers."

Darius hammered the last shard into Rhoam's chest plate, sparks cascaded. The fragments of soul shards were not just metal, they were crystallized echoes of the wraiths they had broken. Each piece glowed faintly with cracked veins spilling ember-light.

Rhoam stood still through it all, with its muscles tensed but unflinching. His beast's bulk was already a fortress, but with every shard Darius embedded, the armor shimmered with spectral sheen.

It was as though the war-beast now carried fragments of fallen souls as a second skin. "Hold," Darius muttered, pressing the final plate in. The shard flared and then became dimmed while locking into place.

Rhoam stomped a hoof. The ground split in a hairline crack, glowing faint orange as if it remembered Iron holt's fires.

Darius stepped back, wiping his brow with the back of his gauntlet. "That is it. Next time you charge, you will carry more than steel.

You will carry ghosts." His lips twisted into something close to a grin. "And they will run screaming from you, not the other way around."

Rhoam lowered his massive head, pressing briefly against his tamer's shoulder. Darius froze, then gave the beast a solid thump back, with metal clanging on the armor.

By the time the work was done the night had fallen or maybe the Hollow had simply smothered the day. Either way, darkness stretched around them, broken only by the fire they lit between the stones.

The Crest sat together, with weapons at their sides, the silence was thick but not empty. They did not need to speak, each knew what the other carried.