Under the cover of the dust, Kai drew his blade. He didn't have the energy for a long fight.
He could feel the Traveler's Mash he had eaten earlier being burned away by the Mark's demand for fuel. He needed to end this in one strike.
He ran through the dust cloud. The Giant swung blindly, its fist whistling over Kai's head.
Kai slid through the frozen mud, passing between the monster's legs.
As he slid, he slashed the back of the Giant's knee where the ice armor was thinnest.
The black iron blade, already heating up, cut through the tendons. The giant let out a gurgling cry and fell to one knee.
This was the opening Kai needed. He stood up, twisted his body, and prepared a full strength swing aimed at the creature's frozen neck.
Kai's muscles screamed as he twisted. The weight of The Scourge was immense, but the Fire Mark provided a burst of supernatural strength that made the Heavy iron feel like a feather.
He swung the blade upward, catching the Frost-Giant under its frozen chin.
The notched iron met the magical ice. For a heartbeat, neither gave way.
Then, the red heat from Kai's shoulder poured into the blade.
The ice shattered with a sound like a mountain cracking. The blade buried itself deep into the monster's thick, rubbery neck.
The giant didn't even let out a scream this time. It simply slumped forward, its massive weight hitting the ground and sending a tremor through the wagons.
Black, steaming ichor flooded the road, melting the frost in a wide circle around the corpse.
Kai pulled his blade free with a wet shluck sound. He was shaking.
The heat bomb and the final strike had pushed him to the edge.
His vision was swimming with dark spots, and he had to lean against the monster's dead leg just to keep from falling.
"Is it….is it dead?" Miri's voice came from the wagon.
She was peeking over the edge, her small face pale in the fading light of the shattered glowing stone.
Kai couldn't answer. He reached into his waist bag, his fingers fumbling. He found the last piece of Traveler's mash, but his hands were shaking so hard he dropped it into the black ichor on the ground.
He stared at it, a hollow, desperate feeling growing in his chest. This was his last bit of fuel.
Elara jumped down from the wagon. She didn't even look at the monster; she looked at Kai.
She saw his pale face and his trembling hands. She realized that he was minutes away from a total collapse.
"Joram! Get up!" she yelled at the guard, who was starting to groan in the mud.
"Help me get him to the wagon! Now!"
She grabbed Kai's good arm and draped it over her shoulder. She was surprisingly strong for a merchant.
They dragged Kai to the second wagon, the one containing grain. Elara didn't wait to make a fire.
She ripped open a sack of raw oats and pushed a handful into Kai's hand.
"Eat. I don't care if it's dry. Eat, or you will die."
Kai shoved the dry oats into his mouth; they were dusty and hard to swallow, but he forced them down.
He could feel the Mark on his shoulder calming, moving from a violent burn to a low, hungry simmer. He was safe for the moment, but the cost was clear; he used up his reserves.
Kai sat in the back of the wagon, his back against a sack of grain.
The dry oats felt like sand in his throat, but the deep, hollow ache in his chest was finally fading.
He looked at his hands. The skin was red and peeling from the heat he had forced through them.
Miri sat across from him. She was holding a small wooden bowl of water for him.
She didn't speak; she just watched him with eyes that seemed too old for her face.
She had seen him turn into a monster to kill a monster. To her, the line between a man and a monster was starting to blur.
Elara climbed into the wagon and sat on a crate. She held a small, leather-bound book in her lap; a ledger.
She wasn't looking at the prices, though. She was looking at a map of Oros that had markings the church didn't allow.
"You aren't just a marked man, Kai," Elara said quietly, so the guards outside couldn't hear. "I have seen many Scourge bearers before. They are usually dead by twenty. They burn bright, and they turn to ash. But you…you have a very different fire in you. It is different from them."
Kai didn't look up. "Fire is fire, Elara. It all ends in the same cold grave."
"No," Elara countered. She pointed to a spot on her map, a place deep in the Dead-Man's Pass, just ahead of them.
"There is a rumor among the high-tier traders. They say Void Beasts aren't just attacking. They say it's searching for the First Ember. The one the Church claims was lost a thousand years ago."
Kai's Fire Mark gave a sharp, painful twitch. It wasn't because a monster was nearby. It was a reaction to the name.
The First Ember. The legends said it was the source of all life in Oros. If the Void Beasts found it, the sun would never rise again.
"The Church says the First Ember is in the Golden city, protected by the High priests," Kai said, his voice cold.
"The Church says a lot of things," Elara whispered. "But the Void Beasts are moving away from the city and towards the wastes. They are hunting something out here, and today, they hunted you with a Frost-Giant. That wasn't a random attack; they wanted to test your fire."
Kai looked at his blade, The Scourge. He thought about the Stalker who had watched him and then retreated. It wasn't a hunt for food.
It was a reconnaissance mission, and he was the target.
Outside, Joram called out weakly. His voice was shaky.
"Mist is clearing! But….Miss Elara, you need to see this. The stars…they look wrong."