Chapter 29: The Hammer's Toll
The successful forging of the resonance hammer was a victory, but it was a loud one. News of a weapon that could shatter the "stone-phantoms" did not stay contained within the Stonetusk forges for long. Whispers slithered through the clan, carried by those still loyal to Varg's ideology. The story twisted, as such stories do. The Earth-Shaker wasn't just making tools; he was enchanting Graxian weapons with his foreign magic, binding their strength to his will. The hammer wasn't a symbol of unity; it was a leash.
Alistair felt the shift in the energy before he saw the proof. The Graxian hunting parties that came to the shared grounds were quieter, their greetings more curt. The easy, burgeoning camaraderie of the forge was replaced by a renewed wariness.
The proof arrived three days later, carved into the flesh of the land itself.
It was Roric, returning from a solo scouting mission along the northern border, who found it. He came sprinting into Vance Haven, his chest heaving, his face a mask of cold fury. He didn't speak, simply gestured for Alistair and Thora to follow.
He led them to a place where the jungle began to thin, giving way to the rocky foothills of the crags. There, a stand of spiralwood trees lay shattered. They hadn't been felled for lumber. They had been brutally hacked apart, the cuts messy and full of rage. But it was the message, left on the flat surface of a large, moss-covered stone, that made Alistair's blood run cold.
It was carved with the point of a Graxian axe. The glyphs were crude, but the translation in Alistair's mind was chillingly clear.
*THE TRUE STONE REJECTS THE ROOT. THE FOREIGN MAGIC POISONS THE LAND. LEAVE, OR BE CUT DOWN.*
It was signed with a single, rough symbol: a jagged peak, Varg's personal sigil.
Thora let out a low growl, her hand going to her spear. "He dares to threaten us on our own land? He blights the trees to protest a blight?"
"This isn't just a threat," Alistair said, his voice quiet. He ran his fingers over the gouged stone, feeling the violent intent behind every stroke. "It's a declaration. He's saying our cooperation is the real disease. He's positioning himself as the true guardian of the Graxian way."
The carefully built peace of the Council was cracking. Varg was no longer just a disgruntled rival; he was a zealot, building a faction based on fear and purity. And he had just shown he was willing to escalate from words to violent acts.
"We must take this to Grok," Thora insisted, her eyes blazing. "He must crush this rebellion now, before it spreads."
"And if Grok moves too openly against Varg, he risks pushing the undecided in the clan into Varg's arms," Alistair countered, the political calculus unfolding in his mind. "This is a trap. If we respond with force, we prove Varg's point—that we are violent outsiders. If we do nothing, we look weak, and his support grows."
He looked from the desecrated trees back toward the safety of his walls. The solution couldn't be a hammer, not this time. This was a subtler poison, and it required a subtler antidote.
"Roric, can you track the ones who did this? Without being seen?" Alistair asked.
Roric gave a sharp, confident nod. "Their scent is thick with hate and blackstone dust. They are not careful."
"Follow it. Find where Varg's loyalists are gathering. Do not engage. Just watch."
As Roric melted back into the jungle, Alistair turned to Thora. "We do not take this to Grok. Not yet."
"Then what do we do?" she asked, frustration evident in her voice.
"We let the land itself answer," Alistair said.
He knelt by the first of the hacked spiralwood trees. He placed his hands on the wounded trunk, just above the brutal gash. He poured power into it, not the explosive force of earth-shaping, but the slow, deep energy of growth and healing that he had used on the flower for Grok. He focused on the latent life still held within the wood, encouraging it, mending the torn fibers.
It was a painstaking process, far more difficult than destruction. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he worked, the energy cost a steady drain. But slowly, miraculously, the edges of the axe wound began to seal over, forming a thick, knotted scar. The tree would never be the same, but it would live. It would stand as a testament, not to the violence done to it, but to the will to endure.
He moved to the next tree, and the next, healing each one. He was not erasing Varg's message. He was writing a new one right over the top of it. A message of resilience. Of a power that could create and heal, not just destroy.
When he finished, exhausted but resolved, he stood before the carved rock. He did not deface it. Instead, he placed his palm over the hateful words. He focused, and from the stone itself, he caused a single, golden Sun-Singer flower to bloom, its roots gripping the rock right in the center of Varg's sigil.
The message was clear. Life, however fragile, could take root even in the hardest of places.
"Let Varg see that," Alistair said, his voice weary but firm. "Let his followers see that their violence can be answered with growth. Let them wonder which power is truly stronger."
It was a gamble. It was a statement of profound patience in the face of blatant aggression. But as he looked at the scarred, living trees and the lone flower blooming from the stone of hate, he knew it was the only path that led forward, and not into a civil war that would only benefit the true enemy—the silent, creeping blight in the north. The hammer had been forged to fight the corruption. Now, he had to wield a far more delicate tool: hope itself.