With Fergus gone south into the sinkholes, the silence of the limestone ridge grew heavier, broken only by the howling wind and the dry shing of steel against leather.
Days bled into one another under a grey, unyielding sky. Without the old Ranger's roaring barks to punctuate the mornings, the cabin felt hollow, haunted by the lingering scent of pine tea and old tobacco. Ronan found himself entirely alone with the dark elf, a prospect that chilled him more than the freezing mountain gale. Mordren spoke very little, spending hours sitting motionless on the weathered log by the porch, his eyes tracking Ronan's every movement with a cold, detached scrutiny.
For days, Ronan kept to the routine, driving his body through the biting morning frost. He drilled the four core forms over and over until his arms felt like lead and his palms were slick with blood. A few paces away, sitting quietly on the weathered log by the porch, Mordren watched. But today, the dark elf’s sharpening stone lay untouched beside him. His obsidian eyes tracked every swing, every shift of weight, and every labored breath of the human boy.
When Ronan paused, wiping sweat from his brow and bracing his hand against his side-sword hilt, Mordren stood up.
The movement was entirely silent, devoid of the heavy tread of a human. The dark elf stepped out into the frozen clearing, his pale white hair shifting over his bruised-slate shoulders. Without a word of warning, his hand dropped to his hip and he drew his slender, curved saber. The blade caught the pale winter light like a streak of oiled midnight.
Ronan’s breath caught. He instinctively tightened his grip on his side-sword, dropping his weight into a low, defensive stance.
Mordren didn't speak. He simply tilted his head, his dark, fathomless eyes fixing on Ronan with a predator’s cold appraisal.
Ronan understood. He didn't ask questions; on the frontier, hesitation was a death sentence.
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With a sudden burst of Faelun-driven acceleration, Ronan lunged forward, executing a downward attack.
He expected the harsh, iron-on-iron shock of a brute block like Fergus's. Instead, Mordren’s saber met his blow with a smooth, baffling softness, not absorbing the force, but catching it on the curved spine and sliding it harmlessly away with a frictionless hiss. Before Ronan could recover his balance, Mordren’s blade was already moving, flowing around Ronan’s flank with terrifying speed.
"Flow," Mordren hissed, his voice like ice sliding over stone.
The dark elf didn't offer long lectures or angry reprimands. As they clashed, trading fast, blurring strikes in the frozen mud, Mordren spoke only in stark, clipped syllables, teaching the baseline of shadow-saber combat through sheer physical pressure.
"Draw." Mordren’s blade pulled back in a razor-thin crescent, inviting Ronan to lunge.
"Slip." As Ronan attacked, Mordren’s body dissolved to the side, his saber grazing the air inches from Ronan’s ribs without malice, only teaching geometry.
"Redirect." The curved edge caught Ronan’s crossguard, spinning the boy's momentum against him and sending him stumbling into the snow.
Hours blurred into a relentless test of endurance. While Fergus's style had relied on solid weight, grounded bracing, and brutal mechanical efficiency, Mordren’s discipline was an exercise in momentum and deception. The dark elf forced Ronan to abandon his heavy footplants, teaching him how to use an opponent's strength against them, how to step into the blind spots of human vision, and how to kill with absolute economy. Every mistake was met with a blunt rap of a hilt against the ribs or a chillingly fast sweep that left Ronan gasping in the dirt.
When dusk finally painted the limestone peaks in shades of bruised purple, Ronan collapsed against the chopping block, his muscles trembling violently and his breath pluming in the freezing air. Mordren stood over him, breathing as evenly as if he had merely taken a morning stroll.
"You have no core, human," Mordren said softly, his voice cutting through the wind. "Your blood is thin and your endurance is a fragile candle. But your body has learned to remember the beat of the land. That is the only reason you are not yet carrion."
Ronan scrambled back to his feet, chest heaving, his muscles burning as he raised his guard again. Mordren stood motionless, his dark eyes watching the boy's breathing settle.
"Again," Mordren whispered, the single word cutting through the mountain air like a blade.