Strength

Lore of Arcanum

The marshbird’s wing was broken in two places. Serenya eased the bird closer and felt for the unnatural angles of bones beneath her fingertips. The bird’s narrow chest fluttered against her palm like a frantic little drumbeat, and she murmured nonsense to calm it.

Around her, the forest’s edge was waking for the day. Mist clung to the damp earth, curling low between the roots of alder trees. The smell of wet moss and rotting leaves clung to her clothes, the scent so familiar she barely noticed anymore.

A pebble clattered off the side of her hut, but Serenya didn’t look up. Another followed, then a sharp, mocking whistle and children’s laughter drifted from the lane.

“Beast-wife!” one of them called. “Kiss it and make it better!”

The others shrieked with laughter before their footsteps pattered away back to the village. Serenya let the silence settle again, the quiet broken only by the soft hiss of the marshbird’s breathing.

She wrapped its wing in a strip of linen, binding the fragile bones tight against its body. In a few weeks, if she kept the splint dry and the bird fed, it might fly again. She set it gently inside the wicker cage she kept for recovering animals, close enough to the hearth that the morning’s chill wouldn’t stiffen its joints.

She’d just reached for her basket of herbs when the shouts began.

They were sharp and urgent, rising from the direction of the square. They weren’t idle voices of neighbors gossiping, but the jagged kind that prickled the back of her neck. Serenya straightened, listening.

“…penned sheep…torn apart…”
“…fence posts snapped clean through…”
“…prints bigger than a man’s head…”

She left the hut’s door ajar and walked down the narrow path that wound between her garden plots, the soil still slick from last night’s rain. By the time she reached the edge of the square, a crowd had already gathered.

An elder crouched by the churned-up mud, pressing his palm to a single print. His face was pale beneath his white beard. “Stoneback,” he said, the word carrying over the crowd like a curse.

Serenya’s stomach tightened. She’d heard the stories all her life about beasts plated in bone, bred for war in the southern deserts, their jaws strong enough to crush shield or skull. No Stoneback had been seen this far north in decades. If the tales were true, the only thing worse than crossing one was crossing the men who trained them.

The voices of the crowd swelled into arguments, some calling for the hunters, others insisting the warlord who lost it would come looking. Serenya didn’t stay to hear the rest. She slipped out of the square, avoiding the clumps of people already debating how to trap the beast. If they found it, they’d kill it quickly… or try to, and she couldn’t stand by and let it happen. There had to be another way.

By midday, the rain-heavy clouds had thinned to pale strips, and Serenya followed the game trail east, her basket slung over one shoulder, her eyes scanning the muddy ground for tracks. Birds rustled in the canopy overhead, their chirps sharp and anxious. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a jay screamed a warning.

The forest grew darker as the trail dipped toward the ravine. Alder and beech leaned over the path, their trunks slick with lichen. She smelled it before she saw it. A coppery tang on the air, like fresh blood.

And then it was there.

The Stoneback emerged from between two moss-covered boulders, moving with a limping gait. Even half-starved, it was massive. Shoulder-high to a man, plated bone ridges gleaming like dull steel along its spine and forelegs. Its amber eyes caught her in a gaze.

For a moment, neither moved. Serenya’s pulse pounded in her ears, her muscles taut with the instinct to run. But the beast’s head dipped slightly, and she saw it. The jagged shaft of a spear lodged deep in the muscle near its flank, the surrounding hide was raw and torn.

It gave a low warning growl, a sound that thrummed through her bones. Then, without breaking eye contact, it turned and limped back into the shadows between the trees.

Serenya stood alone in the silence it left behind, her breath clouding in the cool air. She should feel relief. Instead, she felt only certainty.

It was wounded. Desperate. Alone. And if the hunters found it first, it wouldn’t survive the night.

By the time Serenya reached the village again, the sun was sinking low, painting the clouds the color of embers. She kept to the side lanes, skirting the square where the hunters gathered. Their voices carried in sharp bursts over the cool evening air.

She paused in the shadow of the old mill to listen.

“…tracks headin’ for the valley,” one said, his tone eager. “Steep walls there. Nowhere to run.”
“A dozen arrows will take the fight out of it.”
“And a spear to the heart to finish.”
Someone barked a short, cruel laugh. “We’ll bring the plates back for the headman’s wall.”

Serenya’s hand tightened on the strap of her basket. The valley they spoke of was a stone-sided cut less than an hour’s walk from here. If they drove the Stoneback there, it would be trapped… and the death they were planning would not be quick. She’d seen what happened when men hunted out of vengeance instead of necessity.

Her mind flicked back to the moment in the forest. The deep wound in the beast’s flank, the gaunt lines of its body. And something else…something she hadn’t thought about until now. The faint streaks of mud smeared high along its plated shoulders, in the same spot Stoneback mothers carry their young.

Cubs. If it had them, they would be hungry…and defenseless.

The hunters’ boots thudded as they left the square, heading for the armory. Serenya slipped into the narrow path between the mill and the grain store, her decision already made.

She would find the Stoneback first. She already knew where to look, and if the price was the last scrap of goodwill, she had in this village…so be it.

The trail was easy to follow once she found it. Stonebacks were too heavy to move silently through damp forest, especially a wounded one.

Serenya kept her bow slung across her back, notched with an arrow she prayed she wouldn’t need to draw. The hunters would take the valley path, soshe cut northeast, skirting the slope until she reached the jagged rock shelf she remembered from trapping seasons past. She eased around a boulder and froze.

The Stoneback lay half in shadow beneath a lip of stone, head resting on its forelegs. Its eyes opened at once, amber catching the last light. The ridged plates along its spine lifted slightly, a silent warning.

Then she saw them.

Two cubs, pale-plated and wobbly, huddled against the curve of their mother’s belly. Their movements were slow; their ribs too sharp. One gave a thin, reedy cry, pawing weakly at her side. Serenya’s throat tightened.

The Stoneback’s growl was low and steady, vibrating through the earth beneath her boots. Serenya forced herself to lower to a crouch, keeping her hands open and visible. She spoke softly in the same tone she used with skittish foals.

She unhooked her waterskin first, setting it on the ground and nudging it forward. Then the pouch of herbs, the roll of clean linen strips. Inch by inch, she closed the distance.

The wound was worse up close. The jagged spearhead jutted from torn flesh, the hide around it raw and swollen. Infection would take the beast within days if blood loss didn’t.

“I’m going to help you,” she whispered, not sure if she was speaking to the mother, the cubs, or herself.

When she reached for the embedded iron, the Stoneback’s lips curled, teeth flashing white. Serenya froze and waited. The beast’s breathing deepened, a long inhale, then a shuddering exhale.

She gripped the spearhead and pulled.

The Stoneback’s roar shook the hollow, claws gouging deep furrows in the dirt, but it did not strike her.

The iron came free with a wet sound, and hot blood spilled over Serenya’s hands. She pressed a folded strip of linen to the wound, binding it tight with swift, sure motions.

Only when she leaned back did she realize she was shaking.

The Stoneback lowered its head to the ground, eyes still fixed on her. Its breathing had steadied, but the air was still taut with the weight of her presence, and every muscle on its body was ready to spring if Serenya made one wrong move.

The crunch of boots on loose rock cut through the quiet.

Serenya’s head snapped up. The hunters. They were too close to hide the mother and her cubs. She rose to her feet, moving to the narrow opening of the hollow just as the first man appeared on the slope above. He froze, seeing her there.

“Move, Serenya,” he called down, his bow already half-raised. “It’s behind you, isn’t it?”

She didn’t move. “She’s not going to harm anyone.”

Another hunter stepped into view, with an arrow nocked. “It’s a Stoneback. That’s all they do.”

“That’s what they’re made to do,” Serenya said, her voice low but sharp. “Not what they choose to do.”

A ripple of movement behind her catches her eye. The mother had stepped forward just enough for her amber eyes to catch the fading light. The hunters tensed, but instead of charging, the Stoneback stayed still, head lowered, gaze flicking only to Serenya.

“You’ve gone soft in the head,” one of the younger men muttered. “Step aside before she takes yours off.”

“If she wanted my head,” Serenya said, “it would already be gone.”

The lead hunter’s bow wavered. No one spoke for several long breaths.

Finally, he spat into the dirt. “You’ll answer for it if she turns.”

One by one, they lowered their bows and backed up the slope, muttering under their breath until the sound of their boots faded.

Serenya turned back to the Stoneback. The great beast was still watching her. Not the wary, sizing look from before, but something steadier.

A month passed.

At dawn, Serenya would take the same winding deer paths to the rocky hollow. The cubs were no longer wobbly-legged bundles, they had grown so fast she now had to tilt her head to look them in the eye. Their plates had hardened to creamy bone, still pale compared to their mother’s weathered ridges, but already thick enough to turn a blade.

They met her at the edge of the hollow now, rumbling low in greeting, brushing their armored brows against her shoulders until she laughed and staggered back under the weight. She’d learned the subtleties of their voices: a soft chuff for contentment, a rasping huff for warning, the deep vibrating rumble they made before curling against her legs to nap. The mother watched, always silent and measuring, but no longer guarded.

The villagers had noticed. At first, they’d kept their distance, suspicious but cautious. But weeks of seeing her walk into the forest unarmed, knowing the beasts still lived, had turned that suspicion to scorn. Bread and berries stopped appearing at her door. People crossed the lane when she passed. Children stared wide-eyed from behind their mothers’ skirts.

“She’s training them,” someone muttered once, loudly enough for her to hear.
“She’ll bring them down on us,” another replied.

Serenya told herself their voices didn’t matter. But on nights when the wind carried the cubs’ distant calls, she’d stand in her doorway, listening, and wonder if she was trading one kind of solitude for another.

The morning it happened was thick with low clouds, the air damp and cool enough to prickle her skin. She was chopping firewood when the first tremor reached her feet. It was too sharp and steady for deer, but too heavy for Stonebacks. Hooves. Many of them.

Shouts rang from the square. She stepped into the lane in time to see them crest the southern road. A dozen riders in lacquered armor, banners snapping in the wind.

A warlord’s colors.

They rode hard, horses lathered, their leader a broad-shouldered man with eyes that cut through the crowd.

“Bring out your headman,” he called, his voice carrying across the square. “And bring out what is mine.”

The headman stepped forward, jaw tight. “We have nothing of yours here.”

The warlord’s smile was cold. “One of my Stonebacks is missing. I’ve tracked her this far. You’ll return her… and her brats.” His gaze slid over the crowd until it landed on Serenya. It lingered.

He lifted a gloved hand. Four massive Stonebacks padded forward from behind the riders, their plates darker, meaning they’re older. Their amber eyes stare unblinking and cold.

“Search the village,” the warlord ordered. “Take what we need. Kill anything that stands in your way.”

The beasts and men surged forward, scattering livestock and screaming villagers.

Serenya turned and ran for the forest. Her call tore through the trees like a bell. For a heartbeat there was only the hiss of wind in alder leaves—then the undergrowth exploded.

The Stoneback mother burst from the forest, plates catching gray light, her roar a low, rolling thunder that rattled fence rails. The cubs—no longer cubs—flanked her, pale-boned and fast. They hit the first of the warlord’s beasts like a rockslide. Plated brows cracked against plated brows. Claws skittered over armor. A soldier’s horse screamed and reared, leather tack snapping as men went down hard in the mud.

“Form ranks!” the warlord bellowed. “Drive them to the square!”

The mother swung, slamming a trained Stoneback sideways into a trough; water and splinters flying. Another beast lunged for her flank, teeth scraping across old scars, but one of her young cut in, ramming it off-course with a bone-jarring crack. Soldiers scattered under the tangle of fur and plate and flashing iron.

Through the chaos, a third war-beast slipped through the melee. A dark-plated brute with a torn ear and eyes like cooled amber. It lowered its head and charged straight for the cluster of villagers trapped against a broken fence. An elderly woman in a faded shawl, a hut-boy clutching her skirts, two farmers with nothing but empty hands.

Serenya moved before she knew what she was doing. Mud sucked at her boots as she sprinted across churned earth, breath burning her throat, the world narrowed to the line of the beast’s shoulders and the gleam of its ridges. She planted herself in the gap, arms wide.

The Stoneback thundered closer. She smelled it now, hot breath and iron, the tang of blood under wet fur. Hooves hammered past behind her, someone shouted her name, and the child sobbed.

The beast dropped its head, its muscles coiled. The ground trembled.

Serenya’s heart slammed once, hard. She raised her hands and did not move.

Time shattered.

The roar in Serenya’s ears cut to silence. The charging Stoneback froze mid-leap, claws suspended inches from her chest, droplets of mud hanging weightless in the air. The breath she’d been holding ached in her lungs.

A glow bloomed at the edges of the world, warm and golden, until the air itself seemed to hum. From the light stepped a woman of impossible presence. Tall, robed in white and gold that shifted like river water, her hair a cascade of living sunlight. Her eyes held the depth of mountain stone, the weight of ages.

“You would stand unarmed before death,” the goddess said, her voice both gentle and vast, “not for glory, but for others.”

Serenya’s mouth was dry. Words wouldn’t come.

The goddess walked a slow circle around her, every step stirring the still air. “Strength is not in the arm that strikes, but in the heart that endures. You are the first to show me both.”

She stopped before Serenya, lifted one hand, and pressed two fingers to her brow. Heat flared through Serenya’s skull, racing down her spine like fire and water all at once. Her thoughts solidified into an unshakable wall. Beyond it, she felt the Stoneback—its fear, its fury, its confusion—as clearly as her own heartbeat.

“This is my essence,” the goddess murmured. “Use it wisely. Keep it safe… for the Daughter of Balance.”

The words rang through Serenya like a bell, heavy with meaning she could not yet grasp.

The goddess stepped back, the golden light dimming. “Now… finish what you began.”

Time slammed back into motion. The beast’s amber eyes locked on hers—and in the space between heartbeats, it stilled.

The Stoneback’s body, still mid-leap, jerked in the air as though an unseen hand had wrenched its course. It twisted hard, claws gouging the earth inches from Serenya’s boots instead of tearing into her chest. Its plated flank brushed her hip as it landed beside her, breathing ragged, eyes wide.

She reached out without thinking, her palm finding the ridged plate above its brow. The contact lit a spark between them. Not magic she had to summon, but something that simply was, as natural as breath. In its mind, she felt the fading heat of its anger, the throb of a torn shoulder, the hesitant question… Why do you not fear me?

“Because you’re mine,” she whispered, the words spilling from her before she even knew she meant them.

The Stoneback pressed its armored head into her hand, then turned to face the battle at her side.

Serenya lifted her gaze to the chaos in the square. More of the warlord’s beasts snapping and lunging, soldiers shouting over the din. She reached out with the strange, new thread inside her and called.

One by one, the other Stonebacks broke from the fray. A pale-plated female trotted toward her first, then the scarred brute with a torn ear. The mother she had healed, bounded into place with her near-grown cubs. Soon, every Stoneback on the field stood with her, their amber eyes fixed not on the villagers, but on the warlord’s riders.

The warlord’s expression darkened. Without his beasts, his strength was nothing. He raised his arm in a sharp, angry signal, the Stonebacks growled as one. Their refusal of his command ringing across the village and he paled, finally understanding what it meant. The warlord and his men retreated without a backward glance.

Serenya kept her hand on the first Stoneback’s brow until the last rider vanished down the southern road.

Only then did she turn toward the forest. “Go,” she said softly, aloud and in her mind.

One by one, the Stonebacks slipped into the trees. Not as predators driven by hunger, but as silent sentinels. The mother looked back once, amber gaze meeting Serenya’s, before disappearing into the green.

The square was still a churn of trampled earth and scattered belongings, but the air felt hollow after the warlord’s retreat.

Villagers stood in small knots, whispering. Some stared at Serenya as though she were a stranger; others avoided looking at her at all. She could still feel the Stonebacks at the edge of her thoughts, their presence like distant drumbeats deep in the forest.

The headman stepped forward, his weathered face caught between gratitude and suspicion. “You’ve… tamed them?”

Serenya shook her head. “No. We understand each other.”

That seemed to unsettle him more than it comforted him. He nodded once, muttered something she couldn’t hear, and turned away.

She lingered until the last shaken villager had gone, the square empty except for the smell of mud, blood, and the faint musk of Stoneback fur.

Turning toward the forest, she closed her eyes and reached for that new thread inside her. The Stonebacks were there, scattered among the shadows, watching. Waiting. Not as captives. Not as threats. As guardians who would not let harm come to Alderfen.

By nightfall, the story would already be moving from mouth to mouth: the outcast who faced a warlord’s beasts and turned them to her side. By winter, her name would be a warning whispered in the south and a fireside tale in the north.

Serenya, the first strength mage.

Thank you so much fore reading! If you’re curious about the world these stories are coming from, you can check out the first book in my Echo of Arcanum trilogy here:
Arcana