Braska

BRASKA HALE THE ROAD TO VERDAXIS Braska Hale hated escort duty. Not because recruits were weak. Weakness could be fixed. It was the talking. Questions. Nervous chatter. The endless need young fighters had to fill silence before silence filled them. The descent road wound south along the cliffs toward Verdaxis, where the sea battered black stone hard enough to shake prayer loose from stubborn men. Somewhere below the fog line, beyond sight, the undead were already testing the walls. Braska walked at the front. Mail coat open at the throat. White shirt clean despite the road. Morningstar hanging at her hip beside three squat potion flasks tied in leather loops. Two recruits followed behind her. Too close together. Too loud. Watching the jungle instead of the road. “Spread out,” Braska said. The taller one blinked. “Paladin?” “If one thing eats both of you at once, I’ll have paperwork.” They separated immediately. Better. Braska adjusted the strap across her shoulder and kept walking. The jungle shifted beside the road in slow breaths, leaves large enough to hide bodies and old enough to remember where those bodies were buried. The recruits were still young enough to think earning the Paladin title meant glory. Braska remembered that stage briefly. Before the screaming. Before the smell. Before learning courage and panic often sounded exactly the same until someone started bleeding. The shorter recruit cleared his throat carefully. “Paladin Hale?” “What.” “How did you know you were ready?” Braska snorted softly. “You don’t.” “That’s it?” “That’s the lesson.” The recruit frowned like someone trying to force wisdom into a space meant for certainty. Braska almost pitied him. Ahead, the road narrowed near an old stone watchpoint overlooking the lower paths. The barricade there had collapsed years ago, leaving splintered beams and a rusted warning bell that no longer rang properly. Braska stopped walking. The recruits nearly bumped into each other again. “Problem?” the taller one asked. Braska crouched near the mud without answering. Tracks. Not undead. Too organized. Living feet. Several. Recent. Bandits maybe. Scavengers more likely. Neither mattered much. She rose slowly. “When we reach Verdaxis,” she said, “you two are buying soap.” The recruits exchanged confused looks. “You can smell fear through your armor,” Braska continued. “Jungle things appreciate the warning.” The taller one laughed. Something moved in the trees. Braska’s morningstar was suddenly in her hand. No glow. No holy light. Just iron weight and chain. The jungle exploded. Three half-rotted bodies burst from the brush at once, wrapped in old militia scraps and moving with the ugly speed of dead muscle forgetting it had stopped belonging to anyone. The taller recruit froze. The shorter one screamed. Braska stepped forward. Certain. The first undead lunged. The morningstar struck once. Bone folded inward with a wet crack and the corpse collapsed instantly, momentum carrying it sideways into the mud. The second reached the recruit before she intercepted fully. Rotten fingers tore across his thigh. He dropped hard, shouting. Braska kicked the third corpse backward down the slope without even looking at it. “Still attached?” she barked. The recruit stared at his leg. “What?!” “Your leg.” “Yes!” “Good.” She grabbed a flask from her belt and smashed it directly against the wound. Glass shattered. Liquid soaked through cloth. The recruit yelped louder than the injury deserved. “Walk it off,” Braska said. Then she turned and buried the morningstar into the skull of the last undead hard enough to silence the road again. The recruits stared at her. Braska wiped black blood from her cheek with obvious irritation. “What.” The shorter one pointed weakly toward his leg. “You just healed him.” Braska glanced down. “Hm.” “Hm?” “You’re standing.” “I—” “So stop whining before I undo it.” Braska Hale THE BAR BRAWL Braska had been at the Watering Hole for hours. The pricy amber liquid in her mug burning like truth all the way down, and the mug carvings having long since lost their novelty. The tavern stank of sweat, smoke, and the tang of bad ale. Rumors swirled like smoke from the hearth: she had once healed a man by punching him so hard the wound closed, she had faced a dozen bandits alone. None of it was entirely inaccurate, but the stories kept growing. A poorly aimed glass, thrown by a man making increasingly poor life decisions interrupted her inspection of the fine details adorning her mug by splashing her table and her face. Most of her remaining Widow’s Reserve sloshed across the table and soaked the floor. The most expensive drink this establishment housed had just been wasted. Braska’s eyes narrowed. “Not my drink,” she muttered, hefting her own mug and stepping forward. The brawl had already begun. Chairs crashed. Tables overturned. A pair of merchants argued so loudly their coin might as well have been thrown in the fire. Braska’s first strike was instinct, swinging the heavy mug like a club. It caught the nearest troublemaker across the shoulder, spilling the remaining liquor over him. He went down, screaming more from shock than pain. She didn’t pause to apologize, only pivoted and brought her knee up to another who tried to grab at her. Steel-toed boots on wooden planks, a hard jab to a jaw, a mug slam that made the wood splinter—Braska was deliberate, precise, and dirty. The fight moved like water around her. She didn’t fight to end her foes. She fought to end bad decisions. A chair leg swung toward a friend of hers who had wandered too close. She intercepted it with her forearm. The chair leg broke, her arm did not. She shoved the assailant back into a table. Braska didn’t care. The Widow’s Reserve had cost enough to make her furious if nothing else. Finally, as the chaos wound down, a patron—unconscious, face bloodied from a dropped bottle—lay where he had fallen, a serious gash running across his temple. Braska knelt beside him. Hands pressed to the wound. Focused. She muttered a word under her breath, cold and deliberate, and the blood stopped flowing. The skin knit over the gash with a weighty finality. She stood without looking at him. He would wake eventually, but she didn’t need to see it. The tavern had quieted. Few were brave enough to interrupt her twice. Braska wiped her hands on her pants, then staggered slightly as she left the tavern. A voice called, warm and low, from behind the bar. “See you tomorrow lady Paladin” Braska glanced, nodding once. She had work in the morning. “I’ll see the alchemist in the morning,” she said, voice rough. She left the tavern without ceremony. “Brix,” she added to herself softly, as she disappeared into the street. “Your hangover cures are a true gift, my friend” Inside, the barkeep listened to the rumors, the whispers about her legendary exploits, and smiled. The girl didn’t need to hear them. The stories would reach every corner of the town soon enough. And somewhere in the street, Braska Hale walked on, her stomach complaining with every step. The quiet burden of the title, Paladin, meant something to her. Halfway home she came to a complete stop, noticing the mug still clutched in her hand she sighed, hung her head, and turned around.