Both spirits advanced on me, and I paid close attention to them both. Punches and kicks flew at me in swift succession, the roles of a moment before reversed. Now, I was the one in retreat as I frantically blocked, unable to shift onto the offensive.
My retreat took me out of the clearing and in among the burning trees. Flakes of pale ash fell like snow all around, but the drifts I walked through weren’t cold or wet. It was like an inverted, nightmare version of a Christmas scene, the only gifts those of pain.
Rough bark rubbed my back as I hit a tree. My opponents were still advancing, and neither showed any sign of tiring. I couldn’t deal with both at once, but maybe I could find a way to take one at a time.
The wood spirit swung a punch at my head, but I ducked and it hit the tree instead. The creature’s fist buried itself in the wood with a splintering crack as I darted around the side of the tree.
I drew the fire spirit after me while the wood one struggled to free its hand The fire spirit was close behind, too close for me to ever get away. But that was fine. I was counting on that closeness.
After 30 yards, I stopped and spun on the spot. My leg flashed out in a high kick, and the spirit was coming on too fast to fully stop. It failed to slow its pace, and its momentum carried it forward—straight into my high kick. My foot slammed into its head and sent it flying into another tree. The trunk exploded into a cloud of embers, and the rest of the tree toppled over like it had just been hit with a woodcutter’s axe. Ash sprayed across the air as the branches crashed to the forest floor.
I raced after the fire spirit and arrived just as it came to stand. Before it could raise its fists in a fighting stance, I lunged forward and grabbed hold of its shoulders. I ignored the pain of the fire against my hands and flipped it over my head. My opponent dropped onto a boulder, and I immediately gripped its head in both hands. Intense heat seared my palms as I held onto the spirit’s head and slammed it over and over again against the boulder. There was no art to it, no finesse or technique, just sheer brute force built up over months of Rutmonlir’s rigorous training. At last, the spirit went limp, and I left its barely recognizable skull behind.
I turned, not a moment too soon. Only a few feet away, the wood spirit swung a jagged chunk of tree like a baseball bat. I leaped back, but it still clipped me in the arm and threw me off-balance. My foot slipped on the loose ash, and I landed hard on my back.
The wood spirit loomed over me and lifted its improvised weapon high.
If it had eyes, then it had a weak spot, so I grabbed a fistful of ash and flung it in the spirit’s face. It took a step back and rubbed at its eyes, and that gave me all the opening I needed. I sprang to my feet and snatched the chunk of wood from its hand. I raised it high and drove it down, stabbing like a blade instead of swinging like a baseball bat. The plank’s jagged end plunged into the spirit’s chest. It shuddered, screeched, and fell. Sap bubbled out around the wound as I stood over my conquest.
The two spirits lay next to each other in the dust. I’d won.
“Yes!” I punched the air in celebration.
But something was wrong. The spirit world wasn’t vanishing around me. I hadn’t returned to what now passed for my reality. A hot wind still swept through my hair and left a burnt taste in my mouth. A blackened tree creaked and fell, but the fires blazed on.
I looked around. What more was needed? What had I missed?
Movement made me look down. The bodies of the spirits flowed together across the floor before they flickered and merged into one. Fire blazed across wood, then died, leaving a black, dusty form.
The ash spirit rose and faced me.
“Another one?” A normal reaction might have been disappointment, but I was smiling. I wasn’t going to complain at the unfairness of it all. I hadn’t come here for fairness, I’d come here for power. This world was only ever going to give me what I could earn, and the price I paid had never been cheap.
I raised my fists, slid my foot back, and took a deep breath. Even in the spirit world, my muscles ached and bruised flesh throbbed. The relentless efforts of the preceding hours had taken me from training in a dojo to fighting a near-Herculean challenge, taking on every challenger the Ember Cavern and spirit world could throw at me.
I had never felt more alive.
The ash spirit had no face that I could see, no fingers or toes. It was like a stick figure made human sized, a blank space with no thought or emotion, no expression to read its intentions.
If I couldn’t try to predict my opponent’s moves, I would have to focus on my own.
I swung high with my left fist, a feint that made the spirit lean back while my right fist drove hard into its body. I put all the force I could into that blow, hoping to finish the fight quickly. The ash gave way beneath my touch, and my fist sank into the spirit’s body. The force of the attack faded away the
