The Winnowing

A threshing wind wearing the shape of a warden. It cannot be cut, only outlasted: your blade finds mostly moving air, and the crosswind beats every stroke aside, so the hardest swings land softest. It mends no wound, the cold shakes off it like rime off a flail, and the only turns it does not swing are the ones it spends quickening — or parting around the blow you thought had landed. The moving air will not hold a fire either: embers banked in it are scattered down to a bare few before it swings. It opens almost gently, two low passes you barely feel, and it never stops quickening, until the pass that grazed you on turn one is the one that finishes you.

The threshing wind. You cannot cut it: your blade finds mostly moving air, and the crosswind beats your strokes aside, so the decks that swing most swing hardest into nothing. It mends no wound and it cannot be slowed, the rime shakes off it between passes, and the air quickens and keeps quickening, until the pass that grazed you first is the one that finishes you.