Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The driver’s chest did not rise.

His mouth stayed open. A pulse moved once beneath the skin of his throat, weak but present.

The worker supporting his shoulders looked at Tressa. His hands had begun to slip from the folded apron.

"He’s gone."

"No."

She caught the driver’s jaw and turned his face farther from the mud. Her other hand pushed the apron higher behind his shoulders.

"Keep him there. Don’t let him fall flat."

The scrape beyond the threshold continued. Claws struck stone, stopped, then struck again.

The worker’s grip slipped.

Tressa’s body locked.

Her spine straightened. Both knees pressed deeper into the wet ground, and her fingers crushed the folded cloth hard enough to shove the worker’s hand aside. She stared at what she had done.

Then she loosened her grip before the driver’s shoulders shifted.

Severin recognized the contraction. Existence had rebuilt his own body four times.

Tressa bent over the driver again. This time she moved his head with 2 fingers instead of her whole hand.

"Take more of his weight," she said.

The worker braced his forearm against his thigh and lifted. The second man at the driver’s side steadied the damaged shoulder without pressing the ribs.

The driver’s throat worked.

A shallow inhale dragged into him.

Tressa’s palm stopped over his upper chest.

"Crisis Hold," she said. "His breathing. Five breaths. It won’t heal him."

The breath left in a wet rasp.

"One."

Stone clicked inside the opening.

Severin moved away from the cart. Wisdom’s Edge stayed low in his right hand. Behind the overturned wagon, the other 2 workers braced against the reins as the freed horse tried to turn back toward the blood and spilled grain.

The first beast broke through the threshold.

Eight more crowded after it.

They spread around the 7 bodies already cooling in the field. Blood pulled some heads down. Grain and the horse pulled others toward the lane. The last beast came through behind the pack and paused on bare ground directly before the dark opening.

Eight bodies. One route.

The lead runner chose the cart.

Severin crossed the line before its second bound. Wisdom’s Edge entered behind the near foreleg and passed through the chest. He drew the blade free while the body folded.

The second came beside it with its jaw open. Severin turned outside the bite and cut upward through the mouth into the skull.

"Two," Tressa said.

The driver’s next breath remained thin. It did not shorten.

Three beasts had fanned villageward.

The nearest planted a foreclaw to turn around an old carcass. Severin reached its inside line and drove the point into the base of its skull. He stepped over the falling neck and caught the second through the eye as it lifted its head. Its own momentum carried it away from the lane.

The third tried to pass behind him.

His heel bit into the wet soil. He reversed without a skid and opened the throat beneath its jaw. Blood struck the grass instead of the cart.

"Three."

One of the horse workers shouted. The animal had smelled the new blood and pulled against both men.

Two beasts changed direction toward the noise.

Severin met the first between the split sacks. A short thrust entered the seam below the neck plates and reached the chest. The second leaped over its collapsing flank.

He lowered his shoulder beneath the arc of its claws. Wisdom’s Edge drove through the softer underside and into the spine. The carcass dropped behind him, close enough to throw mud across the back of his coat but not close enough to touch him.

"Four," Tressa said. Her voice came faster. "Keep his head turned. Not his arm. His shoulders."

The man beside her shifted too quickly.

"Slow. He still has to breathe through this."

Two beasts remained alive on the surface.

One ran along the cart’s field side. The other, still nearest the threshold, watched Severin through the dead pack and had not committed toward the village.

The cart-side beast lunged.

Severin stepped inside its shoulder and put the blade through the gap behind the jaw. The point reached the brain. He pulled free before the body could strike the wheel.

The last beast recoiled as the eighth carcass hit the ground.

Severin could have opened its throat before it completed the step. A ninth body would tell him less than a living thing returning to where it had come from.

He cut across the outer haunch instead. The edge passed through flesh, shallow and clear of the joint and heavy tendon.

The beast screamed and twisted toward the village.

Severin occupied that line.

Wisdom’s Edge pointed at its face. Dead bodies closed the open field to its left. The overturned cart, men, and horse filled the right. Behind it, the threshold remained clear.

The beast backed once, blood marking the mud.

Then it turned and ran for the dark doors.

"Five."

Tressa watched the driver’s chest.

His next breath faltered halfway in, caught, then scraped through while the 2 workers kept his head and shoulders where she had placed them.

"The hold is over," she said. "Don’t move him. If he stops breathing again, tell me before you change anything."

The younger worker swallowed. "Can you do it again?"

"He’s breathing now. Hold him."

The wounded beast reached the threshold. Blood dotted the packed earth between its hind feet.

Severin looked across the surface. Fifteen bodies remained where they had fallen. No Beast stood between the doors and the first houses. The horse still strained behind the cart, and the driver was still breathing.

"Both of you stay with her," Severin said to the men supporting the driver. He pointed to one of the horse workers. "Keep the horse behind the cart."

The last man looked from the bodies to the village.

"Run for more hands. No one touches the bodies or the doors. Keep everyone behind the cart line."

The worker ran.

Tressa looked up. Mud marked her cheek. Her hands trembled once before she set them back beneath the driver’s shoulder with more care than before.

"Why let it go?"

"A shorter search."

The wounded beast crossed between the dark leaves.

Severin followed to the line where wet earth ended and the darkness began. The plated back vanished ahead.

His next boot left the mud.