Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The dust reached the toe of Severin’s left boot. He stepped around the last stone rib before it finished settling.

Beyond the rib, the chamber widened to 6 paces. A boar occupied most of it.

Its shoulders rose nearly to Severin’s chest. Dark hide showed beneath slabs of stone-gray plate layered from the neck to the rump, each plate overlapping the next along crooked lines. The largest sat above the shoulders. One carried an old scrape packed with pale clay. Two thick tusks curved forward from a skull broad enough to fill the low throat behind it.

One forehoof was planted in crushed clay. Dust still drifted down around it. The small black eyes beneath its brow were fixed on the bend he had just cleared.

Severin let his gaze pass over the tusks, the plate overlaps, and the narrow space between the animal and the walls. The throat beyond descended for a few paces before turning out of sight. There was no second route. When the boar shifted, it moved with the opening and kept its body between him and the descent.

That could still be weight, hearing, or a good nose. He would know more after it moved.

The blood on Wisdom’s Edge had begun to darken near the fuller. Severin rolled the grip once in his right hand. A cart would have folded under one clean rush from those shoulders. He had enough room to choose where that force went.

Break the plates or skull now, and he would destroy part of what he meant to take.

Keep it whole.

The boar lowered its head. A short grunt pushed through its nostrils, and saliva stretched from the base of one tusk before breaking against the clay.

Thud.

Its first hoofbeat struck through the floor. The second followed before the sound had left the walls. From 8 paces away, the animal filled the chamber with moving plate, hide, and ivory, shoulders low and both tusks fixed on Severin’s center.

He waited until its weight had committed, then moved 1 pace toward the shallow curve of the left wall.

Wisdom’s Edge turned in his hand. The flat near the crossguard met the outer curve of the right tusk with a hard knock. The impact pressed the guard into his palm. Severin let his wrist turn with the tusk, guiding the head past his hip instead of stopping the charge. The boar’s own speed carried its body through the space he had left.

Ivory scraped along pale steel. The beast missed him by more than a handspan, close enough for the air around its shoulder to tug at his coat.

Its forehooves dug into the clay. The rear half kept coming. The chamber gave it no room to circle, so the shoulders had to turn before the hindquarters could follow. Plates ground over one another, and the right foreleg reached wide for balance. Clay sprayed against the wall. The old scrape on one plate shed pale grit as it turned. The lower edge of the right shoulder plate lifted.

A dark seam opened beneath it, narrow but clean. Severin caught the angle before the animal dragged the foreleg back under itself and the plate settled closed.

The boar faced him again. Its head swung once between Severin and the place where it had last seen him move. A pale streak marked the flat of Wisdom’s Edge where the tusk had struck. The blade held no notch.

He shifted toward the stone spur projecting from the right wall.

The animal tracked him until the spur cut the line between them. Severin crossed behind it, placed each boot on packed clay instead of loose grit, and changed position along the wall while rough breathing and grinding plates filled the chamber. He stopped closer to the throat than the point where he had disappeared.

For a moment, the boar stopped too.

Its breathing remained heavy. One forehoof settled flat against the floor. No grit clicked beneath Severin’s boots. No dust moved between them. The head did not swing toward the edge of the spur where he had vanished.

It turned toward where he stood now.

Its correction was not perfect. The tusks searched across a narrow span, but they centered on the new line instead of the old one.

Through the stone.

Severin’s thumb settled against the guard. Sight had not given the animal that turn, and its own noise had covered his steps. Smell remained possible, but the floor was the cleaner answer. The tusks still searched too wide for anything precise.

His interest sharpened. Even coarse, a sense that reached through stone would be worth keeping.

A forehoof scraped backward. Severin lowered his center and brought his left hand forward, standing just inside the line of the stone spur.

It charged again.

The first stride was straight. The spur took that route away. The boar shifted left around the stone, forcing its right shoulder forward and its head into a narrower arc. The turn came too late for the body to follow cleanly, but its weight kept driving it on.

Severin crossed inside the right tusk.

His left hand closed around the base where the ivory widened against the jaw. The charge pulled at his arm. He turned with it, set his right foot outside the right forehoof’s path, and carried the boar’s head across its own line instead of meeting the full mass head-on.

The tusk passed beneath his left shoulder. Hot breath struck his sleeve. The boar’s right foreleg reached hard for the floor, its neck twisted left, and the stone-gray plates shoved against one another with a grinding crack.

Above the right shoulder, the leading plate rose away from the hide. The seam opened again.

This time Severin was already beside it. His breathing stayed even as the tusk shuddered in his grip.

He drew the sword back no farther than his ribs. The point angled upward beneath the lifted plate, above the right shoulder joint. A deeper drive from the same line could reach the chest without splitting the skull or tearing the neck away from the body. He needed only to clear the plate.

The boar tried to wrench its head free. Severin’s left hand held the tusk in place. Its right forehoof tore a furrow through the clay and slid before his right hand drove up and forward.

Wisdom’s Edge slipped under the plate edge.

The first resistance was hard and brief. Then the point passed the overlap. A raw sound broke from the boar’s throat as Severin checked the thrust.

Pale steel disappeared beneath the right fault plate.