# Chapter 556: The Scavenger's Path
The Bloom-Wastes had a smell, a constant, dry perfume of ancient dust and something else, something like a memory of fire. Finn pulled his scarf tighter over his nose and mouth, but the grit still found its way in, coating his tongue with a fine, abrasive powder. The sky was a permanent, bruised twilight, a sheet of grey cloud that filtered the sun into a weak, colorless glare. Underfoot, the ground was a treacherous mix of compacted ash and shifting dunes, the skeletons of long-dead trees reaching up like blackened claws. Silence was the waste's native language, broken only by the sigh of the wind and the crunch of his own boots.
He was alone. Truly alone for the first time in his life. The thought was a cold stone in his gut. He clutched the hilt of the sword at his hip, the worn leather a familiar comfort. It was Soren's sword. Not the one he'd carried into the Ladder, but his old practice blade, the one he'd used to teach Finn how to stand, how to breathe, how to see an opening. It was all Finn had left of him, a weight of memory and responsibility that was heavier than any steel. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to keep moving. A strange, instinctual pull, like a thread tied to his sternum, guided him deeper into the desolation. He told himself it was grief, a fool's errand to find meaning in a place that offered only death.
A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision made him freeze. He crouched, one hand on the sword hilt, his eyes scanning the skeletal landscape. Nothing. Just the wind stirring the ash. He stayed that way for a full minute, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. Soren had taught him that. Patience. The wastes didn't forgive haste. He straightened, his joints protesting, and continued his trudge.
The attack came without a sound. One moment, he was walking between two towering, petrified husks of what might have been trees. The next, a shape exploded from the ash dune to his left. It was a canine form, but twisted and wrong. Its fur was patchy and fell away in clumps, revealing grey, leprous skin stretched tight over a starved frame. Its eyes glowed with a faint, malevolent yellow light, and its jaws dripped a thick, black ichor. An ash-hound.
Finn didn't have time to think. He drew the sword, the scrape of metal from scabbard unnaturally loud in the dead air. The hound lunged, a blur of corrupted muscle. He sidestepped, bringing the blade down in a clumsy, desperate arc. Soren's voice echoed in his mind: *Don't swing, Finn. Cut.* The sword bit into the creature's shoulder, and it yelped, a sound like grinding stones. It wasn't a clean cut. He'd used too much arm, not enough hip.
But the hound wasn't alone. Two more burst from the dunes, flanking him. They moved with a terrifying, silent coordination, their claws scrabbling on the packed ash. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He was a boy playing with a man's sword. He backed up, trying to keep all three in his line of sight. The first hound, wounded but not down, circled back, its yellow eyes burning with hatred. They were herding him.
He feinted left, then spun right, trying to break the encirclement. One of the hounds anticipated him, its jaws snapping shut on the air where his leg had been a second before. He stumbled, his boot catching on a half-buried root. He went down hard, the impact driving the air from his lungs. The sword fell from his grasp. The world became a maelstrom of grey ash and snapping jaws. He scrambled for the weapon, his fingers closing around the hilt just as a claw raked across his left arm.
Pain, white-hot and immediate, seared through him. It wasn't just a cut. It was a cold, invasive agony, as if the claw had been dipped in acid. He cried out, rolling onto his back and thrusting the sword blindly upward. The blade sank into soft flesh. The hound on top of him gave a choked gurgle and collapsed, its foul-smelling blood washing over him in a hot wave.
He shoved the corpse aside and scrambled to his feet, his left arm screaming in protest. The remaining two hounds paused, their heads cocked, sensing his weakness. He looked at his arm. Three deep, parallel gashes ran from his wrist to his elbow. The edges of the wounds were already turning an ugly, necrotic black, and thin, black veins were spidering out from the cuts, crawling up his forearm like a living shadow. The blight.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. The world tilted. He leaned on the sword, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The hounds began to circle again, slower now, confident. They were waiting for him to fall. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. He thought of Soren, of the way he'd stood against impossible odds, not with rage, but with a quiet, unbreakable will. *Breathe, Finn. Find your center.*
He forced himself to stand straight, ignoring the fire in his arm. He shifted his grip on the sword, holding it with both hands, his right hand tight over his left. The pain was immense, but it focused him. He watched the hounds, their pacing, their flickering ears. They were predators, but they were also creatures of habit. They would test him, one at a time.
As if on cue, the larger of the two charged. Finn didn't retreat this time. He planted his feet, turning his body sideways to present a smaller target. He let the hound come, waiting until the last possible second. Then he moved. It wasn't a block or a parry. It was a simple step, a pivot, and a cut. He guided the hound's momentum past him, the sword's edge finding the creature's throat. The move was pure Soren. Efficient. Brutal. The hound crumpled without a sound.
The last one whined, a high-pitched sound of fear. It looked from Finn to its dead packmates, its yellow eyes wide. It took a hesitant step back, then another, before turning and fleeing, its form swallowed by the swirling ash.
Silence returned, but it was different now. It was the silence of a survivor. Finn stood swaying, the sword suddenly feeling impossibly heavy. He looked at his arm again. The black veins had reached his bicep. A cold numbness was spreading from the wound, a stark contrast to the searing heat of the infection. He knew what this was. He'd seen it before, in the Ladder infirmaries. Fighters wounded by corrupted beasts. It was a death sentence. A slow, agonizing decay from the inside out.
He took a single step, and his leg buckled. He fell to his knees, the sword clattering onto the ash. The world was fading to a narrow tunnel, the grey landscape blurring at the edges. He was going to die here, in the middle of nowhere, another skeleton for the wastes to claim. He thought of Soren's face, the rare, tired smile he'd sometimes give. *I'm sorry,* he thought. *I tried.*
His vision shrank to a single point of light. Then, darkness.
He was drifting in a cold, quiet void. There was no pain, only a profound sense of detachment. He felt a strange sense of peace. This wasn't so bad. He could just let go. But then, a voice, sharp and impatient, cut through the fog.
"Well, aren't you a mess. And is that… a Vale-forged blade? By the dead gods, kid, you've got more trouble on you than just a bad case of the blight."
Finn's eyes fluttered open. The world came back into focus in a dizzying rush. He was lying on a rough blanket inside a cave. The air was cool and damp, smelling of wet stone and something else, something herbal and pungent. A small fire crackled in a stone-ringed pit, its light dancing across the walls, revealing shelves carved into the rock, packed with jars, bundles of dried plants, and scavenged bits of metal and glass.
Leaning over him was a woman. She was young, maybe a few years older than him, with a face that was all sharp angles and keen intelligence. Her hair was a wild tangle of dark brown curls pulled back in a messy knot, and her eyes, the color of moss, missed nothing. She wore a patched leather coat over practical, sturdy clothes, and a multitude of pouches and tools hung from a wide belt at her waist.
"Who…?" Finn's voice was a dry rasp.
"Name's Kestrel. Kestrel Vane," she said, her tone all business. "And you're lucky I found you when I did. Another hour with that blight, and you'd be fertilizer for those lovely bone-trees out there." She gestured with her chin toward his arm. It had been cleaned and roughly bandaged with a strip of cloth, but the black veins were still visible, stark against his pale skin.
"You… saved me?" Finn tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea and dizziness forced him back down.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid. I just postponed the inevitable," Kestrel said, rummaging through a leather satchel. "That's a nasty strain. Corrosive, fast-acting. Most healers would just lop the arm off and hope for the best. Me? I prefer a more… experimental approach."
She pulled a small, clay jar from her bag. Inside was a clump of moss, but it wasn't like any moss Finn had ever seen. It glowed with a soft, internal, blue-green light, pulsing gently like a sleeping heart. It was beautiful, ethereal, and utterly out of place in the grim wastes.
"What is that?" he whispered, mesmerized by the light.
"This," Kestrel said, a sly grin spreading across her face, "is Ghost-Moss. Grows only in the deepest, most blight-infested parts of the wastes. It eats corruption. Problem is, it's not exactly discriminating. It'll eat the blight, and it might just eat you right along with it. A fifty-fifty shot, I'd say. Better than the zero you had when I found you."
She scooped a handful of the glowing moss into a stone mortar. "Now, this is going to hurt. A lot. The blight has sunk its hooks in deep, and this stuff is going to rip them out. Try not to scream. It attracts the wrong kind of attention."
She began grinding the moss with a pestle, the glowing substance turning into a shimmering, luminescent paste. The air filled with a clean, ozone-like scent, like the world after a lightning strike. Finn watched, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He was terrified. But he was also tired of being afraid. He thought of Soren again, of the quiet strength he'd always shown. *Pain is just information, Finn. Decide what to do with it.*
Kestrel finished grinding the paste and knelt beside him. "Ready?" she asked, her expression unreadable.
Finn just nodded, clenching his jaw.
She unwrapped the bandage from his arm. The wounds looked even worse now, the black flesh puckered and weeping a thin, black fluid. Without another word, she scooped a glob of the glowing paste and smeared it directly onto the gashes.
The world exploded.
It wasn't pain. It was beyond pain. It was a sensation of being unmade, of every cell in his arm screaming in simultaneous agony and ecstasy. A cold fire raced through his veins, chasing the black tendrils of the blight. He could feel the Ghost-Moss working, a ravenous, alien force consuming the corruption. His back arched off the blanket, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. The light from the paste intensified, bathing the cave in an ethereal blue-green glow. He saw visions—flashing images of the Bloom, of a world tearing itself apart, of a silent, screaming king of ash and cinders.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
Finn collapsed, panting, his body drenched in cold sweat. The fire in his arm was gone, replaced by a dull, profound ache. He looked down. The glowing paste had faded to a dull grey. The black veins were gone. The wounds, still open and raw, were clean, the edges no longer black and necrotic, but a healthy, angry pink.
Kestrel was watching him, her arms crossed over her chest, a look of intense concentration on her face. "Well," she said, breaking the silence. "You're not dead. That's a good start." She prodded his arm with a finger. "How does it feel?"
"Sore," Finn managed to say, his voice hoarse. "But… better. The cold is gone."
"Told you. Fifty-fifty," Kestrel said with a shrug, though her eyes held a flicker of relief. She tossed him a waterskin. "Drink. You're dehydrated. And don't even think about moving for a while. Your body just fought a war."
Finn drank greedily, the cool water a balm to his raw throat. He looked around the cave, at the scavenged treasures, at the woman who had saved his life. "Why?" he asked. "Why help me?"
Kestrel's gaze fell on the sword lying beside him. "Because of that," she said, her voice losing some of its sharp edge. "That's a Vale-forged blade. I'd recognize the tempering pattern anywhere. Soren Vale's work, if I'm not mistaken. And a kid like you, alone in the wastes with a blade like that… that's a story I want to hear." She leaned back against the cave wall, her moss-green eyes glinting in the firelight. "So, start talking. Who are you, Finn, and why are you carrying a dead man's sword into the heart of the Bloom?"