The boot ground down, a final insult before the killing blow. Through the haze of pain, Arrion's hand found not just the hilt of *Nightshade*, but the star-dusted scabbard itself. With a surge of desperate will that tore a guttural cry from his ruined chest, he didn't draw the blade—he drove the entire sheathed sword upward, point-first, with all the strength left in his arm.
The tip of the sturdy scabbard, reinforced with its golden metal, punched through the black leather of the boot, through the soft flesh of the arch, and deep into the man's gut. The pressure on his chest vanished, replaced by a shocked, wet gasp above him.
Arrion rolled, agony screaming through his side, the world a dizzying blur. He ended on his knees, *Nightshade* now free in his hand. The wounded man was stumbling back, clutching his stomach, face pale. Arrion didn't rise. He lunged from his knees, a forward thrust of the long, water-grey blade that took the man cleanly through the heart. The light died in the serpent-ringed kestrel's eyes, replaced by blank surprise, before he crumpled.
Gasping, Arrion used *Nightshade* as a crutch to force himself to his feet. The world swayed. His chest was a cage of hot, splintered pain with every shallow breath. He stood, a bloodied giant in black armor, over the body of his foe.
And he was surrounded.
The four remaining black-clad killers formed a wary circle, weapons held ready. Behind them, further back near the shattered stones, stood the old swordsman. He was breathing heavily, one hand braced on his knee, the glow faded from his greatsword. The cataclysmic strike had cost him dearly. But his flinty eyes burned with cold fury.
"Finish it!" the old man rasped, his voice raw. "He can barely stand!"
The four men tensed, ready to rush him and overwhelm him with sheer numbers.
Then, the earth *remembered*.
A deep, resonant *THOOM* shook the glade, not a sound in the air but a vibration through the very soil. It was followed by another. *THOOM. THOOM.*
From the forest behind the old man, trees older than kingdoms groaned and parted. What emerged was not the Verdant King, but its sentinel.
It was a beast of living geology, a mountain that had decided to walk. It stood elephantine in shape but built of moss-crusted granite, tangled roots, and soil. Its legs were like moving dolmens, its eyes deep pools of molten amber. With each titanic step, the ground trembled.
It paid no heed to Arrion. Its gaze was fixed on the intruders, the violators, the spillers of blood. As the four killers stared, frozen in terror, the roots at the edge of the clearing *twitched*. Then they erupted from the soil like serpents of dark wood. They wrapped around ankles, thighs, torsos, with the speed and strength of constrictors. Men screamed, hacking futilely at the ancient, hardened wood with their swords, but they were dragged down, engulfed by the forest floor itself.
The old Vindicator turned, his face a mask of primal fear, and raised his glowing greatsword once more. "Back, creature of earth!" he roared, swinging a weakened but still deadly arc of green energy at the root-beast.
The energy sizzled across the beast's stone flank, scorching moss but leaving only a shallow groove in the rock. The beast's head, a boulder on a neck of woven roots, swung towards him. One massive, trunk-like limb lifted, ready to crush him to paste.
And then, He arrived.
The air grew thick with the scent of petrichor and blooming night-flowers. The Verdant King stepped from between two standing stones as if from behind a veil. He was even more immense up close, a tower of muscle and myth, his oak-and-thorn antlers scraping the lower branches of the moonlit trees. His amber eyes, wise and furious, took in the scene: the shattered stone, the felled ancient oak, the blood soaking his glade, his wounded petitioner standing defiant.
The King did not attack. He simply looked at the root-beast.
The beast halted its crushing blow, its limb freezing in mid-air. Then, with a deep grumble like grinding continents, it lowered its foot—not on the old man, but beside him. Roots exploded from the earth again, not to crush, but to entomb. They wove around the terrified Vindicator in a cocoon of unbreakable wood, pinning his arms, swallowing his glowing sword up to the hilt, leaving only his head exposed, a fossil of fear in living wood.
Silence, absolute and profound, fell over the glade. The only sounds were the old man's ragged, trapped breaths and Arrion's own pained gasps.
The Verdant King turned its majestic head. Those ancient, intelligent eyes settled on Arrion. There was no kindness there, but a grave, measured acknowledgment. It saw the black armor, the star-dusted sword, the Haelend giant standing amidst the carnage he had both wrought and survived. It saw a petitioner who had brought violence to the sacred grove, but who had also been its target.
With a slow, deliberate motion, the King lowered his head. A single, vast breath, warm and smelling of deep soil and healing sap, washed over Arrion. The pain in his chest did not vanish, but the bleeding, grinding agony of broken bones settled into a dull, bearable ache. Strength, borrowed from the very heart of the Weald, seeped into his limbs.
The message was clear. The forest had intervened. The trial was not over, but the balance had shifted. The King's gaze then flicked to the entombed Vindicator, then back to Arrion. The judgment, it seemed, was now his to deliver. Arrion walked towards the Vindicator.
"Your name ser. What is it?" he asked. the old man looked at him defiantly. "Kill me boy," he spat, "do not mock me with the knightly ways. I am bound and you are free, you may not have my name."
"Very well," said Arrion as he drove nightshade through the roots into the man's heart, who looked surprised at the turn of events. '' Before I am a knight, I am a hunter and I use traps to my advantage." The old vindicator groaned a laugh and slumped, trying to breath but with more air leaving his body than entering.
Arrion leaned on his sword one knee on the ground and faced the Verdant One.