“Fuck, nothing’s sticking! It’s recovering too fast!” Thorin yelled, fighting off the resigned thoughts. “Forget about everything else. Just aim for its core!”

  Icetouch!

  He froze his chained blades instead of the Golem and let them carry ice damage on top of their cuts. The frosty chains danced again with the chilled blades. Thorin strained his ‘Spirit’ and pushed the blades faster and faster. They left afterimages behind as they stormed around the Golem, severing chunks of its hair with each round. Nonetheless, its core remained out of his reach.

  “Let me give something a try,” Clay said, stabilizing his position after he ducked beneath a stray log that passed over his head. “Slowdown!” he grunted and cast his spell. What he aimed at was the Golem’s ability to regenerate. He gave it a command. At last, the Golem obeyed the spell, though it roared and struggled violently. Ever so slightly, the scales tilted. The chained blades won the battle of attrition for the first time in this fight.

  “It’s time!” Thorin hollered and pushed harder for the final blow. “Ailment!” he cast, regardless of the cost of the spell. The eerie green flickering spell circle surrounded the Golem. Its hair greyed and withered. Its howl weakened. Before long, its limbs shrank, and heaps of its parched hair fell from its body.

  Quin dashed ahead with his claymore, and the weakened Golem howled at him. But he was still the decoy who drew its aggression. The sun was on its last leg. The moon reigned the sky now.

  “Vraak!” Thorin yelled, and a white silhouette zoomed out of his shadow and phased through the giant’s chest. The eroded defense of the Golem couldn’t protect it anymore. Finally, as even time stood still for the four, a crack like glass echoed in the woods. The Golem’s final howl met the shattering of its core. It collapsed into a mountain of hair that lost all its grandeur. Even a breeze from the woods could move it at will now.

  The tension remained thick in the air as the three Aether brothers waited with their hearts in their mouths, but the Golem never regenerated again. It was dead. They plopped down on the ground, panting with lungfuls of breath. It was finally over. This Hair Golem was the strongest enemy they’d ever fought. And they defeated it. They could rest now and heal. However, their nightmare had yet to end.

  “Well done.” A man’s voice, accompanied by applause, interrupted the three brothers’ recovery. Before they could even relish their hard-earned victory, another enemy had appeared. He was an enemy, as the hostility he exuded was palpable. The timing couldn’t be any worse. They were sapped, beaten down, and bloodied. Or perhaps he waited and aimed for it to be that way.

  Thorin got back on his feet, grunting with huffs and puffs. Quin and Clay did as well, their eyes bloodshot. They faced the smiling man who emerged from the shadows of the woods. His pristine white jacket pulled a contrast with the mess around. But even with the distinction, his presence remained dim. So much so that if Thorin blinked, he could lose him from his line of sight. The green of the woods blended with him as if he was a part of the forest.

  But that was all there was to him. Thorin deployed his chained blades with the fumes of his remaining mana, for the man’s fingers were trembling. There was a hint of fear in his eyes.

  “Do you really wish to go against me in your condition?” the man asked, maintaining his calm smile.

  “We will if you block our path,” Clay said. “We can't really just sit and let you kill us, can we?”

  “How about we call a truce then?” the man proposed. “My Hair Golem tried to kill you, but you killed it instead. How about we call it even and go our way?”

  “If you really wished for that, all you had to do was not come out,” Thorin said, squinting at the man. Though his hovering chained blades were ready to drink more blood, he still had the mind to agree to a truce. They were just that battered.

  “I can't do that,” the man said, shrugging. “I need the remains of my Hair Golem. What you fought was my creation. They’re quite expensive to make.”

  “So, we don’t even get our loot,” Quin said, scoffing.

  “Do you really wish to risk it all for the loot?” the man retorted. “But anyway, why don’t you just sell it to me? I’ll buy it off you and pay you a little premium because it was my Golem who attacked first, and you also gave me some good combat data. You guys have grown well over the last year.”

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  “Do you know us?” Thorin asked, frowning.

  “Let’s just say we have a mutual acquaintance,” the man said. “He was quite disheartened, you know, when he couldn’t catch up with you guys. Your bulls ran too fast. He’d carved your images in stone and kept it close to him ever since. I guess you pissed him off badly.”

  “You’re a Shepherd?” Quin asked, tightening his grip on his claymore.

  “I would be long dead if I were one.” The man chuckled. “Creating a Golem is blasphemy for them. Or using any arcana other than their own for that matter. So, no, I’m not a Shepherd. Our interests have just aligned for the time being, so we’re collaborating.”

  “Fine, you pay us for the Golem, and we won't have any issue,” Thorin said. “You can have the remains of your Golem. And rein in your hostility, it’s making my hand itch.”

  The man laughed and raised his arms as a gesture of peace. “Very well. You’re my first customer as a peddler. I can't bear to be hostile to you guys anyway,” he said, tossing a pouch of mana shards to Thorin. “If you don’t mind now, I would like to gather the broken pieces of my Golem.”

  “Go ahead,” Thorin said, pocketing the pouch after checking it. The two sides circled a central point with the brothers moving towards the depth of the woods, and the man reaching for the pile of hair and the shattered core. When they were far enough, Thorin and his brothers bolted away.

  Only the man remained there, still smiling while inspecting the remains of his Golem. “The name’s Theodore. I’m trying to be a…well, I’m already a Peddler now,” he said. His voice rang aloud. Its echo even reached the three brothers who’d covered a good distance. “Hit the taverns and ask for me if you ever need to buy anything in the wild. And because you’re my good customers, I’ll do you a favor today. Avoid all nearby towns. If we meet someday again, I’ll give you a good deal on my items.”

  ……

  “We’ve run far enough now,” Thorin said, panting on his knees with sharp pangs in his heart. Even though he’d broken through to the second layer, the problem with his ghost heart still plagued him. The strenuous run after the grueling battle with the Golem had his heart trembling with each beat.

  “That was a close one,” Quin said, wiping the sweat off his forehead and checking their surroundings. They were still inside the forest, but the woods were sparse now. There must be a settlement nearby.

  “We should be safe enough now,” Clay said, fixing his messy long hair. “Let’s hire a ride and be on our way.”

  “Whether we trust that man or not, let’s just avoid the nearby towns to be on the safe side,” Thorin said. “After this region around the street market, the nearest town we have on our way is Dalhurst.”

  “The town we avoided before,” Quin added.

  “To go to the battlefield, we must go through it or bypass it,” Thorin said. “There’s no other way around. And unless we’re to walk all the way to the battlefield, we have to hire a ride in the town. Dalhurst seems like our best option, provided there’s no Shepherd activity there right now.”

  “Dalhurst it is then,” Clay said. “Still, let’s cloak up and hide our faces.”

  “Won't we stand out more that way? I’m sure we will,” Quin said.

  “At least we won't attract the Shepherd who’s out for our blood,” Clay said.

  “Instead, we’ll attract the whole town’s attention,” Quin said, chuckling.

  “I doubt we’ll be the only one like that there,” Thorin said. “Dalhurst is a town where Magi frequent. We’ll be able to blend in just fine even with our cloaks on.”

  “Alright, enough resting,” Clay said. “Let’s move. Maybe we can find some place in the wild to spend the night.”

  ……

  The wooden fences of the town they avoided back then towered before them after a walk of a few days. The early morning saw a rise in traffic at the town’s gate that the local militia manned. Most who entered and exited wore black cloaks with the hood shading their faces. So, Thorin and his brothers blended in just fine. After a brief tour inside the town, where they roamed the underground market that barely catered to the Magi, they walked to the open plaza that was the hub to hire carriages.

  All the animals rested beside their wagons, and the carters salted the snowy paths. Some had hired emaciated children to hawk cheap and cheaper rides to anyone looking, while some hung a banner in all glory to display their prices. Thorin and his brothers had money now. They could afford a comfortable and fast horse carriage. But when they looked around, they could not take their eyes off a dilapidated cart. All three gaped, standing stunned in place. There he was, resting with his two bulls and a rickety cart, gorging on a steaming meat bun.

  Byram…