The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

And Darius was brute, immovable, indomitable but was not untouchable either. A second cascade of stone, larger than the first, came crashing down. He threw up his arms, but the impact drove him to his knees.

For a moment, the Hollow buried him again in silence. Then Rhoam's bellow shook the chamber, a sound that rattled bones. The beast erupted upward with its horns crowned with stormlight.

Darius burst free alongside it with blood pouring from a cut across his brow. He spat into the wind as laughter was broken and feral.

"Is that all you have got?" But even his voice trembled as he asked. From the storm, whispers slithered into being. At first, they seemed like echoes of the storm itself and then words took shape, familiar and venomous.

Lyra froze mid-climb. "Elara?" she whispered. Her sister's voice coiled around her ears like silk, too tender, too real. "You don't need to fight, Lyra, let's go. Come home to me. Surrender, and the storm will cradle you."

Tears burned her eyes. For a heartbeat, she leaned forward, her grip slacked. Salaris screeched and butted her shoulder, forcing her to blink hard and clutch the rock again.

Kelvin's voice was drowned in ghosts. His mother's call and his father's cry, both were woven from the Hollow's malice. "Kelvin, we are waiting. Do not fight this. Join us, son. End the pain and come back to the fire with us."

His gut clenched. He saw their faces in the smoke, his father's hand was stretched toward him, his mother's eyes was soft with love. Xerion growled low, rumbling thunder into his bones, a reminder of the living bond they shared.

Kelvin slammed a fist into the stone until his knuckles split and anchored himself in pain rather than in illusion. Darius roared at voices only he could hear.

His father's cold was sharp and unyielding. "Weakling. You wear my name but not my strength, you will die here, and I will finally be rid of your shame."

His face became twisted as rage was boiling from every pore. He nearly hurled himself into the storm, but Rhoam's horn slammed into his chest, holding him back with sheer force.

The beast's eyes was locked on his, not with words, but with the truth of their bond, you are not alone, he said. The Hollow had claws sharper than any blade, and they dug into the Crest's minds as viciously as they had into their flesh.

By the time the fissures stilled and the storm began to fade, the Crest was unrecognizable. Burnt, bloodied, broken in spirit as much as in body, they clung to jagged ledges like shipwreck survivors.

Their beasts crouched beside them, wings torn, scales scorched, horns cracked. Silence returned, though it was no comfort. The air reeked of ozone and ash. The shadows that had risen were gone, leaving only blackened stone in their wake.

Lyra pressed her face into Salaris's bloodied feathers, whispering promises she was not sure she could keep. Kelvin sat with his back against Xerion's coils, chest heaving, his fists trembling from the weight of ghosts that were not truly gone.

Darius leaned against Rhoam's horn, with eyes wide with the terrible knowledge that the Hollow had spoken with his father's voice and part of him had believed it.

No one spoke at first. Then Kelvin, voice raw: "Survival isn't enough anymore." Lyra lifted her head with her eyes rimmed red. "If this thing wants to break us, it nearly has."

Darius spat blood, then gave a humorless grin. "Then we don't give it the satisfaction." But the truth was carved into each of them now.

They had come here seeking victory. They realized, in the ash and silence, that survival alone was no longer the goal. The Hollow would not stop until it consumed them.

If they meant to endure, if they meant to leave this place as more than corpses, they would have to tear its heart out. The Crest sat in silence, broken but unbowed, while deep in the fissures, the Hollow pulsed. Watching, waiting and hungering.

The Hollow gave them a pause. Not a gift, never that but a lull, like a predator retreating into shadow, patient enough to savor its prey's exhaustion.

The fissures hissed faintly, spectral flames rolled under cracked stone, as if the very earth were breathing. The Crest gathered around a meager fire, one that sputtered defiantly against the Hollow's chill.

The flames seemed almost embarrassed to burn in this place, their light were swallowed by shadows that refused to yield. Yet, they clung to the fire, huddled in the circle it carved.

Kelvin held his spear upright with the blade planted into the soil as if it alone kept him steady. His eyes reflected the flames, but his thoughts were far deeper, caught between the firelight and the abyss was yawning beneath them.

For a long time, none spoke. Only the sound of their beasts broke the silence, Xerion's slow, guttural hiss as coils settled protectively around Kelvin.

Salaris' wings was flexing, scattering motes of black-gold feathers into the air; Rhoam's steady rumble, like distant thunder rolling across a stormfront.

Finally, Kelvin broke the silence. "We have bled through every step," he said quietly. "Elara, my parents, Ironholt… every soul we have lost brought us here. But if we fall now..."

His jaw became tightened, knuckles white on the glaive. "then all of it was for nothing. Their sacrifices will rot with us in this pit."

Xerion's coils drew tighter, hissing low. Its voice throbbed inside him, "Not nothing. As long as I burn with you, their memory burns too."

Kelvin lowered his head. "I just can't… let myself believe this ends as another failure. Not here and not at the end."

Lyra's gaze flicked from the flames to Kelvin, her face was hard but her eyes was soft with understanding. She cradled her bow across her lap and her fingers brushed the string as though it were a lifeline.

"When Elara died," she began, her voice was edged with steel, "I thought my anger was all I had left. Every arrow since then has been dipped in rage. It kept me alive and it kept me sharp."

She drew a slow breath while shaking her head. "But if that is all I am… then I am just another hollow thing waiting to be swallowed by this place."

She pressed her palm flat against Salaris' feathers, feeling the storm that always hummed beneath. "No more. My anger doesn't own me. Elara's death is not a curse, it is the edge I have honed. I will wield it until the Hollow itself breaks."

Salaris lowered its head, wings unfurling to half-wrap Lyra in their shadow-storm. Sparks danced between feather-tips, whispering loyalty, mourning fury and all turned outward, never inward again.

Darius shifted, his bulk casted a wall of shadow over the fire. He had been silent longest, but when he spoke, his voice carried weight, the kind that only lived through ruin.

"Ironholt was my forge," he said simply. "I thought it ended there. When the gates fell, when my brothers died, when the last hammer struck its last anvil, I thought I was already buried."

His hand was tightened on Rhoam's armored hide, his scarred fingers curled against the beast's glow. "But now I see. That was just the first shaping. This Hollow… this is the second forge. It will temper us, or break us."

Rhoam rumbled in agreement, pressing its armored snout against his shoulder. The glow from its armor reflected off Darius' face, as though the forge-fire of Ironholt still lived in him.

For a moment, the three of them sat in silence again, words burned into the fire's crackle. They were not just comrades in arms but they were scars stitched together by loss, by purpose, by beasts who had chosen to bear the same burdens.

From below, a moan rose. Not of one throat, but thousands. It began faint, a tremor in the bones, then grew louder, deeper, until it echoed like a chant.

The Hollow was pulsed with it. Every fissure glowed faint green, every rune flared brighter, every shadow deepened as though thousands of undead voices sang in worship.

The Crest rose to their feet with their weapons drawn and fire forgotten. They stared into the abyssal dark, listening as the chant grew. Words could not be made out, but the rhythm spoke for itself: ritual, invocation and endless prayer.

The Hollow was not just alive, it was waiting. It wanted them deeper. It wanted them to see the heart of its faith, the altar it had made of corpses and despair.

Kelvin felt the relic stir in his pack. He pulled it free, a shardlike device of glyph and metal was humming faintly. The relic pulsed in his hand, its glow was synchronizing perfectly with the Hollow's rhythm, as though it was answering a call.

The fire dimmed to nothing, devoured by the Hollow's pulse. The glow of the relic became their only light. And then they heard it. Not with ears, not with mind, but with bone. A Laughter..... Vark's laughter.