 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Other works by D W Gladstone –
The Forest of a Thousand Suns

The Wyvern Kings Redemption

Volume 2 - Part I

D. W. Gladstone

Copyright © 2017 D. W. Gladstone

Cover Art Copyright © 2017 Marco Morata-Plaza

All rights reserved.

First Edition 2017

Published by Errant Words Publishing

ABN : 65 430 929 540
Chapter 1

The street was dark. The street was always dark. Strangled by buildings and choked by shadows, the street wound tortuously through the most unfrequented of the city's districts. Myriad alleys crawled off into the depths of the dilapidated structures on either side, disappearing into their own untraceable paths that oft twisted and turned until one was either lost or had unwittingly arrived at the same place from which they had departed. Others simply found an abrupt end in the shadows.

Even in the full light of noon - when the southern sun hung high above the rooves of the buildings, decaying and preserved alike, this street was a haven for darkness. For all that liked to crawl and hunt in the darkness.

It was night, now.

Starlight, pale and fragile, glittered above the black edge of the buildings surrounding her. Scarce enough to lift the utter abyss, the pale glimmer from above served only to reduce the depths of the street to a mass of devouring shadows. The last lamps she had passed, on a main road far behind her, did not dare assault this dominion of the dark.

And she did not want them to. She was more at home in the dark.

As she made her way through the darkness of the street, her eyes glanced and glided over every alley-mouth, smashed window and open archway, long abandoned by its fulfilling doors. Calmly, carefully, she assessed and passed each black pit that might hide a waiting blade and its hunter.

She knew likely though, if indeed such a hunter was waiting for her she would not hear more than a whistled cry of the air before a blade or an arrow or a bolt drove its way into her back. She might not even hear herself scream.

- A noise.

Her stride stalled momentarily.

Keen eyes flicked to the alleyway from where it had come. Even keener ears listened for a sign of what it might be, or whom - for the soft grind of boot on stone, the subtler groan of leather straps or a glove tensing around the hilt of a weapon - or of a distant bowstring being drawn. Her eyes saw nothing in the pervading black; she doubted she would see anything asides from black.

If she was lucky, the predator that stalked her was not intending to silence her screams and her life with a quick blow from a weapon; if fortune was with her, whatever it was wanted to hear her scream. And that suited her fine; it would need to be close to make her scream, close enough to force its way inside - and at that range, even with a dagger in her ribs, she was the more deadly.

After the moment's pause, which passed so naturally one would assume it was her intent and had always been, she continued on around the sharp bend of the street.

Her footsteps made almost no sound as she crossed the broken pavers and fine debris, lost amidst the shadows around her feet. Her feet were bound in soft cloth, designed to caress the ground on which she walked, and years of practice had taught her how to mask what little sound they did not prevent.

Still, it was not enough.

Whoever was tracking her could not mistake the delicate susurrations of her feet as anything other than a cacophony amidst the overwhelming silence of the street. And they were likely tracking her through sight as well.

- Another sound. From the alley beside her.

She paused. They were not guardsmen; no guardsman could ever be this quiet. But that reasoning also sparked the corresponding thought that it was therefore someone much more proficient in stealth. And that did not favour her chances of escape.

More than one face flashed through her mind of who it might be; she wondered if she herself had hired them before. An idle thought passed, as to how much they were being paid for her, and as to how much they had been told. It was such a fickle business.

- A skittering of stone. From the alley.

She stopped.

A gloved hand slid into the folds of her dress, and wrapped around the hilt of her knife. They wanted to be close - if they had intended to use a bolt or arrow they would have done so long before now. Although, that thought did not discount a thrown knife. She might not even see it coming - or it might be little more than a flash of steel before it drove into her eye.

She wondered if it was him.

The hope sparked again that the intent was to cripple; that they desired to touch her. She hoped most for that. The touch of bare skin.

- Another skitter. A click.

They wanted her to be afraid, they wanted her to run. To scream. They had chosen the perfect place for this; too many times it had happened here, and worse. It would look like nothing more than the usual goings-on of this place, this street. It would not help if she screamed. The street was as deaf as it was silent. And the shadows would do nothing more than smile.

She had been betrayed - she had expected as much.

Skittering - clicking - the soft pad of landing feet -

A weak, quiet squeal.

A moment later, the silhouette of the dog moved out of the alley.

She eased.

The black silhouette, darker than the darkness that had hid it, padded quietly out onto the broken pavers of the street. Amidst the lesser shadows, it appeared almost majestic and demanding, a king born of the utter abyss behind it - until the starlight caught a soft sheen across its startlingly white fur.

And on the blood coating its muzzle. It had a rat in its mouth.

The soft glint of eyes, reflecting the night's sky, stared at her for a moment.

She stared back. She almost smiled.

The dog waited, meeting her gaze with its. Then it lowered its head, turned, and moved across the street behind her, into the again enveloping blackness of an alley there.

She allowed herself a moment of relief.

She turned back to the street, and proceeded ahead. The starlight seemed to have increased, almost daring to cast the shadows around her feet as the intangible ghosts that they were. They seethed under the pale flicker - they had been deprived of a kill, unlike the dog.

She was glad it had just been a dog. She was confident now that her motives had not been suspected; or that if they were, he had not thought to do anything about it.

The establishment crawled out of the darkness of the street with little eagerness - a beaten, aging structure long wanting to collapse from rot, wedged between two far larger constructs that had themselves been abandoned long ago; it would much have preferred to remain hidden, both unlike and alike its owner.

The decaying wood of its outer façade had years ago been bled to grey, and under the cover of night and the shadows of the two towering edifices on either side, it was remarkable that it could be found at all - or that it was as frequented as it was. Its windows on both levels were heavily boarded, and the sign that had once dangled above the door had some time ago fallen away from its chains, rusted and broken.

The owner of this place had once told her that the sign had fallen on a man's head - splaying his skull open for all the world to see. The owner had added that he had been disappointed by the incident; the drunk had owed some very unpleasant people a very large sum of money.

The death had been too quick for him.

She had doubted the anecdote, in any case. He had far too many stories to tell, and told them all too readily. And she had heard the ones he would never tell.

She raised her hand to knock on the wood - a dull thud from above stalled her. Something had been thrown against the wall. The even quieter moan that followed, perforating the wood of the second level above, informed her it had been a person. A woman. Or a girl.

She knocked on the thick door.

A few long minutes passed before the glow of a lantern filled the cracks around the doorframe, and she heard the sounds of the myriad locks and bars being moved away from the entrance. The creak of the door's hinges shattered the perfect silence of the street in a way that no scream here could.

She glanced down.

The owner's face slid into the crack revealed by the door, as he peered out at her. The light of the lantern, likely on a table not far behind him, cast sharp blades of darkness across his softer, fat features. A double chin, overgrown by a scraggly beard, sat beneath cracking lips - his tongue darted out the side of his mouth and licked the top corner, adding fresh wetness to the deposit of saliva, dried white, which was ingrained there. Two dark brown, half-sunken, eyes stared up from beneath a balding scalp and a brow furrowed with lines.

"You're late." he said, irked - but grinned, "I wondered if you had better things to do."

A head taller than him, she narrowed her eyes slightly as she stared down, "Do you still wish to do business, or shall I leave?"

His grin widened. He opened the door fully, and gestured with a plump hand for her to enter.

The lantern he had carried glared at her from its perch on the lip of the closest of the seven tables that populated the barroom. Its sallow light crowded the small enclosure with myriad shadows, hiding beneath the other tables, the chairs, or watching from the sharpness of the room's corners.

A stairway climbed into blackness on the far wall, its beginnings beside the maw of an open doorway which led to the unilluminated depths of a kitchen. The bar itself claimed the wall adjacent to the aperture, and was rendered nearly as dark by the shadows cast there.

The tavern, or brothel, or slaughterhouse, whichever paid more, was as dilapidated on its inside as it was on its out; a stale smell pervaded the room, broken only by the slight whiff of something more unsettling - vomit, blood, semen.

The door creaked horrifically again behind her as it was shut, enclosing her in the musty sickness and light of the room. As the owner went about the task of re-bolting every lock, and laying a sturdy bar across the door, she moved over to the table menaced by the lantern and sat.

The scent of male climax caught her nose immediately, from the chair beneath her. Undoubtedly, it had been used for that recently.

It bothered her only as much as it had the first time she had entered this room - a man had sat against the eastern wall, his face flushed with alcohol, as a girl barely old enough for her trade had rhythmically rested her face in his lap; the man had glanced over at her as she had entered the tavern, given a drunken smile and puckered his lips - like the girl massaging his loins with her mouth was no more than an adornment.

She had not responded then, as she did not respond to the smell now.

Amidst the stale silence and crowd of shadows, the owner finished re-securing the entrance and turned to face the table. He did not meet her eyes. With a slight hesitation, that evinced a wariness unbecoming his bulbous gait, he moved away from the door and pulled out the chair opposite her.

A thump from upstairs, which broke the mustiness of the room, had them both glance up.

She asked the question tacitly with her eyes.

"A couple of guardsmen, and a girl they had with them." he chuckled, "The little slut."

She doubted the girl was a prostitute, or that she was willing. She made no comment.

"Now, I believe there was some business we have to complete."

She did not utter a word in response; after a pause, she slid her gloved hand into a pocket - she could not mistake the flinch of the tavern owner as her hand disappeared from sight. She wondered if he expected a knife.

The jingle of the coins within emerged into the sallow light of the lantern, and came to an abrupt thud on the stained wood of the table, as she placed the small bag in front of her.

Her hand came to rest beside it.

The tavern owner grinned, again.

Levering his bulk out of his chair, he moved across the room and into the flickering shadows that pervaded the bar. Awkwardly, he disappeared behind it. For a moment, as the owner had when her hand had moved beyond sight, she expected him to rise from the shadows with a crossbow aimed at her breast - but unlike him, she did not flinch.

He emerged, however, carrying only a small parcel crudely wrapped in some black paper. He set the parcel on the counter, and glanced up at her. The shadows concealed the sum of his features.

"Would you like a drink?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. The shadows could not hide the flinch.

"Well, suit yourself." - he forced a chuckle as he retrieved a glass and a bottle from against the wall.

She waited at the table across the room, patiently, as he slowly poured the deep purple liquor into the cup.

He chuckled, "You know, I heard something interesting this morning. Something I thought a damned shame." he paused, "You remember that girl you were asking about, last time you came to see me?"

After a moment, she nodded.

He glanced at the glass, and the bottle, as he stopped pouring, "Her body was found in an alley not far from her home, only a few days ago." he met her eyes - and smiled; even amidst the shadows, the cold glint of his gaze could not hide, "I heard they still have not found the baby."

She met the eyes of the man in the shadows, evenly, "How unfortunate."

The tavern owner chuckled, and lifted the glass to his lips. For a moment, his eyes did not leave hers.

As he drank, a dribble of wine escaped his lips and settled uncomfortably into his beard. He drained half the glass. Seemingly without noticing the wetness in his facial hair, he returned to the table with the glass and the parcel. He placed the glass down first. And alone.

She restrained a sigh.

She slid the bag of coins over to him; his free hand stretched out to meet hers. For a moment, not at all disguised as accident, he brushed her gloved hand with his coarse, plump fingers. She met his eyes - the glint shone with all the cruel sickness it had when she had first met him.

Her eyes glittered back.

His tongue darted out from the side of his mouth, wetting the white mark above his lip.

She wasn't his type, she knew; she was far too old.

He took the bag from her grasp, and shoved the parcel across the table to her. None too eagerly, she lifted it away into the folds of her dress.

"Will that be all, m'dear?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. He flinched.

- A heavy thump at the door drew his attention away.

Damn.

They were early. Or she was decidedly later than she had thought.

"Hmmm, more customers," he muttered, as he hoisted himself out of the chair, and proceeded once again to the door.

She rose a moment after - silently, and before the tavern owner had negotiated the thick, lengthy bar from the door, she had crossed the room as quietly. She secured herself in the welcoming darkness of the kitchen, beyond its open archway, as the owner began to unlock each of the iron bars that secured the entrance.

She paused a moment, to let her eyes adjust to the dark again, and could not help a glance out into the barroom - the lantern, motionless upon the table, cried foul as it clawed hopelessly after her. She was glad it was so dim. Otherwise her escape might have been noticed.

The tavern owner removed one of the last bars from the door.

Her eyes, adjusted as far as the few moments permitted, guided her through the edges of black shapes across the dark stretch of the kitchen to where she knew the entrance to the cellar resided.

A pit, only the slightest shade darker than the air of the kitchen opened up before her.

- The hinges of the door, far beyond the abyss of the kitchen, creaked like a wail of what was to come -

Hidden, and safe, she could not help a pause.

"How can I help you -" - the owner's voice began, muffled by the distance of the kitchen, but was cut off by a winded grunt - as quickly overcome by the screech of table legs, the clattering of the lantern, and the painful thud of his landing on the wooden floorboards.

Heavy boots thundered in after him. And steel was drawn from a scabbard -

"You raped my sister!" a man's voice snarled with grief and lethal fury.

"No, wait - ahhh!" - the tavern owner's scream gurgled as the steel slid into flesh - drawn out - and hacked in again. A heavy breath was relieved, grieved and desperately angry.

Damn.

Amidst the utter darkness of the kitchen, she moved carefully down the steps in the pit - as the rumbling of feet from upstairs turned to a rolling din of boots on the staircase.

The shouting that filled the barroom, and whatever else, was muffled by distance and the intervening ground floor above her, as she felt her way along the walls to where the drain was situated.

Feeling the evenly parted bars with her bound feet, she bent down and lifted the covering grate away from her only method of final egress.

The scream of the rusty, befouled hinges, was utterly lost in the continuing commotion above.

Elegantly, she slipped down into the final depths of darkness that would ward her.

The stench of human effluence immediately assaulted her. A choking, sickening reek filled the air, trying lethargically to crush the nausea out of her.

She had no objection to crawling through the sewers in order to leave, but she would much have preferred to have used the door. It would have left fewer questions.

Slowly, carefully, she re-closed the grate above her, and began to feel her way through the complete blackness of the tunnel. The stench worsened, the further she crawled into the sewers.

She did not let it disturb her.

As she felt her way along amidst the darkness and the reek, she found herself smirking - that man, the owner, had not had a chance to use his escape tunnel. And he had gone to such lengths to hide it.

It was a pity.

That death was far too quick for him.

Though, as she placed her hand into an unanticipated puddle more solid than fluid - and paused for an annoyed moment, she was glad. There was none of his blood on her hands.

* * *

Elle'dred stared out across the frozen, interminably black sea of the Dead Mountains. From his vantage point, half concealed by the surrounding peaks, he could see the extent of the range as it stretched perpetually into the west. Uncountable peaks, serrated and sharp, like the waves of a terrible tide that would come crashing down - and bring the utter, unending night.

The eternal night of Perrefiere.

Although the window where he stood faced away from the east, the knight could feel the presence of the Dark Moon ever more so now. The empty, abyssal night that claimed the sky above and to every horizon he could see - and might always claim them, seemed to resonate with a malevolence which it had not before. The black orb that cast the sky in black, above the north, was turning its face out towards the south. Over Eryndor. And Ammandorn.

He did not know how many days had passed; the ceaseless night precluded any measurement of time. And exhaustion was no help either.

He was still exhausted. Despite what may have been hours or days of sleep in their quarters in the last sanctuary of the Elven Kindred, he had not managed to restore the fatigue of his body.

Maybe it had only been hours.

Shock, bewilderment, utter incomprehension - all served to numb his mind as much as the exhaustion. It seemed likely to him they were in part responsible for his exhaustion. If not its cause. Only days - or hours ago, he had thought he was going to die. More than once.

But through some bewildering turn of fate he had not died. Nor had anyone else.

A storm of arrows, lethal and swift, had fallen from the perpetual black above, had slain an army of incarnates and goblins, and had been followed by the appearance of an elf - elves, who had led them to the only haven amidst all the mountains and the malevolent night of the north.

Elle'dred could still not believe it. Or perhaps his belief overwhelmed him.

He did not -

He closed his eyes, and tried to centre his thoughts. Despite the relief of safety, and the security of his surroundings, there were still concerns that could not be denied. Before they had been brought here, before they had been rescued by elves, before they had run through ravine after ravine harried by an army of foes -

Syla had been possessed. And the force inside her had wanted to kill her in the most horrifying way.

Elle'dred opened his eyes, and turned away from the window.

Their quarters were a comfortingly small room, adorned only by two beds with their accompanying nightstands, and a table and two chairs in the corner. The walls and roof and floor that surrounded the knight were an elegant marble, like grey smoke caught in stone, and reflected a golden sheen off the three small braziers that lit the room.

The braziers were another source of disbelief - each was a polished bronze plate, that bore a yellow flame which flickered soothingly from whatever fuel birthed it, a flame that gave no smoke, and that in all the time Elle'dred had spent here had yet to wane or exhaust its fuel.

Admittedly, if indeed it had only been hours, that was no feat.

But Elle'dred also knew, no matter how much more time he spent here, the flames would never die - he had seen flames like these before, atop white marble towers under a fathomless roof. In the metropolis chamber of Delphanas.

That seemed more than a lifetime ago.

One of the braziers sat on the table across the room, another beside Elle'dred's bed. The third rested atop the nightstand beside Syla, as the magus herself rested on the bed.

Syla had not yet woken, and Elle'dred was terrified she might never wake.

The terror of her possession - whether it was some lingering shred of fear he could not overcome or an echo of magics he could not understand - yet remained in her features. Features that had been irrevocably changed by the magics forced through them.

Syla's hair, once a deep shimmering ebony, was now whiter than the immaculate skin of her countenance. And the once soft, graceful contours of her face were now haunted by a frail thinness, a subtle hardness as though a lifetime of energy and joy had been bled away from them. They had been covered in blood when she was brought here.

Elle'dred did not care -

He was just grateful Syla was alive. Impossibly grateful.

And now all he wanted was for her to wake.

The thing, the element of the possession that had stayed with him every time he glanced at her face or saw her in his dreams, was the memory of her eyes - her sky-blue eyes staring out from the centre of a storm of white glare and deadly, whirling crystal, with a horror and a pain that could not be forgotten.

More than anything now he wanted her to open her eyes - because she, herself, wanted to open them.

Again, during that terrible storm of magic Elle'dred could scarce believe, he had thought he was going to die - that he would die before Syla. But they had not. Syla had not.

He had the deathwalker to thank for that. He had not thanked the deathwalker for that, yet.

The soft clank of metal on rock alerted him to the suit of armour's presence.

Llrsyring stood in the doorway.

Elle'dred met the empty sockets of the sharp, serpentine helm. The question was obvious in the deathwalker's lack of eyes.

Elle'dred shook his head.

Llrsyring sighed. After a pause, the robed suit of armour strode into the room; the heavy plates which composed his body and his legs, wrapped in the black folds of his robes, struck five footsteps before he arrived at the side of Syla's bed. His plated tail scraped the floor, as he sat on the edge.

The deathwalker reached out with a gauntlet, and placed his metal fingers on the magus' chest.

The low incantations of a spell reverberated amidst Llrsyring's characteristic echo.

For a moment, Elle'dred was again confronted by how little he understood of his world - even without walking suits of armour, wrapped in robes or blazing with terrible fire - he understood so little. Magic alone in its subtleties - and sheer, terrifying power - surpassed him.

After a few seconds had passed, Llrsyring finished whatever spell he had cast. Although Elle'dred was at a loss to discern exactly what change had been invoke, what power or force, he hoped desperately for a moment -

After a moment, the armour gently stroked Syla's cheek -

And a moment after that, Syla opened her eyes.

Relief, incredulity - joy, overwhelmed Elle'dred for a moment.

As Syla blinked and stirred weakly, he watched the pale azure of her eyes - surrounded now by red, as violent and sadistic as the power that had caused it.

It did not matter - the sky-blue centres of that gaze, which eventually rested on him and took a moment to find comprehension, were Syla's - entirely and perfectly Syla's. Fear fell before relief.

Syla stared at him.

Gradually, he approached the bed.

Syla glanced over at the suit of armour, seated beside her.

She sighed - almost irritably, "So how long have I been asleep?"

Although there was a sincere annoyance, softened by an edge of sarcasm, there was also a quaver in her voice, a weakness not born from exhaustion - and so uncharacteristic, Elle'dred could not mistake it. His relief disappeared.

Llrsyring chuckled, but asked levelly, "What do you remember?"

The magus' azure eyes, surrounded by red, met the emptiness of the deathwalker's sockets for a moment before they responded, "All of it."

Her features moved to quash whatever emotion threatened the pale stoicism of her countenance, it seemed all she had the strength for.

She swallowed, and sighed, "Ayadra?"

Llrsyring paused before he shook his helm.

For a long time, Syla was silent; her eyes fell into a distance, unfocused and flat.

Elle'dred watched her with growing trepidation; a rising surge of emotion welled inside him, but too much exhaustion and too much uncertainty barred in from manifesting fully. He could not tell what resided beneath the pale azure of Syla's eyes, what pain -

Syla glanced at him, "Elle'dred, if you would not mind, I would like to speak with Llrsyring."

Uncertainty and concern almost emerged as an objection - but he restrained both, nodded, and moved to the doorway. He did all he could to conceal his reluctance, as he left.

Syla watched him go, until he had disappeared into the room beyond. More than some of her had not wanted him to go, and more than that had wanted nothing more than for him to hold her as she broke down into tears, but if she started crying now she would never stop. She could not bear his concern.

There was too much already -

She realised she had been staring at the empty doorway for far too long, and the deathwalker had not said a word. She could feel the empty sockets of the helm yet watching her, waiting for the reason she had asked for him to stay over Elle'dred.

Syla didn't have the strength to meet his gaze. She forced herself to glance around the room - its walls and furnishings were utterly unrecognizable.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"The sanctuary of the Elven Kindred," the helm replied, his gaze not leaving her, "In the Dead Mountains."

For a moment, shock overwhelmed the other emotions; she welcomed it.

Once again, a long, still silence fell across the room.

Syla still could not meet the empty sockets of the helm; a tear escaped her notice, as it trickled its unwanted way down her cheek.

"It was a violation, Llrsyring." she said, so weakly she all but whispered.

The silence returned, undisturbed by her voice.

The helm did not answer for a long time, "Yes. It was."

"No..." she responded; her voice nearly broke - she paused, "More than...the way they used the magics...the way I...it was wrong..."

At that, she felt her control begin to break - another tear threatened the frangible resolve of her eyes - a moment later she might break entirely, torn asunder by too much else she could not handle.

No. She forced herself then to meet the empty sockets of the helm.

Llrsyring still watched her, and now met her gaze.

But where she had expected the same judgement, the same disapproval and disappointment she too often saw - contempt or disdain, instead she was met on level ground. As though the dark emptiness of the eyeholes, so many centuries older than her, and the bloodshot, faded azure of her eyes were in that moment equal.

Despite too much else unexpressed, she garnered her resolve from that.

Her control did not break.

After a long moment, without a word, Llrsyring nodded, rose and moved out of the room. As his plated footsteps echoed away into silence beyond the archway of her room, Syla continued to stare.

Her eyes returned to a distance she could not fight, and did not have the strength to in any case.

Slowly, she turned her head to the black picture framed by the open window, to the terrible dark of Perrefiere's sky above. The sky was empty, not a star or peak or moon watched her from the eternal abyss outside, and for that she could not be more grateful.

As she closed her eyes and released control, she fell back into the dark sleep of which she was now so terrified. Three tears alone were permitted to escape.

They glimmered softly in the golden light. 
Chapter 2

She had exited the sewer some time before dawn. The reek of the city's waste had clung to her like the patches of grime and faeces and dirt that marred the folds of her dress.

She had long since become immune to the smell, but she knew that immunity would not extend to the people she crossed in the pre-dawn dark. If any, they would most likely be guards. And it would take no amazing feat of reasoning to discern where she had come from - that would provoke the question of why she had been there.

Fortunately, she had managed to find an exit to the sewers that fell away into one of the city's uncountable canals. The prospect of jumping into almost clean water was made unbearably welcome by the fact that she had spent the better part of her night crawling around in the entirely unclean darkness of the pipes.

She freed herself from the pipe. The complete immersion in the slow, near freezing currents of the canal was the most satisfying relief she could imagine.

On the artificial banks of the waterway, deep beneath the light of the street-lamps on the road above, she stripped, washed and rung her clothes quickly and thoroughly - as much as her limited time permitted. The chill of the night bit into her naked body with a sharpness for which she was grateful; it cleared the last of her senses from the numbness imposed by the sewers.

She reclothed herself, save for the bindings once around her feet, as the first dim glow of the southern sun broke the black silhouette of the peaks on the south eastern horizon.

The climb out of the banks of the canal was more difficult than she appreciated, but after some laborious and frustrating minutes she had extricated herself from the waterway.

She had exited the sewers not far from her intended destination - but five main roads lay across the most direct path through the surrounding districts. She did not desire an encounter with the guards. But as dawn was fast approaching she had little choice - walking through the street, bedraggled and wet, would raise far more notice in daylight.

With a stealth unbecoming the dampness of her garments, she crossed the district and four of the five roads before halting in the partially concealing gloom of an alley.

Two guardsmen on horseback, walking the last minutes of their shift, trotted slowly along the street before her.

She remained as still as the wall beside her, pressed as flat as she could to the stone.

The guardsmen did not see her.

An agonising minute passed amidst the bitter chill of the air, as the preceding glow of the southern sun heralded the imminent dawn - and the disappearance of her concealing darkness; she would wait for the guards to move beyond range of hearing.

A window opened somewhere above; the first on the city's inhabitants were stirring.

She could not wait any longer.

Quickly, and as silently as her bare feet could manage, she darted across the street and into the corresponding alley on its far side.

She heard one of the guardsman's voices echo amidst the openness of the road - and then a burst of laughter that covered the slap of her feet even from a distance.

She allowed herself to slow.

As she turned into the long stretching lane that ran parallel to the road between and behind the two ranks of buildings on either side, she glanced up at the rear façade of the inn.

Home.

She moved casually to the sole door on the rear side of the building, and knocked. Twice. Then a pause. Then three more times, the last on the door frame.

After a time she spent standing behind her inn, cold and damp - repressing her growing need to shiver - in the gloom of dawn amidst a back-alley of the city, she heard the bar inside slide across the wood in its familiar way, and the door opened to reveal the decidedly wrinkled face of an old woman.

Kind eyes, amidst a disapproving scowl, looked her over and paused - after a moment, the old face just smiled and waved her inside.

She moved in, and the old woman re-closed and barred the door.

"So I suppose you felt like a swim?" the woman asked, in a voice that had yet to suffer any rasp of age.

She smirked, "It couldn't be helped."

"Well, let's get you out of those wet clothes. I will draw you a bath, and have Lana bring some soap to wash that smell from your hair."

She frowned, "I had best -"

"Now, girl. Before you catch a chill and we do have to bury you." - the woman's tone, though yet jovial, brooked no argument, "I shall tell Hal and Sar that you are not bleeding to death in an alley somewhere. And that you will be down in a minute."

After a moment, and the realisation that she had never won an argument with this woman before in her life, she sighed, and moved out of the room.

Admittedly, she wanted nothing more than to remove her damp clothes and soak in the warm tub for the remainder of the day. But she would not allow herself such an indulgence.

As the old woman and her daughter prepared the bath, she stripped the damp folds of her dress from her shivering skin in the side-room. It had been a lot colder than she would admit.

Carefully, she removed the parcel that had required her to get so cold and wet, from the garment's pocket. Underneath the soaked and fraying wrapping of black paper, there was a second covering of watertight cloth. She cleaned the paper from the cloth - unfortunately, whatever had dyed it black was not as impervious to water as was the cloth.

Her hands came away stained. She repressed a sigh.

Naked, and yet shivering, she moved into the room towards the bath.

The old woman glanced up at her before her eyes fell to the parcel, as did Lana's.

"Be careful, the paper it was wrapped in left this," she said, as she held up her hand for inspection, "Lana, please bring this to Sar."

Lana - a young woman with a braid of flat brown hair, drawn behind a face of plain, simple features and two light blue eyes alike her mothers - nodded, and took the parcel without question or a word.

The old woman muttered, as she shook her head, "All that trouble for such a little thing."

The old woman left her to bathe for as long as she would allow herself.

As she slipped into the beautifully hot water she felt each and every muscle - taut with tension and the cold - ease in rapturous gratitude. For a time, she sat, near entirely immersed in the luxuriant heat of the tub.

She allowed herself a moment. But all too quickly, as ever it did, that moment passed.

Closing her eyes, she dipped her head beneath the water and resurfaced. With her hair wetted sufficiently, she took the soap and began to scrub the last of the smell and grime from the blonde locks. As she rubbed and rinsed the soapy lathering from the flaxen strands, she paused to inspect the minute abrasions and cuts her fingers had been dealt during her climb out of the canal.

She had not worn her gloves. She had needed the grip.

Methodically, as with her hair, she cleaned the wounds and those she found also on her feet. After, she took another moment to enjoy the gradually waning warmth of the tub.

She was home. She was safe. She had not been caught.

She stood and climbed out of the tub.

* * *

Elle'dred walked through the grey marble halls of the Sanctuary. Only his footsteps, and those of the elf that led him, broke the gentle silence of the stone.

Yrian, the sole elf with whom he had spoken in his time here and before, had once more arrived at their quarters. Syla had been asleep when the sword-born elf had arrived, and the deathwalker was again absent, which had left Elle'dred alone and bewildered.

He yet struggled to retain the belief that he was speaking with a member of a race that had been extinct for two centuries. And that incredulity yet stalled his tongue.

Yrian had asked him politely to accompany her, and while a concerned glance at Syla unwittingly revealed his reluctance, he had not had the words to deny her request.

She had addressed him as the Champion of the White Wolf - and what startled him more, was the respect she had intoned in those words. That title and its respect belonged in another life.

As they wound through the multitude of halls, past other chambers and atriums and gardens, they passed remarkably few elves - none of whom disturbed their silence - and even fewer windows. The constant stone surroundings of the Sanctuary inextricably reminded the knight of Delphanas, and the Hall of the White Wolf - both of which also seemed echoes of life he had forgotten too long ago.

A life that he wanted to -

Whether from an uncertain nervousness or a desperate need to re-attain a grasp on his reality, he found himself saying, "Thank you," he paused before he added, elucidating, "For saving my life."

Yrian glanced across a slender shoulder draped in her golden weave of hair or leaves; her silver cheek shimmered in the yellow light of the braziers that lit all areas of the Sanctuary.

"You are welcome," she replied with a restrained smile, "Milord."

Elle'dred almost cringed, but as he could yet fathom only so many words he did not object.

They arrived on a set of double doors, oaken and unmistakably old, set into a simple, austere archway in the wall. Two braziers guarded the entrance on either side.

Yrian came to a halt before the door and turned to the knight, "Arneya wishes to speak with you, milord. As per her summons I shall wait here until your return."

Elle'dred nodded his understanding and his thanks.

Yrian allowed a half smile and opened the right door; the elf gestured for him to proceed inside.

The knight moved into the room, although there was an uncertain hesitation in his step.

The room - the study or quarters, curved fluidly and asymmetrically around him; an alcove lined with shelves and their accompanying books was cradled beside an open archway on the far arc of the space, while a small fireplace resided in the opposing curvature beside and behind an austere desk and its three complementing chairs. In one curling corner of the room, a small tree had been planted amidst the marble of the floor, and a single brazier had been laid at its roots. It leaves were as gold as the light.

Yrian closed the door gently behind him.

For a moment, tense with a surfeit of feelings Elle'dred tried to repress, the knight waited for his host to reveal herself. His hazel eyes, attentive even when dulled by incredulity, drew immediately to the movement in the archway of the side room.

The elf - Arneya, moved slowly from her sleeping chamber. Her age was apparent in every feature of her form, her gait and bearing and body. Her hair or leaves, while as thick and interwoven as Yrian's, was grey and faded, alive only with patches of passing white. She was bent and her silver features, dull and rough, were as furrowed as a willow tree.

And as graceful, as mournful and majestic.

There was a subtle, ancient beauty in her features that could not be fully grasped. As though the world and the room and the knight before her were undeserving of her presence.

Elle'dred was ever more at a loss for words - so much of his world surpassed him.

Arneya glanced up and met his incredulous, uncertain eyes.

She smiled.

Although no teeth remained in her mouth, the gesture imparted a comfort Elle'dred could not deny.

"Champion," she said, with a bow of her head, "It is an honour to meet you."

The knight was silent for an impolite amount of time - finally, he forced the words out, whatever would come to mind, "Elle'dred...I have not been the Champion of the White Wolf for a long time." the words did not surprise him, "It is my honour to meet you...milady."

Arneya chortled, "Now, my good knight, if I am to address you by your name alone I would expect you to extend to me the very same courtesy. And in any case, I have not been addressed as 'milady' in all my very long life, and I do not intend to have it start now."

Evermore more at a loss for words, Elle'dred could not fathom how he should respond -

"You shall call me Arneya, and I shall call you Elle'dred. If that seems fair to you, milord?" Arneya smiled.

Palpably overwhelmed by a situation he could not have comprehended any more than stepping inexplicably into the land of all things fallen with an empty suit of armour - once, so long ago, Elle'dred found it was all he could do to regain control of himself - and nod.

Arneya chuckled. She moved over to the chairs on the nearer side of the desk, and carefully, slowly lowered herself into one. She gestured gently for Elle'dred to join her.

The knight moved over to the chair beside her and sat.

At an equal level, the ancient elf's eyes met his.

After a long pause, and an ever growing sense of uncertainty, Arneya chortled softly and broke the silence, "Do you know why it is that you are here, Elle'dred?"

Elle'dred responded after another pause, "No."

Arneya smiled, "You are here, because destiny in its unfathomable and oft utterly confounding wisdom has intended for you to be here."

Elle'dred stared -

"Fate. Fate has required that you come here." the smile faded slowly from the elf's furrowed, bark-like features, "In honest truth, I had very much hoped it would not...I had hoped that the world would never have come to this place, and that you yourself would have defied my visions...that we may never have had to meet. Though, in that, I do not mean to say that I did not wish to meet you." she chortled, but unlike her previous laughter this was evidently forced; she sighed, "I once had so many hopes for this world, and so few of them have come to pass...I suppose our mutual deathwalker friend did not mention the prophecy of the undestined man born to re-unite the races of men?"

Elle'dred was silent a moment - a memory, too close to ones that had haunted his dreams, resounded clearly, "Llrsyring did mention it. Some moments before Syla was -"

Arneya was silent.

The knight forced a steadiness, "Will Syla recover?"

The old elf sighed, "Yes..." she paused, "What happened to Syla was...a crime I do not care to express. She will recover Elle'dred, I have no doubt she has the strength to overcome that which was done to her. But as you well know, some hurts leave scars that never heal."

Elle'dred met the elf's eyes - a deep, ancient green - a green that saw far more than the body and the near comprehending face of the man before her.

The knight took a breath, and nodded understanding.

Arneya smiled, "As I was saying, fate intended you to come here. As fate intended you and your friends to come to Eryndor. What has happened needed to happen - though that is not to say that it had to happen the way that it did."

Elle'dred was again utterly confused - though somewhere in the back of his mind, an understanding deeper than thought found grounding. It was an understanding he had forgotten - all too recently.

"And I must tell you," the elf continued, "You were intended to come here, because here alone is where you can be returned to the land that needs you most."

Those words cut a swathe through the numbness, "What do you mean?"

Arneya chortled, "Perhaps it was wrong of me to agree to call you Elle'dred in place of the title you think to have forsaken." the ancient elf paused, "The world needs the Champion of the White Wolf, Elle'dred, and although it is not a burden I would wish to place upon a friend, there are precious few men or women who can assume the task."

Elle'dred swallowed - the numbness, the glazed overwhelming shock that had stifled his thoughts for too many days began, in its barest, to recede. The thought - that he had decided to help Ayadra - whispered inaudibly amidst his skull. As did that thought that he had failed.

Arneya said nothing for a long time.

"Are you saying I am the man in the prophecy?"

The ancient elf smiled, "No, I am not. Nor truly did Llrsyring." she paused, "All I am saying is that we both hoped..."

Again, Elle'dred met her gaze with a comprehension he could not avoid.

He looked away.

"In any case," Arneya continued, "In too short a time, you will be returning to Ammandorn. Eryndor faces a war she never had a hope in winning. And as protected as this Sanctuary is, there are powers in this world even I cannot hold back indefinitely. It will not be safe -"

"Can I ask you a question?" Elle'dred muttered, not lifting his head to meet her eyes.

Arneya paused; she did not reply.

Elle'dred glanced up and met kind green eyes that tacitly prompted him to continue.

"What happened to the elves? After the Dark Moon..."

Arneya's smile did not fade, though it flickered, "Very well, let us start at the beginning." she paused, "The elves as a race were not as infallible as the tomes of the Archivists often made us out to be. In many ways, we were more decadent than the race of men, or even what men have become." she chortled, "The mistake of pride is something very few beings are immune to in this world...as a people, and as a society, we had become far too reliant upon and far, far too certain of our magics. To say, in the simplest terms, that when the Dark Moon fell across our lands, as the trees of Eryndor could not survive without the light to nurture them, so too could we elves not survive in the eternal night of Perrefiere." again, she paused, "However, I would add a shred of enlightenment to this explanation, and one that is a little closer to the truth; that our people, also, were not as whole as the race of men yet is...although, the divisions and the fracturing of our society was a far more subtle and far more insidious affair." she paused, "When a calamity fell across us, one we could not undo, it took a surprisingly short amount of time before we tore ourselves asunder."

Elle'dred met her eyes; the sorrow that lingered amidst the ocean of deep green there was more than he could understand.

"I am sorry." he muttered, ashamed. Though his shame did not solely extend from unwittingly opening an old wound in the elf before him.

Arneya chuckled, "Your apology is not required, milord."

Elle'dred glanced up at her.

"As I had said, there are too many hopes I had for this world that did not come pass. And I will say, that now, amidst the night, I wonder how many of those failings were not at least in part my own fault."

As his bewilderment had only moments before, the understanding within had begun to grow. Undeniably. Undesired. Almost resented.

"Is Ayadra dead?" - a question he had to ask. Another memory too close to his nightmares.

"Yes." Arneya answered, flatly, "At least, in the sense that you mean."

Elle'dred, whether intending to or not, asked the following question with his eyes.

"Ayadra is dead. And a new spirit inhabits the body that once was his. However, that is not to say that Ayadra may not yet live within that spirit itself."

Elle'dred did not understand. And Arneya's eyes told him that he was not meant to.

"Can I ask you another question?" he asked.

Arneya chortled, "I believe you just did."

Elle'dred found himself smirking, "If I do not return to Ammandorn, do you know what will happen?"

The ancient elf paused a moment, and smiled, "I know that Syla will be decidedly lonely. And undoubtedly, as decidedly frustrated and angry with you."

Elle'dred could not suppress a laugh.

After a moment, he asked, "You have spoken with her already?"

Arneya smiled, "In more ways than one."

Silence again settled over the kind, amicability that reminded Elle'dred too much of another friend he had forgotten - in that other life that had returned all too suddenly -

Elle'dred sighed, "Eryndor is going to fall isn't it?"

Arneya did not need to answer.

For the first time in days, his thoughts were all too clear; they came to rest on his memory of Thria, and her crew. The shame again welled correspondingly for a moment.

"Is there more that you can tell me about the prophecy - something more specific than a frustratingly broad outcome?"

Arneya laughed, "No. But I will remind you, fate has seen you this far already. And I doubt - I hope, that it will yet see you a step further." beside her, Elle'dred met her eyes, "You have my word I will do all in my power to make that hope come to pass" she paused, before finishing, "...milord."

Elle'dred did not correct her.
Chapter 3

Arneya - Last Protector of the Elven Kindred - stood, gazing at the small tree that grew in the corner of her quarters. Its glimmering, golden leaves hung inertly above the flicker of the smokeless flame beneath. The tree had been planted all too many years ago, and despite the light of the brazier - as nurturing and gentle as that of the northern sun - the tree would never grow beyond what it was now.

It had lingered for so many years under the dark ceiling of her quarters, clinging to the light of the flames beneath, trying so hard to flower.

She hoped it yet would. If only once.

The sound of a dying maelstrom, shrieking its last in the distance, notified her to her guest's presence.

She looked up and turned, slowly, as ever her age restricted her.

The black robed suit of serpentine armour stood in the darkest corner of her room.

The empty eyeholes met her deep green gaze without a word.

"You know, it is commonly considered polite to use the door." she remarked.

Llrsyring chuckled, and after a moment he uttered a phrase amidst his characteristic echo - imbued with a palpable reverence, "Ahn'dierys Ehnhalar."

Arneya smiled, "That tongue is long dead, deathwalker. Not unlike yourself. And I do not need such honour." she paused, "Neither of us have need of it anymore."

The helm was silent.

Arneya moved slowly over to a chair, and sat, "I know full well you prefer to stand, so I will not ask you to sit." she chortled, "I, on the other hand, am far too old to remain standing for any long amount of time."

Llrsyring moved from the corner to stand before her.

She looked up into the emptiness of the deathwalker's sockets; after a pause she said, almost tiredly, "I am sure you have your questions, and I give my word that I will do my best to answer them in the time that we have."

The deathwalker was silent a moment, "I was not aware that a first elf had survived."

Arneya smiled, "As the Twelve Suns were born from blood spilled in the falling of the first world, to guide and lead their race, so too was a tree of that world split. There were once five, where now you see only one." she paused, and after a sad smile had bent the wooden furrows of her face, she remarked, "We have both made quite a mess of things, have we not?"

Llrsyring chuckled, but after a moment, the echoed voice of his helm uttered, "It was not all our doing."

"No." Arneya agreed, with a shred of bitterness, "But perhaps if we had been far wiser far sooner than we were, we could have repaired the damaged before it became too great."

Llrsyring did not reply.

"And it must be said, that regardless of the choices of our charges, our own, after the fact, do not shine well on us," she paused, "Either of us."

Llrsyring looked away.

A silence filled her quarters for a long time.

"Have you spoken with him?" Arneya asked.

"No." Llrsyring replied, "Not yet."

Arneya shook her head.

The helm added, quietly, "He does not need to be told he will lose another friend."

The ancient elf did not reply.

After a pause, Llrsyring sighed, "I will not leave him without a word. Though he will have to uncover the truth himself."

Arneya allowed a soft chortle, though it faded once more into silence - a silence that had been allowed to remain for too long. The thought hung resoundingly, as did the other; that now, at the end, what did a few minutes more matter?

"I do suppose then, that you have already arrived at the same conclusions I, myself, have?"

After a moment, the helm nodded.

Arneya smiled, almost mournfully, "Before you ask deathwalker, there are no more words of fate to guide your friends, than those I have already spoken. And despite my efforts, my visions will not reveal to me more than they have. Fate, now, lies out of our hands," she paused, and smirked, "And, perhaps, that is for the best."

Llrsyring chuckled softly, above her.

The ancient silence fell again across the room.

"His fire will burn you away...all of you."

The truth of the words did not stir the dark emptiness of the helm, atop the suit of armour beside her - unlike the silence around.

"I know." - was all the echoed voice could say.

Arneya watched the body of black robes for a moment, then turned her gaze once again to the small tree flickering in its alcove above the golden flame beneath. One day, it might yet flower.

It might yet flower.

* * *

Weakness. He despised it as much as the deathwalker that had been its cause.

The lingering exhaustion, and weakness, that had afflicted him in the aftermath of their battle with the deathwalker yet remained. It had taken too many days to recover. And his fellow Tribunal members had not shown the resolve to overcome the weakness quickly - unlike himself.

It had taken all of his will to force himself out of his bed this morning. And this morning had been too long coming. He would not allow the weakness anymore victory.

He was more powerful than it.

Staff-Bearer Ragmurath moved through the white-grey marbling of the corridors of Delphanas.

Slowly. He had to focus to achieve every step without a stumble.

And he would not deign to use the simple ebony staff - his mark of office - which he carried in his right hand as a support. He was stronger than that. He was a magus. The leader of the magus.

And Ammandorn.

As he emerged through the stone archway that led to the balcony which overlooked the massive circular expanse that was the central, open amphitheatre of the otherwise enclosed city, he swept his gaze over the hundreds of descending, echeloned steps - now filled with the seated inhabitants of Delphanas.

The people.

Three hundred thousand, alone, sat underneath the morning lances of the southern sun spearing through the clouds that covered the sky; above the three peaks which surrounded the city; if not for the restriction of the city's construction he would have ordered the entire populace be here this morning.

The Staff-Bearer moved past his retainers, and the serfs that occupied the areas of his platform - to the centre-most of the five chairs that had been placed there.

He did not allow himself to sit. The chair was an indulgence he would not allow - not until his duty was done. The surgeons he had ordered to make the other members of the Tribunal ready for this day had failed in their duty; he would not replicate their weakness. They could be reprimanded later.

He turned to face the circular expanse, and the people gathered there.

The long, draping banners that fell, from his heavy pauldrons, on either side of his chest - black, embroidered in scrolling lines of minute azure text - wafted in the morning's breeze amidst the equally dark folds of his robes. The ornate mantle of the Staff-Bearer was a weight about his shoulder he bore with forceful pride - and now, he summoned that pride into both a simple spell, and his voice.

"People of Delphanas," he said, though his voice boomed, thunderous and resounding across the entire expanse of the theatre, "Your Staff-Bearer calls you here to witness the justice of the Tribunal." he paused - the magic of the spell already taxed his strength - and furious resolve rallied to combat it, "There are many criminals yet free amongst you. They seek to turn you to acts of civil disobedience, and anarchy. They would have you fight amongst yourselves, and what is more heinous; they claim it is for your own good - this is a lie!" the magic stabbed a shot of pain through his chest, "These criminals will fail. They will be found and arrested, and they will face justice!" he paused, "Today you will witness the punishment for their crimes, and for any act of aid one gives to them. Death by flame!"

As the last of his strength threatened to buckle his legs and destroy all the authority he had claimed with his words, Ragmurath released the spell which he had invoked. With a stumble that brought a snarl to his throat, he managed to find his chair and collapse. His breaths were heavy, and a bead of sweat trickled over the hard features of his face.

He stared out, over the railed lip of the balcony, into the pit below.

A woman was being dragged to its centre, from one of the northern openings in the high wall that surrounded the base of the amphitheatre. Two magus guards dragged the criminal between the swaying vermillion folds of their robes. Their implacable, bronze gauntlets held the woman's weak, bruised arms, chained by manacles.

Beyond the shackles at her wrists, she was not clothed.

Her head hung limply from her shoulders, and whatever strength she had left was not sufficient to raise it.

She was young. Patches of ragged brown hair - where it had not been torn out - were matted with grime and blood, and sat atop a face that retained little awareness. A bruised, and swollen eye, gazed listlessly out onto the impassive brown dirt of the ground. The other eye was missing; a bedraggled lock covered the empty socket. Her left breast had been cut off. Before, or after, the bruising on her loins.

She had been an archivist.

The magus guards dragged the woman to the towering, wooden pole at the centre of the pit; there, they fastened the chains of the manacles to a ring twisted into the wood. Dangling from the restraints, her chest was stretched mercilessly along the pillar, while her arms twisted up around her head.

She made no sound. Some spittle leaked over her broken lip and spattered in the dirt at her feet.

Above the ring that held her chains in place protruded a torch, askew with the pole.

Orange-red flames flickered inescapably above the woman.

The magus guards moved away, to the far side of the pit.

Some moments passed, before - from one of the southern entrances, beyond sight, beneath the platform that bore the Staff-Bearer's retinue - the executioner strode into the pit. The man or woman was clothed entirely in black, save for the azure edging of their robes. A metallic face-plate, featureless and reflective, concealed their countenance and their identity.

The bloodhound executioner did not wave to the crowd.

Ragmurath had given orders for a cheer, nonetheless - and in compliance with that command, a deafening wave of sound filled the massive expanse of the amphitheatre. Now, the executioner did wave to the people gathered around.

The man or woman in black, continued ahead, and stopped ten paces from the criminal.

Holding out his or her hand towards the flames of the torch, the executioner grasped them with magic. A cascade of fire fell from the pole and landed on the ground midway between the magus and the archivist.

Immediately, the fire circled, burning a curving line of fire in the dirt - until it had completely surrounded the woman chained to the pole at its centre. The flames flared and flickered - cast towards the criminal in their midst.

The weak, bruised body moved then, trying to recoil from the all surrounding flames. A weak, hoarse groan tore out of her throat.

The flames closed.

Slowly, the circle of fire crawled across the ground towards the woman's suspended feet. The woman continued to squirm - more desperately. And painfully. The heat of the surrounding flames already reddened her skin.

- A groan. Hoarse and short.

The fire had met the base of the pole. And begun to climb.

The woman squirmed. What energy she had - spasmed through bruised and contorted muscles restrained against the implacable wood. Her throat was too sore to do anything but gurgle.

From his platform above, the Staff-bearer sneered.

The fire had only burnt her feet. The flames - controlled by the faceless man or woman in black - gradually climbed the criminal's legs; as the technique was defined in the law.

Staff-Bearer Ragmurath watched from above, as the minutes crawled by.

Death by flame.

It was the only fitting sentence for the criminal's crimes.

By the end, when finally the flames crawled up between her legs - she had died.

Silence had long fallen across the central space of the massive, white marble city, and that silence yet lingered in the morning air throughout the amphitheatre. For a passing moment.

Then the crowd swept it away with a cheer.

* * *

Elle'dred stared out across the dead mountains. Their quarters were vacant; Syla had either regained enough strength, or enough stubbornness, to force herself out of bed.

She had wanted to see the Sanctuary, and Yrian had been pleased to show it to her.

Elle'dred was glad she was walking - but at this time, he was more grateful for the privacy it afforded him. He had to think. It seemed he always had to think.

Doubts and reaffirmation and complacency filled his head with a nauseating cycle of thought.

He had decided.

Though he knew, he would never be able to fully convince himself of that fact.

He had let too much build up behind the glazed numbness of shock - and all the reminders of the mistakes of his life had returned when that fragile wall had broken. Admittedly, he forgave himself that; the days prior to the sanctuary had been too much for him. For anyone.

That was not a failing.

And he had not thought, then, that there was anywhere else left to go - anything else he had left to do. It had all seemed hopeless. In the Dead Mountains, underneath the unending black sky of Perrefiere, there had been no hope.

But he had purpose again, now -

Purpose that overwhelmed him -

No. The thought that terrified him most, and that a life of apathy now tried to bury and ignore - was that he knew he could bear this - that he knew he had to.

The soft scrape of metal upon stone, dragged him from his musing, to face the helm of the deathwalker.

Llrsyring entered their quarters and drew alongside the knight, leaning on the windowsill.

Elle'dred stared up at the helm as it gazed across the interminably black masses before them. At the fathomless abyss of the sky.

For a long time, the deathwalker did not say anything.

"Syla is recovering." the echoed voice eventually broke the silence, though there seemed little intent in the words, "I doubt she will permit herself any more rest."

Elle'dred did not reply.

"She will be ready to leave, soon."

Elle'dred glanced at the helm beside him, "Will you -"

"No." the helm answered, and paused, "I will not be returning with you to Ammandorn."

The answer had not come as a surprise - nor did the swell of emotion that threatened his façade.

He bit it back and managed, calmly, "When?"

"I think that there is very little time left."

Elle'dred paused - then turned to look at him, "Can you never answer clearly?"

The empty sockets of the serpentine helm turned to meet the knight's eyes - and what was not allowed there. For a moment, all Elle'dred could do was stare - then, he found himself smirking.

Both he and the deathwalker chuckled - laughed. The tears fell amidst the mirth.

Hells -

He had been expecting this; since he had spoken with Arneya, too many truths had begun to surface in the back of his mind. As ever he had tried to ignore them - but they were as clear as the eternal blackness of the sky.

He hated it - that he understood why -

Hells -

Silence fell again after their laughter had faded; silence seemed the only fundamental truth here amidst the Dead Mountains, and their abyss above.

Llrsyring did not say anything for a long time, "You must speak again with Arneya. There are yet some things you should be told. Among others, I am leaving my sword with you."

"The one that can end the world if I touch it?" Elle'dred quipped - although a flare of stark terror moved through him despite the sarcasm.

Llrsyring chuckled, "No."

Elle'dred paused, the question - "Ayadra..."

The helm met his eyes - amidst the emptiness of the eyeholes there was no answer to his question, save unknowing, and hope. And fear.

Elle'dred looked away - he held back an unsteady breath.

There was more Elle'dred wanted to say, but he could not bring himself to - even what he needed to. He hated this - this deathwalker standing beside him -

And he was beyond grateful that Llrsyring had come to say goodbye.

Good bye. He thought alone, amidst the silence.

Good bye.

This time, the deathwalker's sudden departure did not surprise him. The empty suit of armour wrapped in robes, disappeared in a tendrilous swirl of black mist, amidst the last, dying howl of a tempest.
Chapter 4

The Staff-Bearer moved into the council chamber, beyond the sweeping, curving expanse that had once been the highest library level of Delphanas. The intricate mosaic of azure runes, which centred the room, passed beneath his feet as he moved to the far side and assumed his position.

High Magus Salynath and High Magus Eranath entered several paces behind him; the two younger women had recovered far sooner than either of the two older members of the Tribunal.

While the surgeons had decidedly increased their efforts after their reprimand, the older of the four High Magus had yet to display a force of will that satisfied their leader.

After some long minutes - that provoked an ever increasing frustration in the Staff-Bearer, High Magus Sansurath and High Magus Gerdanath made their slow ways into the room.

Sansurath was supported by a retainer.

Ragmurath restrained a sneer, "Get out." he ordered, sharply, once the boy had assisted the High Magus to his position in the circle.

The lower magus exited the room hastily, but not without the appropriate, respectful bow.

The Staff-Bearer eyed each of his subordinates for a moment, before beginning, "This session of the Tribunal has been called to discuss the continuing developments of the war in the west."

Each of the High Magus met his gaze, in silence.

"Sansurath, you have assessed the tactical situation?"

"Yes, Staff-Bearer." the older man answered; a nod from his leader had him continue, "The war in the west has not changed largely since last we convened. The armies losses in their continuing retreat from the mouth of Agdor have increased, but the reinforcements dispatched from Delphanas and the High Lands, upon arrival, should mitigate the extent of the damage." the High Magus paused, he seemed to be straining for breath - he recovered after a moment, "The goblins full numbers have not yet been discerned -"

"That is unacceptable." Ragmurath pronounced, callously, "The armies should have already surmised the force of the enemy, and made plans to counter it."

Sansurath did not respond -

Gerdanath motioned to be heard; her hard otherwise impassive countenance met that of the Tribunal's Leader - Ragmurath nodded for her to assume the floor.

Gerdanath's voice was as flat as her visage as she spoke, "Staff-Bearer, did you not yourself say that the reinforcements already dispatched would prove sufficient to repel any threat?"

Ragmurath narrowed his eyes at her; his hand clenched surreptitiously around his ebony mark of office.

"Force improperly wielded can be as much a bane on victory as the enemy."

Gerdanath did not avert her eyes from his cold glare.

High Magus Salynath motioned to be heard, "If it would be acceptable Staff-Bearer, I would volunteer to dream with the Magus Generals and coordinate the scouting operations."

"As would I." Eranath added from Ragmurath's other side.

The Staff-Bearer glanced at either of the two young women standing beside him; the slight pursing of Gerdanath's lips - in disapproval, prompted a slight curling at the corner of his own mouth.

Disdain glittered in his gaze, as he turned back to the older woman, "Gerdanath, the three of you shall dream with the Generals of the armies in Thgad and remedy this lack of information." he paused, and restrained a glare at Sansurath, "As High Magus Sansurath yet requires time to recover, and it seems our convening was a waste, his duties shall be reassigned to you for the time being."

"Yes, Staff-Bearer." Salynath and Eranath both answered with alacrity.

The slightest twitch of the lines around Gerdanath's eyes evinced the emotions she restrained in her voice, "Yes, Staff-Bearer."

"When we next convene, I expect to have the information I require to plan our next move in the war of Thgad."

Again the younger High Magus responded with immediate affirmation.

Gerdanath did not.

Ragmurath eyed each of the High Magus before him, again; displeasure coated the back of his throat, "As there are no new developments regarding the war to be discussed, this session is clo-"

"Staff-Bearer," Gerdanath interrupted, without inflection, "If I may be heard?"

Ragmurath quashed a scowl - but nodded.

"There is a matter I wish to raise, a matter that has been overlooked by this Tribunal."

The Staff-Bearer's eyes narrowed -

"The matter of magus Syla, the Champion of the White Wolf and the deathwalker."

Ragmurath's gaze wavered for a moment, before a lethal ice covered the glare he levelled at the High Magus before him; it was not met by her defiant eyes.

His voice was flat, as he responded, "Magus Syla and the criminals she consorts with are a matter that no longer requires consideration."

Gerdanath met his gaze, and almost returned a glare, "Allowing a deathwalker to live is tantamount to necromancy."

Silence swallowed the echoes of the words, as they reverberated against the hard, white marble of the chamber's walls.

- The implied violation of the law hung unseen amidst the air.

Ragmurath could only stare. He could feel the eyes of the other High Magus - even the two younger women whom he had chosen himself - resting on him; all were waiting for a response befitting his position and title.

Although more than ice settled in his throat, he pronounced levelly, "The matter is closed."

"Staff-Bearer -"

"Enough!" he snarled, "Any further outburst will be consider an act of insubordination, Gerdanath."

The High Magus averted her eyes in silent, and inevitable, compliance.

Ragmurath continued to stare at her - more than anything he wished her now to glare back, to so much as move to retort - any further provocation that would be justification enough to order a severe and appropriate reprimand.

Gerdanath did not press the issue, although the force of her restraint was evident in taut features.

Fire burned in Ragmurath's eyes, as it had upon the condemned archivist's flesh for so many minutes.

The Staff-Bearer was silent amidst the circle for a long time -

Before a new thought threatened the features of his face, as it finalised, and provoked a renewed expression of disdain.

Ragmurath cleared his throat, "However, Gerdanath, as you have raised objection to an unavoidable yet persisting breach of the law - hereby acknowledged by this Tribunal - I am willing to assign the resolution of this matter to you. As more critical matters yet require the Tribunal's attention, you are ordered to assign a circle of magus to address this infringement...the magus you select are to be instructed in the possession spell the Tribunal cast to deliver the punishment to the criminals."

Silently, with a disgust that rivalled the rage that had subsided within him, Gerdanath levelled an unabashed glare - the wrinkled corner of her lip twitched, but she kept her mouth sealed.

Ragmurath continued, "This circle is tasked with delivering Magus Syla's punishment effectively." he paused, "As you were privy to the magics levelled against us by the deathwalker - with your instruction, there should be no obstruction to their task. The circle's orders are to overcome Magus Syla's defences and exact her execution - failure to do so, will be considered an act of gross incompetence on the part of any and all magus involved in the circle. Such incompetence shall be met by the appropriate reprimand."

Gerdanath's lips twitched - still she said nothing.

"Are your orders understood, High Magus?" Ragmurath finished.

"Yes. Staff-Bearer." she said, impassively.

* * *

Arneya glanced up, as the doors to her quarters were opened.

The Champion of the White Wolf was admitted by their parting.

Despite his bearing, the ancient elf did not mistake the myriad pains he tried to conceal. He had lost a friend. More than one. Too many.

And yet, the conviction in his face she had seen before, remained. In so little time, the man before her had earned her respect. For the first time in too many centuries - she found herself gladdened.

Elle'dred greeted her with a nod.

She smiled in return.

"He has left." the knight said.

The smile faltered slightly, "Then I do believe that it is time that you were on your way."

"Llrsyring said there were yet things you had to discuss with me."

Arneya chuckled, "Indeed, though I had hoped he would have spared me the trouble." she rose from her seat beside her desk, and lifted the length of binding cloth from its surface.

The knight approached as she turned to him.

Cradling the wrapped sword in both hands, she extended it towards him, "Athyndyrra is a deathwalker's blade. She belongs in the hands of a deathwalker."

Uncertainly, Elle'dred took the length of cloth and concealed metal from the hands of the ancient elf. His eyes, as they met her, were as unsure as ever.

Arneya smiled. Silently, she turned for the door.

Elle'dred's hand rested gently on her arm; the knight's gesture was not intended to halt her - but rather, it was an offer of support. That she might bear some of her weight on him.

She chortled, and wrapped her old, spindly, branch-like arm through his.

Elle'dred opened the door for her. Yrian yet waited outside.

Arneya raised her head to meet the younger elf's eyes, "It is time our guests were leaving."

Yrian nodded her understanding, bowed, and turned away down the corridor.

Arneya followed, with Elle'dred at her side, a moment after. Their footsteps, much slower than the younger elf that preceded them, echoed across the walls of the hallway and its adjoining corridors.

"There will be something else you will need to take with you when you depart, Elle'dred. Something other than that sword there." the old elf chuckled, "I am afraid it may be a little morbid...and undoubtedly, it will be a source of grief to you...if not outwardly." she paused, "It may also bring some hope...and, ah, I must also ask you not to bury it, however much you may want to."

Frustration surfaced amidst the knight's features, but he restrained it - with a note of exasperation, he enquired, "Can I ask what it is?"

Arneya chuckled, "Come, milord. It is a long climb down to the chamber I will need, and I am afraid I have not made the journey there in a great many years."

Elle'dred restrained a sigh that only her deep, knowing green eyes could see, before he assumed an accommodating pace, with the elf on his arm.

* * *

Fire. It was all he knew. It was all he wanted to know. A roaring, laughing fire that surrounded him, embraced him, caressed him - that filled his world with savage heat. And ash.

The flames of his skin that burned from the deepest part of him, curled and flickered with a malevolent joy that only the damned could know. In the faces of the flames that filled the darkness of his world, delight and despair were as intimately entwined as the being and his flesh that birthed them. One a ravager, and the other the victim that wanted to be ravaged. That cried sweet joy as it was violated.

Hell-fire laughed. It crackled and roared.

And cast its terrible despair across the promontory that bore him. The night's air, trapped in the empty darkness of Perrefiere's sky, and the jagged, black stone of the Dead Mountain beneath were ravaged by a heat not meant for this world. A heat that burned all joy, and hope away - that left an emptiness which sought only to surrender and let the final end come.

His heat.

As he stood upon the sharp precipice of the Dead Mountain, like a blade of rock driven fatally deep into the immense tidal wave of stone, he cast his abyssal eyes out across the south. Eyes alive with flame reflected and within, cradled amidst the sockets of the infinitely black mask of bone that was his face. Hell-fire crackled around its inviolable edge.

The incarnate, the weapon of the Immortal, stared out across the sweeping grey expanse that lay beyond the edge of the veil of darkness which enshrouded the Dead Mountains, at the mass of light that claimed the slopes of the opposing mountain range in the south. The mass of light spilled across the flatness of the plains at the mountains bases - uncounted fires amidst uncounted camps, filled with uncounted soldiers.

All who thought they could oppose him.

They would fail. They would be burnt away.

Hell-fire laughed.

A sound, like the distant howl of the wind, disturbed the roaring crackle of his flames.

- His mask, his face, a window to the deepest shadow, to the madness of knowing and wanting of all things, had whispered the truth long before of who it was. A lesser shadow that sought to mar the devouring, crimson light of his fire. It stood behind him.

The truth.

Syrkyn did not turn.

The voice of hell-fire spoke, "Leave, deathwalker."

Llrsyring stood upon the promontory, between the two looming halves of jagged rock that formed the mountain's black peak above, under the abyss of the northern sky. The towering walls of stones, burning with the violent light of hell-fire, hid the deathwalker from the face of the Dark Moon.

As they did the incarnate.

His tall, sinuous body - defined by the same currents of fire which fell and rose as a ceaseless cascade across the cape of wings that hung from his back - would not turn to reveal the mask of wavering abyss and madness that was his face.

Llrsyring did not leave, and he did not speak.

"Leave, deathwalker." the voice of hell-fire roared.

"I will not." the echoed words of the helm seemed like nothing more than a whisper. Even amidst the shadow of the two masses of rock to either side - Llrsyring could not fathom strength.

The air burned with limitless despair. It was all the deathwalker could do to remain amidst the searing, clawing heat - burned by the gleeful light of hell-fire - and stand.

The suit of armour, robed in black, carried Ishtavra in his hand. The Ellyan longsword caught and held the malevolent, crimson flicker sharper than the rocks around it.

Ahead, the incarnate whose shape was defined solely by tongues of crackling fire, snarled - and turned.

The black madness of his mask, the third hell of his flesh, shimmered amidst the damning flames as a crown of perfect, serpentine darkness.

"I said, leave!" Syrkyn roared, again - his wings flexed on either side with the rage of his burning jaw, and from them two seething rivers of hell-fire flooded out into the night behind. The cascade of crimson tongues consumed the air around the peak, their own savage roar overcome by the incarnate's voice - and drowned by the surge of inevitable heat that seared the very stone.

Llrsyring did not back away. Ten paces from the being he once had known, now consumed by hell-fire, he stood.

The sweeping, rising flames from the incarnate's wings ceased, subsiding across his body as a twisting column of flare. Curling trails of fire and ash and wavering air, violated by the heat, swept upwards, across his chest and neck - and for a moment, concealed the darkness of his face.

As the hell-fire resettled about his flickering shape, the fire of his jaw twisted beneath his mask with loathing disdain.

"You cannot hope to slay me, deathwalker. It is not in your power." the voice of hell-fire paused, "Even the Golem of Daethyr cannot overcome me."

Amidst the impossible, despairing heat, Llrsyring was silent for a moment - as all the power he had was bent to speech, "I did not come here to fight you."

Syrkyn scowled - the black mask above his lips shone with the abyss of truth and glee, "And yet you brandish the blade of your people before me? Do you think that sword gives me pause? Do you think that even if I were to take it from you, its curse would dare to touch me?" - whether the soft laughter came from flames of his body, or from Syrkyn himself, the night could only tell, "It would not. I am beyond this world."

Syrkyn moved, to turn away.

"I did not bring Ishtavra here to raise her against you." the empty helm said, its echo lost amidst the crackle of infernal flame, "I bear her now, because I have betrayed her vengeance. And because her vengeance is an evil that should never have been allowed...as are the evils you intend for this world. And for yourself."

Syrkyn sneered beneath the black edge of his mask - its edge now whispered to the flames beneath - but before hell-fire could roar or crackle or seethe in mocking laughter, the deathwalker moved.

Ishtavra flashed through the air in a last, perfect arc that brought her naked blade into Llrsyring's open and waiting grasp.

And there the sword was broken.

With a simple motion of his arms, the last longsword of the Ellyan people was snapped in two by the deathwalker's unyielding gauntlets. A moment after, the plated hands cast the sharp halves of the blade aside - they clattered into the lightless depths of the chasm beneath the promontory.

Syrkyn only stared.

For a moment, the serpentine helm was silent amidst the relentless crackle and crushing heat of hell-fire.

The flames, alive on the incarnates flesh, laughed.

The echoed voice finished, weakly, "I have wronged you. And I do not deserve your forgiveness." and paused, "But I am your friend, Ayadra."

Hell-fire roared -

Savage waves of malevolence, crimson and fluid and flickering, burst outwards from the incarnate on all sides but one. A rising sea of hell-fire clawed against the stones of the promontory and the peak, beside, beneath and above - a wall of crimson that assaulted the night.

"That is not my name!" the incarnate roared with a voice that surpassed the flames.

As fire continued to pour from his blazing flesh, Syrkyn strode forward - towards the suit of armour that now struggled to keep his feet. Crushed by a heat and its despair, heavier than the mountain beneath.

Despite the flames, and the impossible emptiness that birthed them, Llrsyring stood. The empty sockets of the helm met the eyes, alive with flame, in the abyssal madness of the mask.

As they had once, not so long ago.

"Very well, deathwalker." Syrkyn hissed, "I shall grant you the death that you seek."

* * *

Elle'dred moved down the last step of the winding stairway, with Arneya yet supported on his arm. The ancient elf had made her way through the corridors of the Sanctuary, and down seemly more stairs than the knight had thought the mountain could contain.

She had not spoken again since they had assumed their pace, and he had not pressed her for answers.

Too much of him did not want the doubts, and fears, and suspicions he had to be answered. And more than enough of him already knew the truth.

The base of the stairway was watched over by a graceful arch, gilded with runes that slipped through and amongst each other so elegantly, that their ends and beginnings perpetually chased one another across the stone.

Arneya smiled as she glanced up.

Beyond the archway lay a massive chamber; the high, vaulted ceiling curved gently and perfectly, as did every side of the room. They had exited beside an ancient tree that reached up against the wall, to support the ceiling with its out-reaching, leafless branches. Its grey wood watched over the white stone of the chamber with a majesty not unlike the elf that moved beside the knight.

Elle'dred glanced down at Arneya. The old elf gazed gently up at the towering oak, or willow, or ash, with a loving sorrow revealed alone in her smile.

She glanced away to meet his eyes.

"Thank you, milord, for your kind arm." she said, and chortled.

Once again, she bore her full weight as she removed her arm from his.

Entranced by the tree, and the old elf beside him, Elle'dred realised he had not surveyed or taken note of the rest of the chamber. Movement drew his attention.

Beyond the curving shrine, an alcove that resided beneath the branches of the great tree, the expanse of the massive chamber was filled elves. All the elves.

All the elves of the Sanctuary had gathered, clothed in simple white shifts which draped delicately about their feet. Amidst the golden light of the braziers that lined the walls of the hall, their garments seemed to shimmer like their faces.

They stood to either side of the chamber, bordering a path that led to its far end, where Syla stood.

The magus' white hair did not shimmer like the garments of the elves, and her azure eyes glanced about with uncertainty. They met Elle'dred's at the opposite end of the chamber.

Yrian appeared at Elle'dred's side, from the mass of elves before him. Her presence elicited a start.

Gently, wordlessly, she directed the knight to towards the magus.

Cautiously, hesitantly, Elle'dred moved past the elves, to the far side of the chamber and stood beside Syla. A glance aside told him she did not comprehend the gathering any more than did he.

For a moment, they stood awkward and uncertain behind the ranks of white-clad elves.

Quietly, delicately, the elves began to sing.

At first their song was a barest hum, a low melody rolling like the gentlest of hills, but swiftly it began to grow. Voices, vibrant as the grass and the flowers of a verdant field began to weave together a chorus of chaotic, natural harmony. Some voices were flawlessly out of tune - so many, and yet they rested amidst the others without discord or a harmony that raised against the song.

Arneya, bent as she was, moved slowly to the centre of the shrine, beneath the tree.

As the song of the elves rose and fell, and soared alike the wind, she glanced up at the knight and magus who stood on the far end of the hall before her.

For a moment, unexpected, Elle'dred and Syla were humbled by a power so graceful and natural no memory could bear it fair remembrance.

And all Arneya had done was straighten her back.

As the melody rose to a purest note like the white peak of a mountain, the ancient elf - the oldest of the all the elves - stood and joined her voice with her kin.

"Here it was the song was sung,

The first of all the songs,

The song of all in sky and earth, and wind and dream,

Here, it was begun,"

Arneya raised her thin, spindly arms above her, as had the tree behind her so many years ago - her voice and those of her children before her became one in flawless harmony.

"And here now shall it echo forth,

I sing the song again!

I call upon the sky and earth,

Bear witness to my end."

With her last word, and the last note of the song, a light blazed from behind her - a glare cast by a thousand suns - and swept her figure from sight. In the same instant, as the last note faded alongside the lancing burst of light - the chamber was broken by the discordant clatter of armour.

Myriad pieces of metal crashed across the stone of the floor.

Elle'dred lowered his hand from his face, raised instinctually to shield his eyes from the sudden glare.

For a moment, shock and incomprehension dulled his perception -

Between the ranks of elves, there now lay a series of plates, splayed across the chamber's floor. Amidst the scattering of grey, nothing remained of the black robes that had once shrouded them.

Llrsyring's plates - each and every, that had composed the suit of armour that was his body, lay scattered. Separate and alone.

Elle'dred stared - it was all he could do.

Beside him, Syla did likewise.

Comprehension flickered across her gaze, followed by something else that disturbed her milky-white features - but both were concealed by the self-command that defined her.

Syla turned to him - with a tacit question he could not answer.

Elle'dred glanced to the head of the chamber - where the soft, glow of light, now golden, yet remained.

The light was concealed by the cascading strands of a willow tree. The light was dim, as though one of the braziers that illuminated the Sanctuary had been placed at the base of the ancient oak or ash or willow that yet bore the stone of the ceiling with its branches.

And behind the new, still living willow that had taken its place at the far end of the chamber. The tree, though bent and hunched and old, was as majestic as the elf it once had been. On the weeping strands of her branches, tears of white leaves cascaded down and surrounded a rare few flowers.

All deep, and ancient, green.

Elle'dred stared - but movement once more drew his attention.

The elves at the far end had begun to move, taking their own places beside and around the willow tree. Lovingly, mournfully, they raised their arms and knelt.

Others, from the ranks that edged the chamber's floor beside the armour, moved to gather the plates and place them in a chest.

Yrian approached the knight and magus, "Magus Syla, and milord Elle'dred, Champion of the White Wolf, you must now leave. With the passing of Arneya we can no longer remain...she bade me tell you, that with the last of our power and hers we will open a path for you that will return you Ammandorn. In the voice of one forest calling to another."

With that, Yrian turned and moved to join the ranks of her kin, now no longer clothed in shifts but white bark, fresh as in spring. Their hands were branched, their feet had taken root.

In the moments Elle'dred had stood overwhelmed, the elves before him had become a grove a trees.

The last grove.

Amidst the sudden and peaceful calm of the chamber, he glanced to Syla - the magus met his gaze and directed it down. The elves had laid the chest, containing all that remained of Llrsyring at their feet.

Elle'dred could only stare -

Beside him, Syla sighed, and reached for its right handle.

She glanced up at him expectantly.

After another moment lost in disbelief, he regained himself and reached for the left.

As they lifted the chest from the white stone of the floor, Syla assumed a pace that forced Elle'dred to follow.

With Athyndyrra wrapped and braced in the crook of his left arm, and Syla a pace ahead of him, the Champion of the White Wolf strode into the soft, lambent light that yet lingered between the ranks of the elven trees. 
Chapter 5

Light. Blinding. And gold.

Elle'dred had seen this light before. He had forgotten it. He had wanted to forget it.

He had thought he was going die - it seemed too often that he thought that. But he had not, the last time he had seen this light. It had not been him who had died. It had been Hheirdane.

This light, and these trees, and the ancient air of the forest around him had watched as he had run and stumbled away - from the shadows. From the dark things that had tried to kill him.

The things Llrsyring had saved him from.

He had run and he had stumbled. He had emerged into a clearing.

Two statues alone had occupied that clearing, one of the man he had loathed and still did, and the other of his friend. He had killed Hheirdane here, to save Taedoran's life.

Now both men were dead - and Elle'dred, once again, thought he was going to die.

Amidst the trees and the air of an alien world, surrounded by the light of a thousand suns.

But the light cleared - and he could see again.

He could taste the crisp morning air of the world he knew.

As the glittering blindness left by the light slowly faded into the sprawling vista of normal vision, Elle'dred lowered his arm from his face. His other hand still gripped the handle of the chest, as did Syla's beside him.

She too had raised her arm to guard her eyes from the light.

The light of Dwener'dier. The forsaken glade.

Elle'dred realised it in a moment of shock - where he was, and how many miles he had crossed in what had seemed an instant to him. They had entered the grove of trees that had once been elves, in the Sanctuary, and in an instant or an eternity of blinding glare they had strode through the first ranks of the trees of Dwener'dier, in the southwest of Ammandorn.

The sprawling flatness of green plains stretched to all horizons before them; the bright noon of the southern sun gazed down from above the south, surrounded by wisps of cloud.

Elle'dred needed a glance back to confirm what his mind already knew - behind, the peak of a mountain towered above in the distance, maned in clouds and cloaked in a thick, sweeping forest, which stood before him as a flawless, undeviating wall of trees.

The trees from which they had emerged. The forest of Dwener'dier.

Twice now, Elle'dred had walked through a forest that had claimed every life that entered it - and twice now he had emerged alive.

He wondered if anyone else might have to die this time for his defiant survival -

He quashed the thought.

Syla's glance drew his eyes to hers.

Although she masked it beneath a stubborn calmness, Elle'dred could see the incredulity and bewilderment that dogged her for a moment. This, for her, was a new experience - and one that would likely remain unique.

Elle'dred glanced down at the chest they each yet carried between them.

Llrsyring's armour resided in the confines of the wood.

For a moment, the emptiness he had tried so hard to avoid opened up inside, as it had too many times in recent days. So long ago, he had wondered how many friends he would lose, now he realised he did not want to know the answer.

Movement drew his attention, as it did Syla's.

Four shapes - riders on horseback, emerged from the edge of the flatness in the east.

Elle'dred watched as the shapes grew - alarm tensed his hand around the handle of the chest.

He glanced back; the only refuge within sight was the perfect wall of trees behind them. He was not sure they would survive another trespass of the forsaken glade - and something within the perfect ranks of the forest warned him away. A pale glimmer, moving in their depths.

Elle'dred blinked, unwittingly - the glimmer was gone - whatever it was he had seen, it was no longer within sight.

The knight glanced at the magus.

Syla's apprehension was overcome by the tacit acceptance that her magic would be required if the riders intended a fight. They both lowered the chest to the ground; Elle'dred placed the wrapped length of Athyndyrra on the grass beside it - and drew his own sword.

He swore inwardly that he had allowed himself to be so overwhelmed by all that had happened in the Sanctuary and before - and that in the days he had spent numb and exhausted, he had not thought to acquire some arrows, or a bow. Now, of all times, he realised he should have comprehended what returning to Ammandorn entailed - and armed himself accordingly.

They did not even have a full stock of provisions.

The shock was shattered and shed from his body with each realisation.

Before the knight and magus, the horses and their riders grew dangerously larger.

This close to Dwener'dier, they could only be bandits - insane or desperate at that - the armies and the goblins would never have dared approach the Forsaken Glade - only men on the run would consider such a superstitiously and legally dangerous place an option.

Wonderful, the first thing destiny had in store was being butchered and robbed by bandits - Elle'dred almost scoffed at the sardonic cruelty of the thought.

The riders slowed to a trot some distance away.

Elle'dred raised his sword -

"Elle'dred!" - the woman on the left black of the two central horses called out; Elle'dred recognised her voice, "Champion of the White Wolf Hall. I am Palai'dred, Sword-Bearer and Knight. We mean you no harm, milord."

The four horses approached slowly - Elle'dred lowered his blade. The woman who had identified herself as a knight and Sword-Bearer of the White Wolf dismounted and handed her reins to the rider beside her.

She wore no tabard or markings that identified her rank, but as she strode up to the Champion, Elle'dred recognised her face.

His own features struggled not to fall into an obvious bewilderment and shock, once more.

Palai'dred glanced up at the wall of trees behind him - the uneasy concern, and fear, in her features was less encouraging than the confidence she had intoned in her voice.

She met his eyes, and bowed. A glance at Syla was followed by a less obvious and less respectful nod.

"Milord, there is a lot that I need to explain. Much has happened since you left on your mission. But I think that it would be safer if it were not discussed here." she paused, "We have a camp a short ride away, if you will follow me."

Elle'dred managed to overcome his shock, if only barely, "How did you know we would be here?"

The question slipped out, unwittingly.

Palai'dred smirked, "A vision, milord. It was the oracle who saw it that led us here."

Elle'dred glanced at Syla - the magus seemed less overcome by the circumstances. Her eyes also met those of the other riders - one of whom avoided her gaze with a downcast expression that seemed almost angry, and the other two who tried to conceal an obvious disdain and disregard.

Palai'dred glanced at the magus with a flatter expression - but Elle'dred could see the uncertainty behind her eyes.

"What has happened? And why are you not bearing the tabard of the hall?"

Palai'dred sighed, "Milord, too much, since you left. It will all be explained once we reach the camp."

Elle'dred met the Sword-Bearer's eyes - whatever it was that had befallen the riders, Syla was regarded differently to him as a result.

"Very well," Elle'dred agreed, as he sheathed his sword, "But Syla and I will ride together."

Palai'dred nodded, with the same accepting determination he remembered of their order; a gesture had one of the other riders dismount and lead his horse to the Champion of the White Wolf.

Elle'dred met the older man's eyes - recognition sparked immediately.

The man was a knight of the White Wolf, and one Elle'dred had known for some time, if not amiably. A lingering glance at each of the other faces forced the realisation into fullness - they were all knights of the White Wolf. And yet not one of them wore the tabard of their order, or any marking to identify themselves.

- Save for the hilts of their blades. Elle'dred recognised the knights' swords as quickly as he would recognise his own. Palai'dred bore a Sword-Bearer's blade at her side, the same as Hheirdane's.

That observation granted a measure of relief.

Elle'dred glanced at the magus - while he could not discern her emotions under the cold façade she now maintained, she directed his attention to the chest and the sword on the ground between them.

Elle'dred retrieved Athyndyrra, approached the saddle of their horse and secured the enwrapped sword to the chestnut's back.

He met the Sword-Bearer's questioning gaze, but did not answer, "Secure our chest, and bring it to the camp. Do not open it...its contents are important."

At least, he had been told that.

As the three knights handled the chest onto the back of the bay to his right, Elle'dred mounted the chestnut beside him. Syla approached, and he extended a hand to assist her into the saddle behind him - her features were still cold and unreadable, but a flicker of concern or uncertainty passed as she glanced at the men surrounding them.

Palai'dred re-mounted, and directed her black to the east.

At the Sword-Bearer's indication, they took to a gallop.

* * *

The room was dim. Only the soft flicker of the candles lit the windowless space, amidst the cluttering of spare furniture and supplies - and the hordes of shadows that danced across them. The basement of the inn had not been spacious before it had been filled with the excess furnishings, and now it afforded barely enough space to sit and talk.

That was, however, by design. Words were quickly lost amidst the maze of wood and tarps; even the loudest voice could not carry to the stairs, let alone beyond the door at the landing above.

In the furthest corner of the room, a table rested against the stone of the walls; its old, unvarnished timbre was surrounded on its others sides by the only clearing amidst the clutter. The candles had dribbled growing mounds of wax onto the table top, as their wicks slowly melted under their flames.

He was hours overdue.

Concern and apprehension were not emotions she was immune to, despite years of sitting in musty, darkened rooms waiting. She had learned to control her instinctual fears, to calm herself with reason or simple non-thinking acceptance - she could do nothing but wait. Fretting did not achieve anything.

Reason, however, was a paltry defence against instinct; her gut still tightened and every muscle in her body ached to bolt across the room, fly up the stairs and - do what?

As ever, there was nothing she could do. But wait.

Halthyn on the other hand - for the fifth time in too few minutes - sighed irascibly and rose from his stool with the intent she herself had restrained.

A small step to her side barred his path and her hand on his arm stalled his stride. The exchanged glance, his born of frustration and hers calmly reprimanding it, had him back a step and sit once more.

She too resumed her seat.

He was five years younger than her, and while his youth excused his impatience she would have preferred the man they were waiting for to have been her company. Halthyn's agitation provoked her own, more than she cared to admit.

Once more, as he had more than five times in as many minutes, the boy reached out and grasped the flame of a candle with his birth right. A wavering flare of orange and yellow floated above his palm between his fingertips; the vibrant wisp crackled gently as it danced in the air around the restless flexing of his fingers - contracting and expanding in perfect accompaniment to his hand.

Again and again his fingers flicked towards the flame and the fire darted away or chased them in delight - he had already burnt himself twice in the past hour alone.

She restrained a sigh; the first and only reprimand she had given had served solely to provoke the passionate resentment alight in the magus' blue-green gaze.

She could not blame him for that.

- The muffled rattling of table legs across the floor above them, elicited a glance up.

Followed by an invective from the magus as the flames - momentarily uncontrolled - burnt his fingers. The flare in his hand vanished a moment after into the air.

She did not restrain an admonishing look.

Hal met her gaze for a moment, pursed his lips sourly - and laughed.

She could not help a smirk.

Some more long minutes passed - the magus having resumed his playing with the flames - before the sound of the opening of the outer door, which guarded the inner on the landing, had them both on their feet.

Halthyn extinguished the flames in his hand, prepared to a deaden the candles an instant after -

The outer door closed. And the inner creaked slowly open.

The basement's silence was broken by the thud of boots descending the first stairs.

The magus moved around the wall of furniture and draping to confirm who it was - she, on the other hand restrained herself.

"It's about damn time." - Hal's voice unleashed hours' worth of frustration.

She relaxed. And with more prudence than the young man was capable of showing, she retrieved one of the candles and moved out into the maze of furnishings.

The older man moved down the staircase gradually - even in the dimness of the candlelight she could see the glisten of blood on his cheek. His black hair, dulled with grey, hung over the simple, unremarkable features of his face. His dark eyes, warm in the candlelight, met hers - and answered the question she had not asked.

She turned and moved back to the only free space of the basement.

"You're hurt." Hal stated, as he moved back to the table. His voice betrayed the concern she masked.

Sardorn sighed, as he moved past the magus and sat in the only available chair, next to her.

A callused hand swept a blood-matted lock away from his face.

She could see the wound was not severe. The blood had already dried.

"What happened?" Hal asked.

Sardorn glanced at the magus - the smallest movement of his lips hinted at a scowl, "I was hit with a rock, if you don't mind."

Hal smirked, sourly, but the concern in his eyes did not waver.

The older man shook his head, "I didn't manage to make it to the guardhouse. The sudden riot caught me off guard." he chuckled, "My apologies if I kept you waiting."

A thump from upstairs drew his glance.

Her eyes did not follow his. She let a tick of her mouth; it had not been the news she had wanted to hear.

Sardorn did not look at Hal as he asked, "A drink would do me well."

The wineskin appeared somewhat quicker than she had expected.

The older man received it, a longer moment after - with a blood covered hand.

"How did that happen?" she asked, warily.

Sardorn unstoppered the skin, and drained a somewhat copious amount as he sat back in his chair.

Wiping away some errant droplets from his mouth, the older man did not meet her eyes, "I met a bloodhound alone on my way back."

"How'd you manage that?" Hal asked.

"He was taking a piss." Sardorn muttered flatly.

Hal chuckled. She managed a smirk.

"This riot's a bad one." the older man continued, "Half the city is fighting, and the other half is cowering in any hole they can find."

"Like upstairs." Hal re-joined.

Sardorn glanced up, "I told Nareen to block the windows." - he smirked, "And suggested she might be a little less accommodating with the poor souls she lets in."

"Good luck on that." Hal quipped; Sardorn handed him back the skin, and the boy drained a mouthful.

"Was there anyone up there we should be worried about?" she asked.

"None that I could see." the older man answered, and paused, "There will be a crackdown after this. The guard wasn't prepared, and this one was clearly organised. And of course every concerned citizen is doing their part - I saw more than a fair share of looting." he swallowed, "It might be a crime to be caught with food after all this."

She sighed.

Hal began to say something, but she cut him off, "We'll lie low. Ignore any visions until this settles -"

"Might be a while." Sardorn added, bluntly.

A surge of bitterness reignited her frustration, but she concealed it under her characteristic façade - the magus on the other hand swore under his breath and drained another mouthful of wine.

A minute passed through silence.

Hal reached out and grasped a flare from the candle flame.

Sardorn glanced over, and gave an irritated glare, "I thought you had agreed to stop that."

Hal pouted, and extinguished the flame.

"If you're so bored son, drink yourself to sleep." the older man muttered.

"I'm not that much your son." Hal quipped.

"You're not my son." the older man re-joined.

Beside her, they both laughed.

She could not help a smirk herself, but the expression faltered and vanished quickly. There was more she had wanted to discuss with them - Ranna had seen two births the night before.

But now, the riots presented too much risk for them to act. If they had been able to find them at all.

The old oracle would not take the news of passivity well. These were the first visions she had had in some time.

Frustration resurfaced - inactivity, waiting, it was all she seemed to do.

Halthyn undoubtedly was already thinking of slipping out tonight, in an attempt to relieve his own irritation - she hoped the blood on Sardorn's cheek would prompt some better sense in the boy, but she knew it had more likely only served to provoke his frustrations overwhelmingly.

Some part of her wanted to slip out with him, but prudence would not entertain that notion. It was safer to wait, here, with Sardorn. The older man would not say anything when the magus went missing; he would wait in silence, with her, until the boy came back - likely with more than a small cut on his head.

Words that weren't as harsh as they ought to be would be exchanged - and then both men would find their own figurative corner in which to sulk.

Whether or not they were father and son by blood they were too alike for it to matter.

The smirk did not make it to her lips.

- Hal might die. The riot might go on for weeks. The guard's crackdown might force them into hiding for months.

All she knew for certain, was that in the next handful of days she would sit in this musty basement, waiting. And two more new-borns would be murdered.

The resentment swelled into a knot of disgust. She did not try to restrain it.

* * *

The camp was not far from the edge of the forest. A few minutes ride across the flat grass of the plains, under the noon-light of the southern sun, revealed the small gathering of tents framed against a wall of concealing hills to the east. A ring of smaller shelters surrounded the larger central tents; the sallow canvas of their canopies stood above the others, and wafted in the slight breeze from the south.

Myriad horses grazed across the flatness of the grassland beside the camp; a few dozen at first count.

Elle'dred descried the people that moved through the sprawling paths between the tents; already he could see that not one of them wore identifying colours or insignia.

He wondered how many of them were knights of the White Wolf. His gut already knew the answer.

Palai'dred slowed as their horses neared the periphery of the tents; some shouts had preceded them, and now the men and women that claimed residence in the canvas shelters were exiting en masse to catch sight of their entrance.

Elle'dred glanced across the growing number of faces - too many of which were familiar, if only in passing, and all of which nodded acknowledgement to their Champion. Not one of the knights said a word as they crossed the camp on horseback - but Elle'dred could not mistake the glances and the stares that were aimed at the magus holding onto his waist behind him.

Some of the expressions were only perplexed by the sheer whiteness of her hair - but enough were not for Elle'dred's perturbation to return in overwhelming force.

Palai'dred reined up outside the smallest of the central tents, and dismounted.

Elle'dred and Syla each followed suit as the Sword-Bearer signalled a knight to take their reins and lead the horses away.

The Champion unbound Athyndyrra from the saddle of the chestnut, before he and Syla turned to Palai'dred. The Sword-Bearer gestured them into the tent, and followed a moment behind them.

As Elle'dred lifted the flap of canvas that led inside, he caught the stares of the four other people at the far side of the large table that occupied the centre of the enclosure.

Two he recognised immediately by face and name - Athan and Ellario, senior knights in the Hall of the White Wolf. Elle'dred had passed over Ellario, a sword-born twice his age, for promotion to the title of Sword-Bearer two years past. Athan, he had fought against for the Championhood of their order.

If either fact influenced the men, neither showed it in their acknowledgments.

"Champion." they both greeted with a nod.

Elle'dred nodded in return, as he entered the tent.

The other two people he did not know - one was an elderly woman, with stern features and green eyes, flanked by her locks of brown hair; the other was a young man, close to Elle'dred's age, with sandy brown skin, cropped, black hair and a sullen expression.

Both nodded to him with the same respect the knights had shown. His title was repeated in greeting.

Syla moved in behind him - her long, white hair contrasted alarmingly with the ebony and azure of the magus robes, which otherwise covered her.

Both knights restrained a moment of whatever emotions pervaded the camp; they nodded greeting to her - but Elle'dred's suspicions were undeniably confirmed as to the source of their provocation.

The elderly woman's misgivings were discernible only as a tightness around her eyes, while the young man evidently struggled to mask what he felt. He did not greet Syla with more than violent disregard.

Palai'dred entered behind the magus.

The Sword-Bearer moved around the table to stand beside the young man.

"Champion," she began - before the uncomfortable silence Elle'dred had felt approaching could take hold, "May I introduce the oracle Lyrien, and archivist Faldorn." Palai'dred paused, "...former archivist Faldorn."

The oracle, Lyrien, met his gaze, and after a moment's pause continued, "There must be many questions you wish to ask, but with all due respect, milord, I would ask that you hold your queries until I have finished my explanation."

Elle'dred was uncertain - it seemed to him now his life was only filled with uncertainty, bewilderment and confusion. He nodded.

Lyrien gave a slight, understanding smile, "I will begin with the heart of the matter. The magus Tribunal has overthrown the Archivist Order and instated themselves as the new government of Ammandorn. In truth, their revolution was not entirely unprovoked - and not unforeseen. Shortly after you departed on your mission to guard the Weapon of the Immortal, a prophecy critical to the coming war was uncovered - this prophecy, however, was considered forbidden by the magus Tribunal. What's more, it predicted that a War of Men would fall on Ammandorn, and that the Tribunal would be the enemy in that war." she paused, "As the prophecy had already caused contention with the Tribunal, Elder Archivist Phio decided that in order to prevent this war from erupting into a civil conflict, we would form a resistance to oppose and undermine the magus...Phio, Faldorn and I formed the resistance, but it was also infiltrated in its beginnings by Elder Archivist Ormus who sought for his own reasons to oppose us. Our first act was the assassination of Staff-Bearer Hadrath, whom Ormus had claimed was the primary instigator of the magus opposition - we assassinated the Staff-Bearer, and another High Magus, I will not deny those facts...however, what resulted of a combination of Ormus' betrayal, our actions, and the Tribunal's truthful opposition, was the deaths of all of our resistance - save for Faldorn and myself - the deaths of Elder Archivist Rethan and Ormus, and the annexing of the government by the Tribunal." again, she paused, "Through the power of my blood I had foreseen Ormus' betrayal in time only to prevent Faldorn's arrest and my own. We approached the Hall of the White Wolf and requested sanctuary. Sword-Bearer Fyrdane granted it, with full knowledge of all that we had done. And I asked for his and the Hall's aid in perpetuating the resistance against the new - unlawful, magus government. Again, he agreed, as did the Circle of Sword-Bearers who remained in Delphanas -"

Palai'dred interrupted, "The Circle had already decided our duty to the people necessitated a coup."

The Sword-Bearer had clearly meant the statement in support of the oracle, but Lyrien glanced away from her before meeting Elle'dred's eyes again, "I requested the Circle to conduct themselves as our resistance had done. Through subterfuge and assassination." she stated, "The Circle refused to resist in that manner. And as only indisputable proof might sway their decision, I forced a vision. In that vision I saw what would happen - indisputably - that the Sword-Bearers who supported me, Fyrdane, Lyrdane and Palai'dred, would defy the decision of the Circle and grant me what knights could be trusted and secreted from the Hall. Together, we abandoned the Circle - although both Fyrdane and Lyrdane remained behind to conceal our departure. They, along with the remaining knights, staged their coup, and were slain by the forces of the Tribunal. The order of the White Wolf has been destroyed." she paused - her eyes had not left Elle'dred's, "In the vision, I had seen that Syla and yourself would emerge from the forest of Dwener'dier - and that you would lead the new resistance in the War of Men."

Her final words left a silence that filled the close confines of the tent - a silence the felt impossible to overcome.

Shock, bewilderment, confusion - overwhelmed by a stifling lack of comprehension - Elle'dred could not fathom words.

After a long moment of pause, Lyrien visibly restrained a sigh, "And there is one last truth that I must tell you. It was the reason the prophecy that began all this was contended, why the resistance was formed, and why these knights are here now and the War of Men will be fought. It is a crime that has been committed by the Archivist Order, the oracles, and the magus Tribunal for centuries -"

A host of memories and emotions surged into focus in an instant - invoked by the oracle's words - and this time, unlike too many days in the Sanctuary - if only for a moment, Elle'dred did not try to evade them.

"Necromancers," - he cut Lyrien off, and finished for her, "The sixth blood are killed at birth."

The shock that yet dogged him was transferred to the people before him.

He took a breath, as ever the bewilderment - the urge to ignore what he had heard and felt and seen - manifested. It was all too much -

He leaned on the table; he could not meet anyone's eyes -

"During our mission we encountered a deathwalker," he paused, "His name was Llrsyring, and I considered him a friend. He told me -"

"Both of us." Syla interrupted, flatly.

Elle'dred glanced over his shoulder to meet the magus gaze - the pale azure of her eyes conveyed her support, a shimmer of approval, and a hard aggrieved glint - that Elle'dred might have forgotten her involvement in all that had happened to them.

He smirked, ashamed, in apology.

The Champion met Lyrien's eyes, "Llrsyring revealed to both of us the truth about the deathwalkers, about what is done to them. And during the course of our mission, both Syla and I decided that we would not be party to orders or a government that supported such crimes." he swallowed, "In truth, I had decided that the Archivists and the Hall were no longer owed my allegiance and I was prepared to betray them."

It was the truth - as far as he had seen it then, though regret and shame added that he had only been prepared. However, a flash of offence passed instinctually across Ellario's eyes - and while Athan and Palai'dred both concealed it better, Elle'dred knew the admission had provoked a similar reaction in them.

The Champion smirked inwardly, they were all traitors - and they were all offended at what the others had done. He wanted to laugh, though not for any joy.

"Despite my abandonment of some areas of my duty, I continued on the mission to guard Aya-" he paused.

The thought passed - that explaining that he had considered a winged man-lizard and a walking suit of armour his closest companions would likely baffled the people before him, if not call into question his competency. And a knot of hurt undealt with, still too fresh, prompted him to reconsider his words.

"- to guard the Weapon of the Immortal, to Eryndor. It was necessary to protect the people of Ammandorn - something I, and Syla, intend to continue to do."

There was another long silence. Uncertainty - and distrust were both as palpable and unavoidable as the length of the table between the two groups.

The tension was broken by the oracle - though not through words, but by her movements. Unwittingly, all eyes fell upon her, as she turned and bent down to retrieve something that lay on the grass behind her.

Lyrien turned back to the table - cradling the length of what was undoubtedly a sword, wrapped in black cloth.

Elle'dred already knew in that moment which sword would be revealed - and all the thoughts that had plagued him swelled to combat the final realisation. He was ever who he was -

The oracle undid the ties binding the cloth, laid the enwrapped length of metal on the table and pulled away the covering.

The Champion's blade, adorned with myriad lines of scrolling text in its perfect silver centre, gleamed in the light of the tent. It's simple, leather wrapped hilt bound in silver rings waited on the table, less than an arm's reach, before the Champion.

For a moment, Elle'dred could do nothing but stare at the sword.

"You had best pick that up," Lyrien said, before adding bitterly, "Or else it would be best if we were all to ride back to Delphanas and turn ourselves in as the traitors that we are."

Elle'dred glanced up, and met her eyes.

A sword's a sword.

He had not realised, that during the entire time they had been briefing each other on what had happened, he had been holding Athyndyrra against his side. The deathwalker's blade was yet covered, as he clutched it in his hand - a blade that had more than once saved his life and Syla's, and that had slain his friend. Two of his friends. The sword that if one looked into its blade would show their death, inescapable and unalterable -

And yet the alien magic of that blade frightened him less than the sword which rested on the table.

It took all of his will to set Athyndyrra down on the corner of the table top.

- He reached out and grasped the hilt of the Champion's Blade.

As he lifted the sword from its bed of black cloth and held it in the air before him, pointed toward the canopy of the tent, the thought passed once more through his mind - a sword's a sword.

Maybe - probably -

He glanced up at the knights, the oracle and the archivist before him. Very little had changed in their eyes - as he was certain very little had in his.

But it was enough.

Palai'dred nodded again, "Champion."

The title was echoed by Athan and Ellario, and Lyrien and Faldorn. And Syla.

Elle'dred threw another glance over his shoulder, and met the magus' gaze.

He turned back to the knights, "As the Champion of the White Wolf Hall, I will lead the resistance against the Tribunal. Palai'dred," he addressed the Sword-Bearer, "You will serve as my second in command - as will Syla."

The words prompted an offended shock, unconcealed, from both knights and the archivist - Lyrien and Palai'dred exchanged a glance of uncertainty -

"Elle'dred -" Syla began, behind him - she stepped to the table edge.

His eyes met hers beside - whatever else had risen to her tongue, vanished unsaid.

The azure of her gaze did not object to his tacit request - plea; and he was more grateful for that than she could know.

"Syla is the best of us here equipped to combat the Tribunal." Elle'dred stated, turning to the knights, "She knows as much about magic as they do..."

Elle'dred did not catch the slightest flinch those words prompted beside him.

"And we need to know all we can if we are to have any hope of winning this war." he paused, "I trust her as much as I do any of the knights of the White Wolf."

Undoubtedly more, at this moment. He hoped his eyes did not reveal the words unsaid.

Athan and Ellario were evidently displeased by the order, but neither raised objection.

Palai'dred answered with an accepting nod.

Elle'dred sighed, "As I doubt none of you will dispute, I am not entirely aware of all that has happened during my absence. So I am asking for suggestions, if you have any, on what our first course of action should be."

Before the Sword-Bearer or either of the knights could voice themselves, Lyrien spoke, "There is another element of my vision that you need to know, in concerning the coming war. A truth, if it is not a clear one. The answer to the War of Men lies in the forest of Dwener'dier."

Shock nearly overcame Elle'dred once again.

By the reactions before him, it was clear the oracle's last words had only been known to the Archivist and the Sword-Bearer, and that the three had decided it best to keep secret.

Elle'dred steadied himself with a breath - admittedly, the information had not come as anymore a surprise than walking through a grove of trees that had once been elves and appearing on the other side of the world moments after.

He met Lyrien's eyes -

"I am afraid that is the extent of my vision." she finished, with a tick of apology - or bitterness.

Elle'dred stared; slowly, the edge of his mouth curled into a smirk, and a chuckle followed a moment after.

The others stared at him in confusion.

"Well, it seems best that you have asked the only man who has walked through that forest in the past centuries, and returned, to do it again." - he didn't add that he had had the protection of a deathwalker that could not be killed last time - and that he alone knew that his and Syla's arrival in Ammandorn had only touched the edge of the Forsaken Glade.

What Llrsyring had once said echoed dimly in his mind, as did the understanding he was loath to admit he had gained - all too much made sense, as much as it terrified him.

It was all too much -
Chapter 6

The briefing had continued for some hours; a summation of the current circumstances of the 'resistance' as it now existed on the edge of the plains, had preoccupied the time - supplies, arms, numbers, what information they had on the war with the goblins to the north.

Syla had listened to it all - their army, for wont of a better term, was little over two dozen knights with as many horses and swords. Supplies were not a concern, and would not be for some amount of time; the camp had been set up a few minutes' walk from Ahen's Tears, a series of small lakes to the north, and as such water was in abundance.

In terms of arms, each knight was overwhelming equipped - though that seemed almost a cruel irony in regards to the overall situation.

The resistance, at present, faced the full military of Ammandorn - an official army alone was composed of a thousand soldiers, and at least a dozen armies had been in operation on the plains at last count. Furthermore, the Tribunal, as it had stood when the knights had abandoned Delphanas, possessed a complete stranglehold on the central government.

If nothing else, the fear of the war that raged in the west had solidified the Tribunal's new order. Fear apparently had also replaced the law - or what now passed for it.

And had ever passed for it.

After the conditions of the resistance had been summarised, Elle'dred had made it clear he required time to think - the irony passed that of all things, at present, time was something they could afford.

Elle'dred had asked Syla to stay a moment after dismissing his knights; though all he had had the energy and intent for was a thank you.

She had accepted it.

As she left the tent, she found Lyrien waiting for her outside.

The oracle nodded politely - though Syla did not mistake the discomfort in her gaze, "Syla. There is something I need to discuss with you."

"What is it?" she asked, as levelly as she could.

The oracle hesitated a moment, "If you would follow me."

Lyrien turned away, and despite a measure of distrust Syla assumed pace a moment after.

The oracle led her across the centre of the camp to another of the larger tents - evidently set up as a hospice, if it were required. Three rows of cots filled the enclosure of the canvas.

Only one was occupied.

From the entrance flap, Syla could only see the matted blonde hair of the person, otherwise wrapped in a blanket.

Wordlessly, Lyrien continued into the tent and drew to the side of the cot.

Syla followed.

Gently, the oracle lent down and brushed the hair from the young man's face. The touch of her fingers on his immaculate, milky white cheek did not rouse him.

The scents of herbs and dressings met the magus nose as she drew aside the cot - shock and surprise moved to her face as she recognised that of the man beside her.

It was magus Keylyn; Hadrath's aide.

"He's a magus." Lyrien began; her green eyes lingered on the sleeping face beneath her - and held a compassion marred by uncertainty, "He had been tortured before we found him. I don't know for how long, or why." she paused, "He hasn't managed to say much since we found him - he's still recovering, but it was a magus guard that did this to him."

Syla watched the unconscious man for a moment - a surge from inside her threatened the expression of her face. She quashed it -

- But not before a tear had escaped her eye, and rolled softly down her cheek - a sweep of her fingers wiped it away.

Lyrien was watching her when she met the oracle's gaze.

"Why -" she began.

"I don't know. He hasn't said."

"Why did you save him?"

At those words, the oracle's gaze fractured and fell away - doubt, bitterness, confusion had risen to her own stern features before she too restrained them.

"I don't know." she answered, flatly, "In my vision of Elle'dred and yourself - before that is, I saw much of what was and would happen to the people. One glimpse was of a magus guard dragging a body from an alley. As it happened, we passed the alley on our way while exiting the city," she paused - a fragile knowing found its way to her eyes, "When I investigated, we heard him scream. I don't know why we rescued him - I don't know why...he is important to the future. That's all I know," the oracle let a tick of her mouth, "I don't even know his name."

"Keylyn." Syla answered, as she returned to watching the young man's weak breathing on the cot beneath.

Lyrien was silent a moment, "You knew him?"

Syla shook her head, "Only in passing." she paused, "He was Staff-Bearer Hadrath's aide."

She glanced up instinctually - worriedly, to gauge the impact of the information; fortunately, only confusion rose on the oracle's face.

A silence settled in the tent for a long moment, as they both watched the sleeping magus.

"You are not well liked around here." Lyrien stated, bluntly - though there was no malice in her tone, "More than once during the ride here it was suggested we abandon Keylyn - or spare him his suffering." - Syla met the oracle's eyes, "The knights here have suffered considerable losses, and they blame the magus for it. They are good men and women - but it has surprised me, even with ample reason, how hard it is to overlook a grievance...and the blood you, whether wrongly or not, associate with it."

Syla did not say anything in return.

She just watched the fragile breath of the magus beneath her, beaten and broken by a magus guard, and who once had been the Staff-Bearer's aide.

* * *

Faldorn waited. The small space of the tent assigned to Lyrien and he as their quarters in the camp was filled only with their two cots. Two cots which made the small space ever smaller. Two cots and the clothes on his back - neither of which were truly his - were all he had left of his life.

Everything, and everyone else, had been ripped away or killed by the magus. By the damned magus. He hated it - he hated them. He wanted every one of them to die.

- And the Champion of the White Wolf had put one of them in charge.

While another slept in the medical tent.

Lyrien had defended that magus. For weeks. She had offered no explanation beyond 'he was important to the future' - that she had seen that in her vision. She did not believe it - she did not want to believe it. Faldorn knew. But she still defended him.

And she had not so much as raised objection when Elle'dred put the damned magus bitch in charge -

The oracle moved into the tent through the lifted flap.

Lyrien met his sullen gaze with a softer stare than her usual.

Faldorn looked away.

"Faldorn, he trusts her."

The former archivist did not respond.

"This is what I saw. Elle'dred and Syla both would emerge from the Forsaken Glade," the oracle paused, "I held no delusions that that did not mean Elle'dred had placed some trust in her."

Faldorn remained silent.

Lyrien sighed, "Faldorn -"

"He put a magus in charge." he muttered the words.

"He is our leader now, and he can assign command to whomever he wishes."

The former archivist did not reply.

An uneasy silence fell amidst the small space between the canvas walls; for some time, the oracle watched him - he did not meet her eyes.

"In any case," Lyrien moved beside and lowered herself to the edge of her cot, "I need your help; I intend to force another vision...as many as may be necessary to aid the resistance."

Faldorn met her gaze with a moment of uncertainty - he looked away again.

"Elle'dred needs the help we can lend, and we have precious little information as it is -"

"It's dangerous...last time..."

Lyrien glanced up, "I do not intend to sit here uselessly, Faldorn. And the power of my blood is all I have to aid the Champion."

Faldorn did not reply - she had nearly died last time -

"That is why I need your help," the oracle continued, flatly, "Whatever the cost of the visions, I will not allow the resistance to venture blindly. And as it would seem the laws that restricted the visions are utterly false I do not intend to wait for fate to reveal itself to me."

She was trying to reassure him - she was trying -

She was scared. He could hear it behind her voice. She was scared -

But she wouldn't listen.

"Fine." Faldorn mumbled. Fine.

* * *

Elle'dred stared at the Champion's blade. The sword that belonged to the Champion of the White Wolf. It seemed a terrible irony that he would be handed the blade irrefutably now, of all times. Now, when the Hall of the White Wolf remained only as a smattering of knights, exiled beyond the farthest borders of their lands, extricated from the people and the society they had served.

Their duty demanded that they - that he, fight this war. A war between men, between the bloods, with one's kinsmen. The knights were sworn to protect the people of Ammandorn.

It was their duty.

Duty -

Elle'dred reached out and grasped the leather bound hilt resting atop the black velvet cloth which had only an hour before masked the blade. No small part of him still wished it could yet mask the blade. Too many realisations had dawned on him in the perfect silver centre of the sword - too many reflections of the past few months, though not all were his.

He lifted the sword from its black bed and inspected the cascading lines of text that marred the mirror sheen of its face - a thousand sigils or runes or words whose meaning had never been deciphered.

This sword had been a gift from the elves - they were gone now.

A silent grove amidst dead mountains was all that remained of their people.

And the Champion of the White Wolf was planning to provoke a war between his own people, while they were threatened by goblins and incarnates and all the forces of the Immortal.

Elle'dred sighed.

He moved to sheathe the sword at his waist - the blade had no sheath. He would have to have one made. It all seemed too much.

He turned to the flap of canvas that provided egress from the tent, though not from the thoughts that had filled it in silence for the better part of an hour. Too many thoughts, all clearly etched like the runes on his blade.

Pushing aside the canvas, he moved out into the afternoon brightness of the day; the southern sun glimmered above the southwest through holes in the sheets of cloud.

Several knights stood to attention upon seeing their Champion - Elle'dred nodded a silent acknowledgement to each of them.

Nods en masse he received in return - they all seemed as uncertain as his.

He descried Palai'dred on the eastern periphery of the camp; the sword-bearer was tending her horse.

The Champion moved to the Sword-Bearer's side.

"Champion." she nodded in respect. Her eyes instinctually glanced down at the bare weapon in his hand.

Elle'dred's gaze followed; he smirked, "This thing needs a scabbard."

Palai'dred chortled, "As you say, milord."

"Elle'dred," he corrected, "...let's omit the tedium."

Palai'dred smirked.

Elle'dred's attempt to mirror the gesture collapsed under the weight of the realisations he had made, which yet gleamed as clearly as the blade.

He gestured for her to follow him away from the camp.

She nodded.

As they moved towards the hills in the far east, he did not say a word - what he needed to say was not something he wanted anything else than the herd of grazing horses to hear.

Save for the Sword-Bearer.

This woman was not his friend - she did not share an understanding with him that had been born from kinship and years and love like Hheirdane had. She deserved his trust - she was a knight of the White Wolf Hall, duty demanded that much of him.

She was his senior, by the better part of a decade. Though she had not fought against him in the trials of Championship. For that he was grateful, he did not relish wading through the clandestine bitterness and misgivings too many of his council had made unsubtly clear to him.

As he recalled, Palai'dred had never been an opposition - though she had sided against him more than once. She was a Sword-Bearer of the White Wolf, she trusted him. As her duty entailed.

Elle'dred stopped amidst the green expanse of the grassland. A bird cried overhead, a squalling screech dulled by towering height - a kestrel or a falcon.

Palai'dred stopped at his side; her visage was riddled with a suppressed concern and uncertainty. That she did not trust the man - the youth, beside her more than had been required by law was evident in what she did not express.

The Sword-Bearer waited for him to begin; her cropped brown hair stirred in the breeze.

Elle'dred sighed - no part of him wanted to say what he needed to say, but like the sword in his hand, there was no concealing the truth.

"We can't fight this war as knights of the White Wolf." - the truth, "We can't fight this war the way we would goblins, or brigands, or any other enemy the Hall has fought...if we do, we will lose. And Ammandorn will be left at the mercy of the magus." he paused, "- the Tribunal. If we want to have a hope at victory, we are going to have to turn the people against each other. We are going to have to use the people in every way we can."

He glanced at her face; the doughty features there wavered with uncertainty - more than uncertainty.

"This war has to be fought by the people because it is the people who are suffering - the magus Tribunal has control of the military, of the city guard - if only in Delphanas now, they will secure their power in all the other cities as soon as they can. Likely before we can get to anyone there." he paused, "You yourself were used to quell the rioting in Delphanas. The city guards elsewhere will not be exempt from that edict. The Archivists governed Ammandorn because the law said they governed Ammandorn - and the Tribunal writes the law...now, at least. Martial law has been declared across Ammandorn, it was declared by the Archivists...and Ormus instated himself as the martial dictator of Ammandorn by vote of the Assembly. The people will not know the difference between the dictatorship of the Tribunal, and the dictatorship their representatives supposedly voted in." there was a long silence; Palai'dred did not speak, "In time it would become clear that the people have no say in their government, and then they would challenge the magus...we have to make that clear to them now. We have to use their unrest - and the confusion of the war in the east, to rouse them to fight now...without destroying our defences such that the goblins overrun us and make this all..."

For a long time, Palai'dred did not reply; silence lingered over the breeze and the grass.

"How did Hheirdane die?"

- Shock stifled Elle'dred's tongue for a moment.

"He was murdered by the Champion of the Tribunal for a crime he did not commit."

Palai'dred stared out across the wall of hills to the east.

After a long, tenuous silence the Sword-Bearer muttered, "The Circle had deemed the only viable strategy to win the war was to remain entrenched in the valley of Ythordor. Otherwise our losses would be too great to sustain. The losses would have been unacceptably high in any case..."

Elle'dred watched her face, "There is something I have to tell you." she met his gaze, "While we were moving through Agdor we came across a crater. A marshalling ground. It was filled with goblins...there must have been hundreds of thousands of them, maybe more." he paused, "...and the forces of the Immortal are still marching. Eryndor won't stall them for long...I know at least they will have to cross the Bridge Mountains to reach Ammandorn, a storm upon the inland sea will prevent them from reaching our shores by ship. It will be a few years yet before we will have to face them, and hopefully that march might bleed their forces some...but in honest truth I don't know their full numbers, and the weapon we were sent to guard...he is not something any man can fight...or any magic." - he found himself laughing, dryly, harshly, "I don't understand what the hells I'm supposed to accomplish with all this. The war of men seems impossible - the war of the Immortal seems impossible."

Why the hells were they - necromancers.

Innocent children were being murdered for a truth of their lives they could not change. Too many innocent people had died already. Too many more would die.

That was the way of the world -

Elle'dred sighed. He was ever who he was.

His hand tightened around the hilt of the Champion's blade.

"How do you plan to make the people turn against the magus?" the uncertainty in the Sword-Bearer's voice was palpable, but so too was her effort to restrain it.

Elle'dred smirked, "I don't know. I was hoping the forest of Dwener'dier might answer that question...or at least point me in the right direction."

Palai'dred met his gaze with a sceptical, raised brow.

"I'm afraid it is all we have for the moment," he muttered, "Unless the oracle has another vision."

Palai'dred grunted a laugh.

"We have to fight because we are knights of the White Wolf." - the truth, the magus were wrong, "...but we can't -"

"We are going to have kill the people we swore to protect." Palai'dred finished; and paused, for longer than he preferred, "...I understand your order Champion...and I will follow it; I will order our knights to follow it. But I want you to understand that I hate it...this is not who we are." she paused, "We are not knights of the White Wolf."

She met his eyes with a yet uncertain and aggrieved acceptance, and waited for him to dismiss her.

Elle'dred held her gaze - too much he recognised glistened there, beneath a disgust and abhorrence and a betrayal that might never be resolved. He realised that no small part of the older woman before him had hoped that when her Champion arrived, he would lead her in an honourable battle against the forces of wrong and injustice.

Against goblins and monsters.

She was a Sword-Bearer of the White Wolf Hall.

But only a man stared back at her, while he held the blade of the Champion of the White Wolf.
Chapter 7

She made her way through the streets. Halthyn and Sardorn kept their distance behind her.

She did not like that she was doing this - nor did Sardorn -

Halthyn on the other hand was eager to be out amongst the chaos of the city. That was not a change from his recent behaviour - two excursions from the inn in the past weeks had left him with more than one bruise and a cut.

She held no illusion that Sardorn was secretly glad she had decided to venture out - at least this time he would know where Halthyn had gone and what trouble the boy managed to get himself into.

At least this time, they were doing something necessary.

She repeated that thought to herself. She did not like that they were in the streets, this close to dawn.

Her resolution to remain hidden had been revoked by her feelings for Rana - the old oracle had been too distraught by the uselessness of her visions for her to bear. And when she had striven to have one that was of some use, she had somewhat succeeded.

Rana had been adamant that they could rescue this new born without detection - that the chaos of the city would hide them well enough. If they were quick - if they acted swiftly.

She had hesitated. She did not want to endanger them - she could not afford -

Rana had begged her to go.

She could not refuse.

Yet even now, as they made their way through the back alleys, and the roads that were disturbingly abandoned - and littered with debris and damage from the rioting - she kept thinking this was a mistake.

This was a mistake.

Even amidst the darkness of night, and the absence of lit street lamps, they had passed what was unmistakably a corpse in the streets - there was not enough order in the city to tend to him.

And the sounds of fighting were not far off; guards could be waiting around any turn, or terrified people trying to defend themselves.

The thick darkness which hung between the buildings, did not grant her comfort - there was debris enough to make silence impossible. And not far off, in the adjacent district, towering pillars of smoke twisted into the night - reflecting the massive fires beneath. She did not know how long they had been burning, who had set them, and where that group was in relation to them.

This was a mistake.

They moved past a building that had been recently burnt down, into the utter darkness of the alley against its side.

- Behind her, Halthyn tripped on a piece of rubble, and restrained an invective.

She paused, as Sardorn blindly helped the boy to his feet.

She did not need any light to see the embarrassed smirk on the young man's face.

She resumed pace - the house they sought was not far off.

Under the faint starlight, their three pairs of eyes did not reveal anyone in the surrounding streets, or any light or movement at any of the windows that lined the buildings and their numerous floors around them.

Further down the street, there was a shadow - she was certain it was a horse, dead, and the spark of light off of armour showed it had trapped its rider where they had fallen. Neither horse nor guardsman moved.

There was not enough ambient illumination nearby to expose them as they crossed the street; if the guardsman was alive - and she doubted that they were - they would see nothing more than three shadows move between the buildings.

Sardorn however was not so certain - but a touch on his arm quelled his concern.

Quickly, silently, they left the alley, and moved out between the silhouettes of rubble and the shadows which drowned the street.

They moved beside the house to which the oracle's vision had directed them -

It doors were boarded. As were its windows. They had been broken recently.

- They had not been boarded well.

She directed Halthyn to assist her, as Sardorn kept watch of the street. Amidst the surrounding silence, the screams of nails and groans of wood seemed a terrible cacophony that would draw every guardsman to them in moments.

The thought that this had been a mistake resounded as loudly as the noise they made.

Removing the last of the broken glass that had once filled the window, she climbed deftly through the aperture into the pitch blackness of the room beyond. Halthyn followed a moment behind her.

Rana had said the babe would be in the third room of the second floor above - she had said he would be alone. Why the mother and father had abandoned their child here did not make sense to her - but amidst the chaos of the rioting, and the numerous attempts of the city guard to restore order, what people did made less and less sense.

Carefully, quietly, she felt her way around the pitch darkness of the room. Touch slowly discovered the only doorway that led out, and she passed through it into the adjoining corridor.

More minutes crept by as she carefully mapped out the hallway in the dark - and more than once she stumbled on or against a piece of furniture which made more noise than she liked.

Two other doorways led off further into the house, but as no sound came from the darkness beyond her touch on their architraves, she trusted that Rana's vision had been accurate. She found the stairway and its banister, leading to the second floor of the building.

The stairs creaked amidst the darkness beneath her, infrequently and off pitch, as she made her way up onto the landing above. The banister in her grasp, at her side, supported her ascent and led her some way into the hallway at the top of the stairs.

As she made her slow, steady way through the darkness of the hall, she was glad there was nothing occupying its length other than shadows.

- A floorboard squealed a deafening protest under her foot.

She froze - the sound was followed a moment after by the muffled cry of a baby, coming from the room ahead.

She continued on, pressed against the wall, feeling for the deviation in its flatness that would be the architrave of the doorway. Her hand slid onto it and over, onto the imbedded façade of the door.

It was closed.

The door whined on its hinges as she pushed it open, but its sound was quickly masked by the crying of the babe. The room's window had been boarded from the inside, but the barest sheen of the starlight beyond intruded between the cracks - black silhouettes filled the room.

The child's cries were more than enough to lead her deftly around them. She felt the side of its cradle as she reached it. The baby continued to cry, filling the room and her ears with noise.

She reached down and lifted the babe from its bed.

The cry turned into a sniffle and a short half-giggle a moment after she began to rock the new born in her arms.

"Mother...is that you?"

- The soft, tremulous voice of the girl came from the darkness behind her.

Rana had been wrong.

With the babe cradled against her chest, breathing softly into her bosom, she laid her eyes on the barely visible edge of the girl's shape, in the corner of the room. She could not make out the child's features, her hair or eyes - all she could hear was her quiet, fearful breath. The girl was terrified.

The girl had been left here to care for her brother. By her height she could be no more than ten.

"No." she said, "Your mother sent me. I am a friend." she paused, "Come here."

The shape, defined by an edge of starlight, hesitated - the girl's fear filled the confined air of the room.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you..."

The girl's silhouette inched a step forward.

"Mother will be back soon..."

- She was not likely wrong.

The girl paused, before she moved another step. Uncertainty mingled with fear.

She waited; she did not want the girl to be afraid. The child did not deserve that.

She knew -

She could leave now. She could move out into the hallway, down the stairs and leave. She could -

But that would be a mistake. Leaving the inn tonight was a mistake. She knew that now.

She would not leave - she had made that mistake before. And the consequences, of even such an innocuous thing as a scared child's words, had nearly led to -

Any witness was a danger they could not afford; not where bloodhounds were concerned.

The child moved to her side, and pressed herself against her leg.

"Mother said for me to be quiet," the girl muttered into her cloak, "I'm sorry..."

The girl sobbed - half in fear, half -

"Don't be," she comforted, "You were a good girl."

She rested her hand on the girl's head - her bare hand -

"You were a good girl." she said, gently.

The girl released her breath. A soft, airy sigh.

And dropped limply to the floor.

No breath was drawn back in.

She did not glance down as she turned and moved out of the room. Only silence remained in the darkness behind her, as she felt her way back through the length of the hallway to the banister and down the stairs.

Halthyn's breathing was waiting in the corridor below.

The babe in her arms whined as the jostling of her descent disturbed him.

Before the magus could ask, she ordered flatly, "Burn the house down." - Halthyn formed the beginnings of a question, "There was a sister."

The magus was silent. He moved away into the darkness, as she made her way back to the window that had provided their entrance.

She waited for a few minutes until a dim, red glow crept out into the hallway, and the smell of smoke caught her nose. Halthyn returned to the room, as the muffled crackle of distant fire filled the air.

She handed the babe to him, before crawling out of the window.

The magus returned him to her and extricated himself from the darkness of the house.

A gesture was all that was needed to direct Sardorn to follow them to the rear of the building. If anyone had seen them cross the street, they would not see them leave. Hopefully the fire would destroy the nearby buildings as well, and leave only a terrible mystery behind.

Quickly now, silence no longer a prime concern, they made their way through the housing district, and into another warren of alleys. When they had achieved enough distance from the street, and the house, she turned them back towards the inn.

Somewhere, through their careful backtrack through the darkness of the city streets - evading the sounds of rioting and the light of fires - she heard Halthyn mutter to Sardorn, "There was a sister."

The older necromancer said nothing to her, or to the magus.

She was glad. She wanted to forget. It was something she had learned to do too well during her life.

The babe in her arms slept undisturbed as they made their return to their inn, and home, under the last darkness of the night.

At least they had saved one life.

One life.

She wanted to forget the thought.

* * *

Elle'dred stood in the main tent in the centre of the camp. The space was illuminated by the light of a lantern and the soft glow from the southwest which heralded the immanent dawn.

Sleep had not come easily the night before, and it had left all too quickly.

Unsurprisingly, he had found Syla already awake in the pre-dawn darkness.

The magus had been chanting softly to herself at the edge of the camp - she had told him she was placing warding spells around the encampment. She had said it would take her sometime yet before they were fully protected.

He had stood with her, in silence, until the first rays of dawn had lit the wall of hills to the east.

Together, they had made their way back to the centre of the camp, and waited in the tent for the others to arrive. Syla stood at the table's side staring distantly, in thought.

Elle'dred had done the same for some long minutes. They had not spoken much since their arrival at the camp - since their lives had been filled with duty once again.

It seemed they had spent too much of their friendship in silence.

In the glow of the lantern, the subtle gauntness of Syla's features could not be mistaken - the sallow light played across her ghostly white skin, and bleached the azure of her eyes to a deathly hue.

Elle'dred was all too aware that her silence concealed far more than he knew - beneath the façade of strength and stubbornness the magus always wore, he knew there was much she was not saying.

The gauntness of her face was only the least of the wounds left by her experiences.

- The tent flap was held aside as the Sword-Bearer and the two knights entered.

Each nodded acknowledgement and greeted Elle'dred with, "Champion."

Another, slighter nod was granted to Syla - the magus acknowledged each of them, herself, in turn.

The three knights took their places on the side opposite her.

They all looked to the Champion to begin.

Elle'dred sighed, "I am returning to Dwener'dier today. As Lyrien has said that answers lie in the forest, I intend to seek them out. Palai'dred and Ellario, you and I shall ride west to the edge of the forest. Syla, and Athan, you will remain behind. Two knights are to wait for me at the edge of the forest at all times," he paused, "I am not sure when I will return...or admittedly in what state. The last time I ventured into the forsaken glade I returned with an arrow in my leg. I will need someone there to assist me back to camp in the event that I am wounded. I must enter Dwener'dier alone, if any of you come with me I am certain you will die. And Lyrien has not said otherwise. Until I return, my standing orders are to maintain the camp, continue scouts and patrols, and to avoid detection at all costs."

Athan, Ellario and Palai'dred nodded their acceptance of the orders.

"Syla, I trust you to provide whatever magical protection you think to be necessary."

Syla nodded.

Elle'dred sighed, "When I return, hopefully I will have a plan on how we are going to begin to fight this war."

The Champion moved out of the tent with the Sword-Bearer and knight behind him.

Three horses had been saddled at the western edge of the camp, where the attending knights had been waiting for them.

Elle'dred mounted alongside his two lieutenants, and they took to a gallop into the west.

As the minutes of the ride passed, and the mountain that towered above the west grew ever taller, Elle'dred could not suppress a pang of trepidation.

The last time he had ventured into this forest he had been protected by an empty suit of armour that could not be slain by any weapon. And even then, he had returned with an arrow in his leg.

Now, he would venture into the forest alone - and when he would return was not known.

As the perfect wall of trees that was the edge of Dwener'dier grew out of the horizon, he slowed his chestnut to a trot. He would not take his horse into the forest; as it stood, he had lost enough horses in recent days.

Garde -

He had lost more than enough friends as well.

Elle'dred drew to a halt some ten paces from the line of trees and dismounted, as did both Palai'dred and Ellario behind him.

A glance back showed the uneasiness - and the fear, that neither knight could fully suppress this close to a forest that through no myth or superstition had killed every man and woman that entered it.

Save for Elle'dred.

His hand fell to the hilt of the Champion's Blade. A scabbard had been made for the sword, and now it and its scabbard hung from his belt with an unfamiliar weight. With a simple motion, he drew the blade from its sheath - the broad, somewhat overly long, sword felt out of place in his grasp. He realised he had not held it with the knowledge that it might soon be used - and only now did he realise that this blade had yet to earn his trust.

A sword's a sword.

He repressed a chuckle - that he did not believe his own words now.

He glanced down into the silver centre of the blade, which caught the sanguine glow of dawn behind; despite his trepidation, he understood too much - of both the forest before him, and the sword in his grasp - for fear to impede him.

His eyes fell away from the blade, to the line of trees that stood before him, ominous and shrouded in gloom.

"Good luck." the Sword-Bearer said from over his shoulder.

He glanced back and smirked. To himself, however, he hoped he wouldn't need luck.

He strode forward towards the open space between the ranks of trees - lost in shadow. For a moment he paused, a pace away from the edge. In the depths of the forest, seemingly made ever deeper by the growing light of the morning, he could not see anything beyond the vague silhouettes of further trees.

His trepidation mounted into fear for a moment -

He clenched his hand around the hilt of his sword and stepped into the forest.

* * *

Syla strode slowly around the perimeter of the camp. The soft muttering that emanated from her mouth barely graced her conscious thoughts. The encampment needed protection, and she was the only one who could provide that protection.

That the magics she used and the spells she forced them into were as savage a violation as the possession that had been forced upon her, did not enter her mind -

She could not let it -

She could not let the weakness and the tears and the sickness overcome her - she would not.

"Syla," - the oracle's unexpected and unanticipated shout, from over her shoulder, elicited a momentary start.

Syla turned to see Lyrien and Faldorn making their way out of the camp towards her. There was an earnestness present in the older woman's features that she could not mistake - and a palpable worry.

The young man did not meet her eyes.

"Lyrien," Syla greeted, flatly.

"We must prepare the camp. Soldiers are coming," the oracle was clearly exhausted - a tremor in her stride and a fatigue in her voice evinced her physical state undeniably - as did a small patch of crusted blood beneath her nose, "I had a vision. A group of soldiers has or will discover our camp...and they will be here soon."

For a moment, Syla wondered why the oracle had come to her with this information, rather than the knight Elle'dred had left in command - the gesture of trust was not something she had expected.

Or perhaps exhaustion and fear had dulled the oracle's misgivings -

A cry from above drew her gaze - a hawk wheeled against the azure blue of the morning's sky.

"A tamer's bird," the oracle muttered, "It has alerted her already to our position...the group of soldiers is not large...they are only six...they will not pose a threat, unless...unless they are permitted to leave our camp -" Lyrien's posture buckled, and she began to fall - Faldorn managed to catch her as she expelled a heavy breath.

"Lyrien," the young man asked - uncertain, afraid; he looked at the older woman's face, struggling to retain consciousness - he glanced at the magus -

Syla was caught off guard by the aggrieved hatred and blame that dwelt there, for a moment, before he looked away.

She hesitated -

"I will speak with Athan," she stated, flatly, "Faldorn, take Lyrien back to her tent."

The young man met her eyes instinctually as she addressed him - a disregarding nod disguised the enmity that he otherwise could not.

Syla moved quickly back into the camp, as the oracle and the former archivist did more slowly some paces behind her. She did not doubt Lyrien's vision, and she trusted that the knight Athan also would not -

But the knight might disregard her - that glare she had received from the former archivist had re-illustrated the truth that defined her life. A truth for which, at this moment, she was glad.

She would speak with the knight, and would make certain he did not disregard her.

The thought passed, she had not finished the spells -

She was glad, though she could not admit it to herself.

* * *

"The rioting in Armanas has overwhelmed the city guard." the High Magus stated, "Several storehouses have been lost. Some to fire, others to looting. The Garrison Commander does not believe he can restore order without more men."

Staff-Bearer Ragmurath held the eyes of his inferior with his characteristic disdain. The news from the east was unacceptable - the incompetence of the city guard in Armanas had allowed the rioting to continue for an intolerable length of time.

"The Garrison Commander is requesting assistance." Sansurath finished.

Ragmurath did not reply.

Silence lingered amidst the council chamber.

The elderly High Magus added, weakly, "If the rioting is allowed to continue, there is a chance that it might change into outright rebellion. Even if only in Armanas."

The corner of the Staff-Bearer's mouth curled into a sneer, but the expression was quashed by a contemptuous iciness a moment after.

Gerdanath broke the recurrent silence, "The people are starving. And the war forces more from them every day. They have only our new government to blame for their woes. It should be no surprise they are on the verge of revolt."

Ragmurath ground his teeth, "The Archivists were to blame," he hissed, "They instituted martial law, but failed to review those that their edict placed in charge. The Garrison Commander of Armanas has failed in his duty. He has failed to keep his city safe. He has violated the law."

Gerdanath seemed ready to object - Ragmurath met her eyes with a glare that dared an outburst -

The older woman remained silent.

"The Garrison Commander is as guilty as the rioters. He has had months to suppress the resistance in Armanas - if he had enacted the laws forbidding unrest as forcefully as we did here in Delphanas the rioting would have been long over. Therefore, it must be concluded that the proper punishments for the crimes of the people have not been enacted, and therefore the guardsmen have shown a blatant disregard for the law...they shall be held accountable."

Ragmurath glanced to the young woman at his side, "High Magus Eranath, you and High Magus Sansurath will lead the Blood Hounds to Armanas, where you are to arrest the Garrison Commander for the crime of supporting anarchy. You will suppress the rioting as has been ordered, enacting the law in its utmost. For the crime of disrupting the peace in a time of war, the punishment is death. I want it to be clear to the city that endangering the peace of Ammandorn while we are threatened by war is a crime as heinous as any." he paused - a glance at Gerdanath showed the restraint she struggled to keep under a flat façade, "Armanas will be restored to order, as was Delphanas, am I understood?"

High Magus Eranath did not hesitate, "Yes, Staff-Bearer."

Ragmurath met Sansurath's gaze.

"Yes Staff-Bearer." the older man answered, submissively.

Silence returned to the council chamber.

Gerdanath's voice, even and undisturbed, broke the recurrent quiet, "The City Guard of Armanas is under staffed. The problem of man-power must be addressed -"

"Once the people are restored to order, the City Guard will have no need of more men."

He did not mistake the glint in the High Magus' eyes.

Gerdanath was silent for a moment, "As you say, Staff-Bearer." she answered.

Ragmurath repressed a sneer.

* * *

Syla watched the four horses move amidst the tents. Two other riders and their mounts remained in the distance, atop the wall of hills to the east. The tamer's hawk circled above their encampment, against the azure sky patched with cloud; it released an occasional cry into the noon air.

The four riders drew to a halt some distance into the camp. More than one knight stood in full view of the mounted soldiers - scouts from one of the keeps, or an army. Close by.

The knights had not bothered to hide. There was nowhere to hide.

Athan emerged from the ranks of his men and moved towards the lead soldier.

"Good morning." the old knight said, dryly.

The young man atop the most forward black wore the red sash of a captain. His green eyes surveyed the men and women before him with a hint of scepticism, and an obvious uncertainty.

After a tenuous pause he asked, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Athan did not answer.

The three other soldiers behind their captain - an older man and woman, and another youth who looked younger than his commander - had drawn their weapons long before entering the camp. Between them they bore a spear, two swords and a bow. An arrow had been notched on its string.

The captain glanced about - several of the knights around him were armed, but he did not recognise the hilts of their swords. Not one moved for their weapons.

- Recognition sparked in the older man's eyes - behind his captain -

The arrow on his bow drew back, as he released a shout, "They are knights -"

The whistle of another shaft, that was not his, silenced his words - as it lodged in his throat.

Three further shafts joined it in the same instant.

The four horses reared in fright, startled by the flurry of movement and sound - as dead grips pulled at their reins. The bodies of the soldiers were tossed free by their mounts.

The hawk shrieked above, and fell suddenly from the sky in a dive to swoop the enemies of its master -

And died, as a fifth arrow speared through it.

Five others had been loosed in the distance, from the concealed bowmen who had taken place along the hills only moments before the riders had reached them. The two horses atop the hill, and their carried soldiers were slain before the warning cry of the hawk had reached them.

Syla saw it with a glance.

Knights moved towards the bodies, while others secured the panicked horses before they had left the camp.

They could not have let them leave. And Athan had deemed the risk of taking and keeping prisoners too high. Syla had not disagreed - there had been no time for argument.

She watched from aside, as the knights dragged the bodies away.

The young captain's face lolled against his arm; his blood, released from the arrow in his throat, covered his chest, and smeared across his skin underneath his thinly bearded chin. An expression of shock mingled with the flecks of dirt plastered to his countenance from his fall - his vacant eyes had died in a moment of comprehension.

Athan's gaze, on the other hand, held a glint of resentment, which passed unmistakably over her as he turned back to the main tent. The knight shouldered wordlessly past.

Syla watched the last body hauled out of camp.

- She held back a surge of emotion -

The spells needed to be completed.
Chapter 8

The forest surrounded him. On all sides. A moment ago - or perhaps an eternity - he had strode through the open ranks of the trees that formed the edge of this place. Behind him, the unbroken flatness of the plains had sprawled under the dawn light.

Now, he was encircled by trees. The edge - and egress, had been swallowed by the forest itself.

By the light that filled the air.

The trees stretched innately into the distance, and rose to the height of crests on either side - but in that distance, where gloom and shade would normally have filled the depths of sight, light instead replaced them. As though a thousand rising suns had been caught between the distant trees, and their golden paths had been etched into the height and depth of all horizons, light defined and filled the air of the forest.

Flares as bright as midday shimmered amidst the distant pillars, white lances born from softer gold. They cast the barest shadow, which danced across the roots of the closer pillars around him - wavering shade swept astir, against the glow caught on the trees grey, uneven bark.

Yet, despite the wall of light that rose amidst the towering columns of wood in the distance all around, the canopy above was a mass of imperturbable shadow.

No suns, of a thousand, broke the darkness which rooved this alien wood.

He could see. Unlike before.

Unlike his trespass on the edge of this world only days ago, this time - like the time an undying deathwalker had brought him here, he could see.

The distant glare of the suns stung his eyes at moments, but a squint was all that was needed to quell the irritation. He wished the suns would blind him, would force him to stumble and crash through this disturbing unknown without his sight.

He knew he did not belong here, and the alien world around him knew it also. In the land of all things fallen he had nearly died - or felt as though he would die - here, on the other hand, he knew only that uncounted shadows moved amidst the trees.

On the edge of his sight. Behind him.

He had run from shadows last time - Llrsyring had fought them off.

His hand clenched around the hilt of his sword.

The blade and its lines of cascading symbols gleamed in the surrounding light. If this were a normal forest, he would have been apprehensive that a stray spark might alert an enemy to his position -

Here, he was terrified.

Elle'dred sighed. Once again, he was certain he was going to die -

It seemed that was all he ever thought. And he had been wrong every other time.

He repressed a smirk at the thought.

Slowly, carefully, he made his way deeper amidst the sparse ranks of the trees. The wall of light remained the same no matter how far he continued; the distant suns which lit the world remained ever that - distant.

Underbrush crunched beneath his feet; the ground deviated and rolled with the entanglements of roots and brush - he pushed aside branches that impeded his course.

Half his senses were granted what they expected - bark felt like bark, leaves like leaves, underbrush as coarse and wiry as it should be; all the scents of a normal forest moved into his nose with every breath. But the distant light which stood amidst the trees, under the unbroken darkness above, was wrong -

And there was a silence to this place, a quiet not entirely complete, that disturbed him in the deepest fashion. There seemed an intent behind it - as though some will of the trees held their breath.

The thought passed him, as it had twice in too few minutes - he had no idea what it was he was doing here. He was stumbling blind.

- The resistance -

The thought echoed quietly in his mind. He had come here to find an answer to that. The war they had to fight, and the seeming impossibility of it, had almost overwhelmed him. Two dozen knights, exiled beyond the reach of their society, were all he had to wage a war across his entire homeland -

Even if they spread across Ammandorn individually, what could they hope to accomplish?

And what of the Immortal's war?

If Ammandorn was to survive, they would need to depose the Tribunal without an outright civil war erupting. But loyalties had already been questioned, undermined and re-established when the Tribunal took over - the chance at a decisive strike had fallen with the Hall of the White Wolf.

Two dozen knights -

A sound alerted his hearing. From behind. The crack of a branch underfoot.

Elle'dred turned -

A shape of shadow loomed over him. As though it had been born from the distant light and yet violently defied it, the shadow reared and raised its arms above its wavering head. Its face was formed from smoke, and ash, and the light behind it shone through four holes that seemed its eyes -

From its maw of darkness, like the canopy above, it uttered a shriek as alien as its birthing world.

In its hands resided a black shard that could only be a blade.

- Instinct manifested in an instant.

Elle'dred raised his own sword to meet the downward swing of the shadow's blade.

As incorporeal as the visage before him seemed, its blade and the arms that drove it were undeniably - and lethally, solid. The dark sword screeched against Elle'dred's, like the steel it claimed to be. The force of the blow drove the knight backwards - into the trunk of a tree.

It had not been there a moment before.

As though cast by light through an errant flicker, the shadow's blade was instantly at its side - the moment of withdrawal unfelt by the knight.

Elle'dred had only a moment to roll against the trunk of the tree - away -

Before the dark blade speared through its bark and wood.

The shadow shrieked again - now like the howl of a mother lost to her grief, as she held the lifeless body of her child.

The knight did not pause - through his roll the Champion's Blade, and the arm that gripped it, had drawn in immediate synchronicity across his body. As he planted a foot, and braced his stance, his arm and the blade uncoiled into a downward slash that severed the shadow's arms.

- And as instantly, dragged the blade back up across the shape's throat.

The silver blade met and parted the solidity of the shadow's head from the mass of its body, and while one evanesced into the light that filled the air, the other toppled forwards into the implacable wood of the tree.

Noise.

His hazel eyes darted into the distance - a dozen shadows flickered between the trees.

They were closing.

Elle'dred turned. And ran.

The trees swept past; the distant light of the forest fled with him, remaining as ever distant - before him, behind him. Beside. On the edge of his vision, amidst the glare of the light between the trees, he could see the flickers deepen.

They drew near. They raised their blades.

Perhaps dozens - or now hundreds, danced across the roots of the trees and the forest floor beneath. All alien and terrible, and eager to bring their dark shards to bear.

- One slid off the bark of the tree beside him.

Elle'dred ducked its rampant swing, as the grating shriek of its formless mouth filled his ears. Nearly losing his balance, as he attempted to arrest his momentum as quickly as his legs allowed, he half-slid to a halt between two trees.

The shape of shadow turned to pursue - its shard flickered above its formless head in preparation for a wild slash.

Elle'dred raised his blade to meet its approach.

On the edge of his vision, he could see the other flickers closing - in moments he would be surrounded.

In a silence as disturbing as its howls, the shape before him hacked outwards - to sever his head.

The knight lowered his stance, stepping forward into the shadow's charge - the Champion's blade thrust forwards. Through the shadow's chest.

The body of the shadow toppled around him, as he turned through his stance and let the shape fall free of his sword.

He glanced over his shoulder -

Six further shadows closed, two paces from sword range.

Fear surged inside his chest. He took a step to run -

Light.

A flare of blinding white filled his vision and bleached the forest and the trees from sight. For a moment, the light seemed to fill and numb all his senses.

- He was falling.

Unable to see, he fell through empty air. Ground met his tumble forward, as he landed shoulder first in the dirt. He rolled over himself, battered and bruised by the ground beneath, before finally sliding to a halt.

In his fall he had been fortunate enough not to have eviscerated himself on his own sword.

For that, he was grateful.

The wind had been driven from his lungs, and for a moment a daze hung about his head, obscuring thought - and panic. He forced in a breath - it lessened the ache in his chest.

As he breathed, and clambered to his feet, he tried to blink the blindness from his eyes - to little effect.

His ears rung amidst the pounding thump of his blood through his veins - but he did not hear the screams of the shadows, nor the rustling of leaf-litter or the thin, whine of a blade.

Slowly, the white that filled his vision parted. He could see clearly again.

Open sky hung overhead; limitless blue filled with bursts of cloud. Above, over the south, what must have been the southern sun shone down across the plains. And they were plains - the undeviating flatness of the plains of Thgad.

Elle'dred knew.

But all around, in the distance - and behind him, ridges rose and walled off the stretch of flat grassland. To the west, soaring amidst a mass of cloud, the mountain on which Dwener'dier resided watched over the strange clearing, as did the forest itself - yet surrounding it. The trees of Dwener'dier lined the crests of the ridges - their perfect ranks forming an ever perfect wall all around; but, under the light of the southern sun, the alien luminescence that had filled them no longer shone - or instead hid amidst a more normal gloom.

Elle'dred turned, and glanced up at the ledge behind him - the wall of Dwener'dier stood some distance above, not high enough for his fall to have been lethal. Amidst the depth of the trees, shadows still flickered, but here, in this strange clearing, they seemed just that - shadows.

The wind whistled quietly across the grass before him; a cool, gentle breeze.

Uncertain, and yet with an understanding that continued to deepen in the back of his mind, Elle'dred moved forward onto the stretch of grass. Beyond the soft voice of the breeze nothing save his footsteps broke the peaceful silence of the impossible clearing.

For some time, all he crossed was the same interminable flatness of the plains - but ahead, in the distance, hills began to roll gently from the landscape, covered with the first sparse ranks of another forest.

An'dier; the forest which shrouded the Riven Mountains.

And the mountains themselves, seemed to spring up from beyond the hills. Massive, looming peaks, tipped in snow, and touched by cloud - yet still above them, the mountain of Dwener'dier watched over. That mountain, now, stretched unfathomably into the sky, and seemed larger than the world itself - dwarfing the tiny peaks of the riven mountains, and the foothills beneath, and the knight who stood afraid and uncertain, gazing up at it.

Elle'dred allowed a glance at the impossible height of the landscape around him - and then turned his attention to the plains, and the hills in the distance. He tried to ignore the unsettling incomprehensibility of the world.

- A sound elicited his attention. And the raising of his blade.

It came from behind a promontory of the ridge-line.

Warily, Elle'dred continued to the edge of the rock.

Beyond the promontory, the ridge-wall towered above, and in its rough façade was hewn a massive aperture deepening into darkness. From the hole in the rock-face two shapes were beginning to emerge.

Elle'dred watched, hidden behind the promontory.

The two shapes moved out into the daylight -

They were magus guards.

Their long vermillion robes swayed as they walked, around the sheen of their bronze breastplates, and the gauntlets that reached out to the grip the glaives at their sides. The sunlight glinted off their pauldrons, beneath their elaborate helms - and the characterless human face-plates which concealed their identities.

One of the guards drew to a halt, prompting the other also to stop.

A female voice resonated from the first guard, half muffled from behind the face-plate of her helm, "This is wrong."

The second guard, a pace ahead of her, replied, "These knights have been condemned. These are our orders." - although he attempted to sound resolved, there was a doubt in his voice that could not be mistaken, "Do not question them."

The first guard did not answer for a moment, but then nodded and reassumed pace beside the second.

They continued out onto the flat grass of the plains, as a resonant thrumming manifested amidst the shadow of the aperture in the rock face.

Elle'dred watched as a column of prisoners - shackled at their hands and feet, and bound together in groups - marched out from the hole in the rock face.

Most were clothed in inconspicuous garb, a few had been entirely stripped and marched through the indignity of nakedness, and a rare fewer bore the insignias of their order.

They were all knights of the White Wolf.

Many showed signs of injury, likely due to their captivity - or because they had resisted arrest.

Elle'dred did not need more than a glance to realise who and what they were, these knights had been condemned.

He recognised a face - the first face to have emerged.

The older man, whose coarse features were half hidden by an even coarser, greying beard, trudged at the head of the column. He was among the knights who had not been stripped of their markings - but the white embroidery of his tabard was stained with blood, and an obvious gash opened the cloth and his armour at the shoulder - beside the draping of azure cloth, and white vambrace, that distinguished him as a Sword-Bearer.

A bruise covered one side of his face, almost as dark as his hair. The swelling did not reach his brown eyes, which now stared ahead with an obvious anger.

His name was Darrodane.

Elle'dred watched as the man marched past, as did rank after rank of knights. Magus guards held position beside the column, and at its rear a squad of bowmen moved out behind the knights.

Elle'dred counted near two hundred men and women bound together by chains.

Two hundred knights, condemned to death.

As the column moved out on the stretching flatness before the ridge-line, Elle'dred left the safety of the promontory to follow. There was nowhere to hide amongst the grass, and a distance that hid him from view would also hide the column - they were moving towards the hills.

His fears were allayed when one of the guardsmen at the rear of the column glanced back - and peered right through him, as though he was as unseen as the soaring ridgelines that blocked all horizons, and the impossible mountain which towered above to the west.

He had expected as much.

The column moved across the plains, and into the first of the foothills.

Instinct, unwitting and unrepressed, prompted Elle'dred to move for cover, into the gorges that edged the column's path around the base of the hills. The knight was faster than the mass of condemned prisoners, and slowly covered the distance between the rear and the head.

The two magus guards leading the column continued wordlessly, as did the Sword-Bearer and his knights behind them.

Crouched in a shallow ditch, half concealed by brush-cover, Elle'dred watched -

A glint - from the crest of the next hill ahead, caught his eye. He could not mistake the glint of metal.

- The first magus guard moved.

Her free gauntleted hand leapt to the haft of her glaive - the blade above flashed down beside her, as the staff rotated - and speared outwards horizontally into a thrust. And into the body of the magus guard beside her, at his arm pit.

The man gurgled amidst his helm - as the force of the blow sent his body sprawling. His own glaive clattered to the dirt underneath him.

The vermillion robes of guards moved all around the column.

- A man screamed -

As the whistle of arrows broke the air.

A barrage rose into the blue of the sky, from the crests of the hills to the north, and fell lethally upon the rear of the column. More than half the bow-men fell beneath the first volley.

At the head, a magus guard charged the traitor that led the column.

And lashed out at her with a swipe from his glaive.

She had anticipated the move, and stepped forward, closing range. She raised her own staff across her foe's, and blocked the blow at her chest between her hands. In that same instant she pivoted her own staff around the imparted force of his, stepped forward, and rotated the blade of her own glaive into the base of the attacking guard's neck.

The chainmail of his helmet's aventail did not stifle her blade enough - and the magus guard toppled to the ground amidst a spurt of blood. He gurgled mutedly for a few moments before the blood pooling around his head silenced him.

The attack was over in moments.

A confused and apprehensive stillness transfixed the two hundred bound prisoners in the aftermath - they watched the unidentified people, clothed in identical vermillion and bronze, who stood with bloodied glaives around them. As Elle'dred watched from his vantage point amidst the gorge above.

After a few long moments, the first magus guard moved towards the Sword-Bearer at the head.

Darrodane regarded her with a wary stare.

She stopped a pace before him and reached into her robes to retrieve a set of keys.

"Hold out your hands." she ordered.

The Sword-Bearer complied. She inserted a key and unlocked his manacles - then placed the keys in his open palm. With her now free hand she reached up to lift the visor from her face.

Her young features were revealed - and managed an uncertain smirk.

Darrodane mirrored the expression, amidst a sudden relief, before he began to laugh.

He reached out and embraced her shortly, before pulling back and muttering, "Good girl."

The woman removed her helm fully; her long black hair was bound in a plait knotted behind her head, but her short fringe exhibited clearly the resemblance she bore to the Sword-Bearer.

Darrodane undid the shackles at his feet, and turned to free the knight beside him.

Elle'dred watched as two of the magus guards moved up towards the head of the column, they too had removed their helms.

"Nelhana," the older man of the two said, addressing the young woman.

"Are we all alright?" she asked.

The man shook his head, "Pel was killed. And several knights were hit by stray arrows. One has already died."

The last phrase elicited Darrodane's attention. Nelhana turned to him; the tacit conversation they held in a moment evinced the Sword-Bearer's understanding of the difficulty and chaos of the ambush.

"Show me." he muttered to the other magus guard.

From the concealment of the gorge, Elle'dred watched the exchange - and the new group of people moving over the crest of the hill, down towards the column.

As the Sword-Bearer and the magus guards moved away, the knights at the head of the column had begun to free each other. Under the muttering that moved between the now unthreatened, if not yet free prisoners, Elle'dred moved along the path of his concealing gorge to follow the Sword-Bearer.

They reached the rear of the column, where eight knights - the rear-most - had been caught in the barrage. The others chained to them were doing all they could to staunch the bleeding of their wounds. Shouts were sent up the hill, by the magus guards, to the group descending, to hurry to the rear.

Darrodane gave a quick inspection of the injured men.

Two would die soon from the arrows that had struck them. The others had severe wounds that could not be adequately tended here. The uninjured knights surrounding them looked up at their free commander.

Darrodane turned to Nelhana, "You have medical supplies?"

She nodded, "But we must move away from here soon. When we do not return, Halesus will dispatch scouts, and the keeps south of here will be on heightened watch."

"I assume you have supplies enough to last us?" Darrodane asked, flatly.

"Several weeks." she answered, "I had planned for us to move south, through the foothills. Towards Ahen's Tears, then slip between the keeps by night."

The Sword-Bearer did not reply.

The group descending the hill reached them at a jog. They had already unshouldered their packs and began to retrieve bandages -

"Dispatch the wounded." the Sword-Bearer said, "We can't carry them."

The men under Nelhana's command glanced hesitantly to her for confirmation; she gave a nod.

The knights yet bound to their wounded fellows offered no resistance.

Darrodane stood and watched as the knight bound to the wounded men and women bared open their throats - only one met the Sword-Bearer's eyes before he died. Not one fought back.

Darrodane and Nelhana moved away to the head of the column.

- From his vantage point, hidden amidst the gorge and its overlooking brush, Elle'dred watched the Sword-Bearer leave. He had given a similar order more than once in his Championhood.

After all the knights had been freed, Darrodane gave a shout for them to follow, and the column once more began to move. They assumed the fastest pace a mass of weary bodies could - faster than they could.

Again, Elle'dred moved beside the column, through the rising terrain of the hills. He increased his pace to overtake the head.

- Movement drew his gaze.

From behind an outcrop along the hillside beside him, a goblin emerged wielding a bow. Its arrow was already drawn. It aimed it at the head of the column.

- At Darrodane.

Elle'dred reacted.

Charging into a sprint, he closed the short distance between the goblin and himself in an instant - and lashed out with his sword. His blow severed the goblin's arm, and came to rest deep inside its chest. A spray of blood spattered, thick and wet, against his face.

He looked up -

Goblins rose from cover all around him.

Not one was armed with a bow - yet they all carried swords.

Elle'dred turned and bolted, assailed by the battle-cries unleashed from the skull-like countenances behind him. He could hear the thrashing of brush and dirt that evinced pursuit.

His only clear path lay up the crest of the hill - away from the column.

His heart thrummed in his ears, beneath the shrieks and cries of the goblins behind - he achieved the peak of the hill -

Beneath, at its base, stood the implacable, perfect wall of Dwener'dier - the forest now stretching into flatness on all horizons save behind. Whether the forest had moved to provide an avenue of escape, or to claim him in its depths he could not tell - the goblins shrieked behind -

He hoped for the former -

Shadows moved amidst the trees below.

You did not die in the land of all things fallen, you will not die here - Llrsyring had once said that to him. When he had been as afraid and certain of his doom as he was now -

Hells -

He had not come here to die, and for the moment the shadows beneath were just that - he hoped desperately they would remain that way when he crossed the boundary of the forest.

He hoped the goblins that populated this alien clearing could not follow him into the trees.

Elle'dred careened down the slope of the hill - under the impetus of gravity, and weight of desperation, his feet lost control of his pace - for too many moments he thought he would utterly lose his balance, and trip and fall.

The wall of trees loomed above him, their depths lost in gloom. They seemed to draw apart in anticipation of his entrance.

Shadows flickered across every bough and branch -

Hells -

He was going to die.

He crossed the boundary of the trees that consumed his world.

- Light. Once again, the flares of white, born from the surrounding distant gold filled his vision. The glare filled his vision - as he tried desperately to arrest his pace, and prevent himself from rushing into the unseen and immovable trunk of a tree.

He stumbled. And fell.

Sent sprawling across the leaf-litter and underbrush of the forest floor, he rolled somewhat more gently across the roots of the tree. After a few moments, blinking the haze left by the glare from his eyes, and steadying the heavy, rapid breathing his flight had forced from his chest, Elle'dred climbed to his feet.

Wariness and fear had him glance about, for signs of the goblins -

Once again, the trees of Dwener'dier utterly surrounded him, stretching into the distance filled with light. The strange silence, underneath the shadow above, filled his ears.

He was alone.

Fear settled into a moment of relief. And then parted into confusion - how was he to leave this place? He did not doubt that what he had needed to see had been in that clearing, but now, returned to a world of alien distance and light and shadow, he no longer had any conception of how he could find his way out -

He sighed, and began to move between the trees.

Shadows moved across the distant branches, flickers cast by leaves - but none manifested into shapes with lethal blades. Ever on the edge of his vision he thought for a moment one did, but when he turned to glimpse it fully, it was revealed as only a flicker of his apprehension -

The knights were moving towards Ahen's Tears; if what he had seen had happened days ago they might not be far from the resistance's camp -

Voices.

In the distance, Elle'dred heard the sound of a man's voice. He thought he recognised -

He quickened his pace.

"...gone for two days..." - it was Ellario's.

The voice came from between the trees - an unexpected surge of adrenalin moved through his veins. Never in his life had the sound of a human voice evoked such relief -

He ran. Ahead.

Beside him, a spark of light - not born from the distant gold - broke the shade amidst the trees, and passed behind the blur of wood that swept past him. It was gold, a flash of gold. And it had been close by - it had been the glint of metal - beside him -

Instinct immediately tried to arrest his pace, and turn - but was overwhelmed by a blinding flare of light.

For a moment, as before, it filled his vision, his thoughts, his world. Egress.

His feet came to a halt beneath him, as he raised his arm to break the glare.

He could not see - but he could feel the crisp breeze on his cheek, the warmth of the sunlight above.

He heard -

"Champion." a voice exclaimed; it was not Ellario's.

But was joined a moment after, "Champion..."

Elle'dred heard the startled snorts of horses.

He lowered his arm, and as he had too many times in recent hours - or days, or more - blinked the blindness from his eyes. He counted himself fortunate he had not been rendered permanently blind by his experience.

Relief, confusion, and uncertainty, dogged him for a moment.

As the two knights, and the green flatness of the plains of Thgad sharpened into clarity before him, he found himself glancing back - at the perfect wall of Dwener'dier, and the soaring peak of the mountain on which it resided.

He could not help but confirm that the plains themselves and the knights were not surrounded by ridges and trees that formed an impossible clearing amidst an alien wood.

All his senses - and the lack of an inexplicable feeling of dread, confirmed he had been returned to the real world.

"Elle'dred?" Ellario asked, slightly concerned.

- The real world -

Elle'dred met the older knight's eyes, "We must return to camp."

He did not doubt what he had seen in Dwener'dier had occurred in recent days, and the keep of Halesus was not far from the north-most of Ahen's Tears. The column likely would not be hard to find -

But, now, amidst the clarity of the day, a thought occurred to him that had not while he was in the forest - last time he had come to Dwener'dier, his actions had influenced the course of the world. They had been intended to. Beyond the alien border of the forest, a group of riders had turned west, as they headed north.

Last time, he had killed Hheirdane.

There was no doubt in his mind that Darrodane and his column of knights were real. As real as the goblins that had stood upon that hill.
Chapter 9

Syla moved around the western perimeter of the camp, under the mid-day shine of the southern sun. The warding spells were complete. Despite herself, she had completed them.

No further hawks or scouts could find their camp - not without the aid of directed magics.

She was exhausted; the magics had taken more out of her than she had expected. As had the will to use them. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, but for the moment she could not allow herself that.

Two horses had appeared on the western horizon - bearing three riders.

It could only be the two knights, tasked to watch the edge of Dwener'dier, returning with Elle'dred.

Relief flooded her chest - and was as quickly shattered by the force of reality.

She had to inform Elle'dred about the soldiers they had killed - as she had needed to inform Palai'dred the night before. The Sword-bearer had not taken the news well, thankfully the Sword-Bearer had not argued long with Athan - or at all with Syla.

Elle'dred, however, would want to speak with her.

The riders closed at a gallop from the west, and slowed to a trot some distance from the camp.

The black bearing Elle'dred stopped some paces from her, and both of its riders dismounted.

She moved a few steps towards the Champion, as he reached her.

"Syla," he greeted, with an obvious gladness.

"Elle'dred," she returned, and managed a smirk - before he could continue, she forced herself to say, "There is something we must discuss...soldiers found the camp."

Concern flared across the knight's features, "Have they -"

"They're dead." Syla cut him off, "Lyrien warned me ahead of their arrival. Athan and I ordered an ambush."

Elle'dred's features lacked expression, for a moment - he managed a nod.

"There are no prisoners?"

Syla shook her head.

The knight quelled much of a disapproving tick, and paused, "I need a group of knights armed and their horses saddled. We must leave immediately."

Incomprehension did not stifle Syla for more than a moment, "You found something in Dwener'dier?"

Elle'dred nodded, "There is a column of knights making their way through the foothills of the Riven Mountains. We need to find them before a goblin war band does."

Syla nodded; whatever conversation might need be had between them, Elle'dred seemed resigned for it to wait until he had returned.

That was a relief Syla did not have the strength to deny.

* * *

Faldorn sat, in the tent. Lyrien lay on her cot, resting, beside him. She intended to force another vision, or at least attempt to force another vision, tonight. She had not allowed herself enough time to rest.

She had fallen into unconsciousness not long after they had delivered the news of her last vision to the magus. That sleep had lasted a day, and more than once during those hours blood had run from her nose. The oracle had slept through it peacefully, weakly.

Faldorn had tended her; wiped the blood from her face. And then when she had woken, she had thanked him.

And said after a day further she would try again.

She had not listened to his objections.

"Faldorn," Lyrien's voice was exhausted; he glanced at her face, but her eyes had not opened, "I need you to go to medical tent...see if there is any cahndriss herb amongst the supplies."

Faldorn paused, "Lyrien -"

"Faldorn." she cut him off. Her eyes flickered open for a moment long enough to tell him she would go herself if he refused.

He did not object further.

"Thank you." - the oracle said behind him, as he left their tent.

For a moment, the brightness of the southern sun forced him to squint his eyes - but he could not mistake the movement around him; the camp was stirring like it had before the soldiers had arrived.

Alarm flared through the former archivist, momentarily - but died shortly after.

The Champion of the White Wolf moved amongst a group of knights beyond the eastern edge of the camp; he and the knights were preparing horses - the white-haired magus moved beside Elle'dred.

Faldorn looked away, with a scowl.

He moved amidst the sparse emptiness of the camp, as what few knights he passed hurried one way or another to see to some need of the group gathering on the eastern perimeter.

No one paid him any attention.

He arrived at the medical tent, lifted aside the flap and stepped inside.

He stopped -

His entrance had startled the only inhabitant of the enclosure.

The magus bastard Lyrien had defended half stooped beside a cot - naked.

The man's dark brown eyes met Faldorn's with a shock, half masked by the tired glaze of herbs and too many hours of unconsciousness. Embarrassment flickered amidst the gaze - and the magus glanced away to fumble for the blanket on the cot beside him.

For a moment, Faldorn glared -

The glow of the daylight through the sallow canvas turned the magus' skin a similar hue, where it was not broken by the pink bulge of the scars that covered his thin body.

Faldorn repressed the snarl of disgust that moved into his throat - though it emerged as a sigh of annoyance. He moved into the tent and past the magus, without a word or another glance.

Nervous, uncertain breathing from the man behind him was all that filled the silence of the tent, as he rummaged through a chest filled with herbs. The magus did not move more than to wrap the blanket around his nakedness.

Faldorn could feel the glances thrown at him, the uneasy, nervous glances - and a half-breath taken in preparation for speech - if the bastard said one word, Faldorn would add a bruise to his face.

And a broken rib once he was down.

The former archivist found the herb Lyrien had asked for, retrieved it and closed the chest. As he stood and moved back towards the entrance of the tent, the magus averted a glance from him.

The whiff of the bastard's scent - stale sweat - caught his nose, as he passed.

He hated it; he hated -

The disgust subsided, unexpressed, as he left the tent and moved away into the camp.

A glance aside, at the beat of horse hooves to the east, showed Elle'dred and the group of knights moving away towards the north.

The white-haired magus stood beside Palai'dred, talking with the Sword-Bearer.

Faldorn turned away - the anger flared again, almost into tears.

* * *

Keylyn sat on the cot, in the medical tent. It was where he had found himself when he had woken. He did not remember how he came to be here. He did not much care.

There was too much he did not remember, and what had returned with his memory, he wanted to forget.

As he had so many times now, he ran a hand along his stomach; the long, smooth line of the scar seemed to have no feeling beneath his finger tip. And it was not the only one. All the markings of those hours or days, left by Ragmurath's bastard son, had healed - and left an absence of feeling behind.

He did not remember any of those hours clearly - the pain had forced his mind to forget, and it had. But not the nightmares - the disappointed face.

Hadrath's face.

An armed woman had entered the tent some minutes ago; her face had seemed inexplicably familiar - more than once he remembered it bent over him, pressing a bowl of water to his lips. Her voice had seemed familiar too.

He did not know her name, or who she was - or why she was tending him. All he knew was that she hid her disdain better than the man who had entered the tent this morning.

The armed woman had remarked at his returned consciousness and instructed him to remain in the tent.

He had nodded his understanding.

Now, he waited.

His nakedness beneath the blanket he wrapped around himself had not seemed a concern for his captors. He had been naked for so much of his recent life - restrained in a cell, half-dead, amidst the sweating of fever - or in a basement while his flesh was cut open and coated in blood.

He had wanted to die -

The tent flap parted again and admitted the armed woman, and another behind her -

Magus Syla.

For a moment, Keylyn did not recognise the woman standing before him; her ebony robes were tattered and frayed; her once black hair, now tied behind her head had turned a ghastly and shocking white.

And her face - a gauntness hid amongst her features, a hardness that seemed unnatural, transparent - and afraid.

Keylyn stared.

Syla glanced at the armed woman, "I would prefer to talk to him alone."

The woman nodded, and left.

Syla met his eyes again, "Keylyn," she began, and paused - there was an uncertainty in her gaze, "Do you know where you are?"

"No." he answered - his voice croaked from lack of use. A hand moved instinctually, to rub the soreness from his throat, "Where...?"

"The resistance base camp." the other magus answered.

That information held no meaning for him. He stared uncomprehendingly.

Syla moved to the cot opposite him and sat; the thought occurred that he did not know this woman any more than he did the other that had left the tent moments before -

"You were brought here by a group of knights of the White Wolf that fled Delphanas. The Hall had rebelled, and attempted a coup on the Magus Order. It failed...they found you as they were exiting the city. Do you remember -"

"I was tortured." he answered.

Syla paused, "Yes...apparently a magus guard was responsible."

"He was Ragmurath's son." - the words were empty. He had no anger left.

Syla did not reply. For a long time, silence returned to the tent.

"Were you on the side of the Magus Order, when they deposed the archivists?" her voice was flat as she asked the question, but concealed an edge - of anger or bitterness. Or shame.

There was no urge to lie; he had lived the truth for too many hours - he did not care -

"Yes." He had been.

Syla let a tick of some emotion he could not identify; he did not know if his answer had condemned him or if she had been searching for the truth. They might kill him now - or torture him. The thoughts flitted through his head and fell down into the emptiness beneath.

He did not care what they did to him.

Syla sighed, "You are a prisoner here." she paused, "The knights outside will not regard you as anything less. But I would hope you do not still believe the magus -"

"Ragmurath is a traitor," he had known that for too long, "He murdered Hadrath, and High Magus Helanath..."

Syla did not reply immediately, "He tried to kill you, because you knew?"

"I tried to kill him...Ormus...Elder Archivist Ormus came to me, and asked for my help...I tried to kill Ragmurath...I failed." he paused, "...Ragmurath convinced me that Ormus was the traitor...so I helped him..." I killed Ormus, because he was a traitor, "...I..."

"Ragmurath used you." Syla finished, after a pause; there was a sympathy in her voice, "The magus are wrong, Keylyn. They have...they have violated the laws repeatedly, and now they have taken the government from the people. The resistance is determined to depose the Magus Order and restore the proper government of Ammandorn." she paused, "I am part of the resistance."

"I want to...help...if I can." he muttered the words.

"I will speak to Elle'dred when he returns," Syla said, "I will explain what you've told me." she paused, "Even if you help us, Keylyn, you will still be a prisoner in the eyes of the knights...'we' are not well liked around here."

Keylyn understood. He managed a nod.

Syla stood, "Celsye has said you are fully recovered. For the moment a guard will be posted to watch you at all times...I am afraid there is nothing I can do about that." she paused, "You were Hadrath's aide?"

Keylyn did not reply for a moment - he nodded.

"I am sorry he died." the words were flat.

Keylyn nodded again.

The other magus left the tent without another word.

For a long time, Keylyn sat on the cot. Thoughts sparked and faded, he did not have the energy to acknowledge them. He did not care.

Hadrath's face appeared again - the disappointment, clear and full.

Keylyn lay back down, burying his head in the pillow.

He did not care.

* * *

Ragmurath stood at the far end of the circular expanse. The council chamber was empty of all save the ten pillars which encircled the room. Each of the marble columns rose up to the dome of the ceiling, and held a flickering cresset - affixed to their perfectly smooth stone - ten of which illuminated the chamber.

Ragmurath stood on the edge of the azure mosaic that had replaced the once smooth, undeviating, marble of the floor - the white-grey walls and pillars of the flame lit space were now born from black and azure. The colours of the magus order.

The Staff-Bearer waited for the magus to be brought in.

Amidst the shadows behind the pillars, which crawled across the wall of the chamber, four bloodhounds waited for the prisoner. The air was heavy with the scent of their censers, hung from the ends of their gnarled, twisted staves - a scent that forced the truth from a man's lips, and whispered the judgments that would befall him should he fight that truth.

The smell did not bother him - there was no guilt within, no untruth.

Ragmurath held no doubt the same would not be so for the prisoner.

The doors to the chamber were parted, by the two vermillion guards who stood outside. The prisoner was moved into the room, ahead of the bloodhound who escorted him.

The man had been stripped; only a set of manacles enclosed his wrists and the chain that linked them was drawn taut across his bare waist. His legs were not shackled; too much difficulty would have been imposed in bringing him here. And it had been reported that he had offered no resistance.

His head had been shaved. It was a provision that Ragmurath had ordered particularly; this man belonged to the magus order, his body as much as his allegiance.

The law had once required those sworn to their orders to relinquish the features of their bodies. To become one of their order - not a person of the society the order served.

Those laws had long ago been abandoned; it was thought to be unnecessary - even cruel. But that weakness had allowed their society to fall apart - had allowed the lesser men of their society's orders to see themselves as above their duty. Above their order.

Ragmurath would not allow that, not anymore - least of all amongst the magus.

For a moment, the prisoner - the magus, and his bloodhound escort stood on the opposite end of the mosaic; the bloodhound waited, as was protocol, for the Staff-Bearer's acknowledgement.

The magus guards beyond the chamber closed its doors.

"Restrain the prisoner." he ordered, with a hint of disdain.

Another of the bloodhounds, hidden amidst the far shadows, emerged from between two pillars and moved aside the prisoner and his guard, who themselves moved forward into the centre of the chamber. The two bloodhounds forced the prisoner to his knees with a shove, and fastened his manacles to the floor.

Both bloodhounds moved away, to stand beneath the torches affixed to the pillars.

Ragmurath surveyed the body of the prisoner before him - he eyes fell first on the man's hand. Beneath the heavy ring of the manacle that bound his wrist, his left hand was warped and twisted by scarring - the fingers had half fused together and the flesh was a coarse mess of pale white and sickly pink.

The limb had been badly burned, and it seemed a surprise that infection had not claimed it.

Ragmurath wondered how the man had sustained such an injury, but the thought passed unheeded.

The man's lean, wiry physique showed signs of starvation, and stress. He had been fighting in the valley of Ythordor when he had been recalled - and his mission had been abandoned long before that.

Ragmurath had given him that mission; as he remembered, the man had come to him improperly dressed - in a garish, red robe - and stinking of sweat.

He would stink of sweat again, soon, but this time he had been brought naked, in chains.

Dus knelt, chained to the floor of the chamber; his eyes were locked on the mosaic beneath him.

Ragmurath wondered if the magus had held some delusion he would be welcomed back by his order - by his Staff-Bearer. The fool should have known this treatment was what he would receive.

What he deserved.

- A pang of memory - half-forgotten and unexpected, flashed through the Staff-Bearer's mind. For a moment, the man kneeling before him, naked and chained, found a resemblance to his bastard son - and the chamber, around them, too similar to the confines, when last time he had seen Tor. After his trial.

Ragmurath restrained a moment of disgust; Tor had been guilty, as was this magus - and now he was dead; murdered by the favourite magus of his predecessor.

Anger rose -

"Magus Dus," the Staff-Bearer began, coldly, flatly, "You are here to answer the charge of treason that has been levelled against you. If you are guilty, you shall be convicted, sentenced to death by flame, and publically executed to show the cost of treason in this time of war." he paused, "If you are found to be innocent, you shall be shown leniency. Any cooperation you should show will be weighed in your regard. Am I understood?"

Dus did not look up, "Yes, Staff-Bearer."

Ragmurath sneered, he had expected no more than a sullen nod.

The remaining three bloodhounds emerged from behind their respective pillars, and with their two brethren moved a step forward to edge of the mosaic. Each laid their staff, and its censer, on the ground at their feet. The bloodhounds each joined their gloved hands.

Five featureless masks reflected the naked man at their centre - as power unseen slipped between the men that wore them.

"Magus Dus," the Staff-Bearer continued, "How did you come to fail your mission, and allow the weapon of the Immortal to escape your guardianship?"

"The Champion of the Tribunal, Taedoran, executed the knight Hheirdane for his treason, and abandoned magus Syla to die in the wastes of Agdor. He enlisted my help to restrain the weapon of the Immortal, and to escort it through the Bridge Mountains in completion of our orders. The weapon resisted, and Taedoran was forced to discipline it. But in doing so, the weapon overpowered him and killed him. I watched him burn to death, powerless to do anything to stop it...or the weapon." Dus paused, "The traitor Elle'dred, the Champion of the White Wolf Hall, and the deathwalker he had befriended, found the weapon and I. The deathwalker incapacitated me, and when I woke the weapon and the traitor were gone. I can only assume they took the weapon for their own purposes."

Every bare inch of Dus' skin, reddish in the torchlight, was free of sweat. The scent that filled the air had not touched the naked magus at the centre of the chamber.

And no reflections had been formed in the masks of the bloodhounds.

The words had been the truth.

Ragmurath restrained a glare - he had expected the man kneeling before him to have collapsed to his side, unable to breathe. Drenched in a sweat that exposed his guilt. But instead the prisoner knelt, exposed and surrounded by bloodhounds - untouched by their censers.

"Why did you not die in defence of the weapon?" the Staff-Bearer hissed.

Dus' eyes did not move, "The weapon's fire had a power to deprive a person of their will. When the traitor and the deathwalker found me I was still enthralled by the flames that had killed Taedoran. I could not act, and so I could offer no resistance. I thought they were going to kill me, but instead they abandoned me without provisions in the wastes."

Not a bead of sweat moved from the man's skin.

Ragmurath scowled, "You understand that regardless of such circumstances, you are still responsible for allowing the weapon to fall into a traitor's hands?"

"Yes, Staff-Bearer." - the man did not flinch; his voice was dull and flat.

Ragmurath stared at the prisoner before him; the magus could have cast no spell to protect himself from the bloodhounds' censers - Dus had been stripped of the power of his blood as much as his clothes and hair. The truth was kneeling, naked, before him - a fact that swelled as gall, and rage, in the back of the Staff-Bearer's throat.

"Magus Dus, the measure of your guilt has been determined by your Staff-Bearer. You are senten-"

- The magus glanced up. And met his gaze.

For a moment, the pang returned; captured in the glint of the torch-light reflected in the man's eyes.

Almost in the same instant, the bloodhound closest to the Staff-Bearer strode forward and struck the prisoner's head.

Dus reeled to his side, and sprawled across the floor.

Ragmurath gestured the bloodhound back - though his eyes did not leave the man, lying, half-curled, half-splayed across the mosaic before him. Blood seeped from Dus mouth, over his lips, and onto the azure tiles. The breath that moved in and out of the thin chest was shallow, from pain. It began to slow. Dus did not pick himself up.

For a moment longer, Ragmurath stared at the bare, helpless body before him.

He repressed a sneer, "Magus Dus, you are sentenced to a binding of servitude." he paused, "For the remainder of your life you will serve the Magus Order. If you should ever think to betray the order, or hesitate to carry out a command given to you by your superiors, you shall be executed as a traitor."

Dus swallowed, but remained otherwise motionless.

Ragmurath looked up to the bloodhounds - they had relinquished each other's hands; the power of their circle had been broken, "Take the prisoner to the cells. Have him cleaned up, and remove the chains."

Two bloodhounds complied with the order immediately. As he was hoisted up, Dus' eyes fell at the Staff-Bearer's feet.

Ragmurath watched as the prisoner was dragged away.

The remaining bloodhounds waited to be dismissed.

Ragmurath stared at the open hallway, past the two vermillion guards and their characterless armour that waited outside. The scent of the censers had begun to disperse into the open air outside, weakening slightly throughout the circular expanse of the chamber.

The pang had not subsided.

Sometimes leniency was required.

* * *

The foothills were heavily wooded. The forest of An'dier was as thick here as it was on the mountainsides to the west. Even after his niece had told him her plan of withdrawal, he had not considered their location a boon. And no more so now, at night.

Before the war, these foothills were often crawling with goblin skirmishing parties - and now, he thought it an ever more foolish hope that they would make it far enough south, undiscovered.

Nelhana had brought some weapons, bows, crossbows, a handful of swords, but only enough to arm a few dozen of the two hundred knights. The rest of his men were defenceless.

At least they were alive. Darrodane clung to that thought.

Nelhana's group - near fifty men and women - were themselves armed. His niece was amply proficient with the glaive she wielded, as were the other former magus guards in her retinue.

Darrodane remembered his disappointment that she had been forced to wield that glaive over a knight's sword. It seemed cruelly ironic that had she been admitted into the Hall, as they both had wanted, she would likely have already been dead, rather than freeing her uncle from his execution.

The Sword-Bearer smirked inwardly at the thought.

Although he trusted his niece implacably, that trust was not shared by his knights as fully as he hoped - and he could not deny, that he was himself uncertain of the men and women that only a day ago had worn the vermillion uniform of their enemy.

It helped allay the discomfort somewhat, that a large part of Nelhana's group were militia men, and a handful of deserters from the town guard of Halesus.

- The whole world had fallen apart.

Darrodane smirked - or scowled, openly at that thought.

The column had stopped along the basin of a ravine, walled in by the soaring bluffs of the surrounding hills. Those that were armed had taken watch along the hill tops and amidst the forestation at the base of the slope. Unfortunately, the pale glimmer of starlight above revealed only to the watchers that they could see nothing more than the sweeping shadows that blanketed the hillsides.

Darrodane did not doubt the men further down amidst the darkness of the woods saw little else.

They had not lit any fires, or torches; any light would undoubtedly attract the attention of every enemy they wanted to avoid. But the column could not move under starlight.

The Sword-Bearer was grateful the night's air was not overly cold.

He sat, perched against the mass of a boulder, which shielded him from sight of anything but the far bluff of the opposite hill. Anything that came up the slope before him - that had slipped through the watchmen amidst the trees - should be easily perceived. And killed before it could reach the edge of the bluff.

- A sound. From the woods.

The movement of something through the thick brush to the south - something hidden amidst the black depths of the trees - something had slipped past the south most guard.

Darrodane chewed his cheek in annoyance. He drew an arrow.

The Sword-Bearer peered around the edge of his cover of rock, the arrow knocked in his bow, but not yet drawn. They had heard the call of a goblin horn early in the morning - it had come from the south, though he had thought it safely distant. Now, however, the thought passed that it may not have been as distant as he had hoped.

More noise moved out of the wall of shadow that was the edge of the woods before him.

There was more than one of them. And they were approaching.

Darrodane drew back the arrow.

It was likely a goblin scouting party -

A man, obviously bound, was hurled out of the wall of the woods.

For a moment, Darrodane was uncertain what he was looking at - a shaft whistled through the night's air and landed with a thud in the black tree above the bound shape.

The man huddled, and released a moan through a gag.

- The shot, from whichever sentry under the night's sky beside him, had been embarrassingly poor in any case.

"He's one of yours." a voice called from the darkness of the trees.

- A woman's voice; that seemed far too familiar.

Another arrow whistled from a piece of cover some distance to his side, and vanished down amidst the hollow shadows of the tree-line.

"Hold your fire." - his niece's irate voice reached him through the cold night's air.

No more arrows sped to futile inaccuracy from the various mounds of cover.

"We are not here to fight you." - the same voice.

He recognised it -

"Is Sword-Bearer Darrodane with you?"

Palai'dred?

After a moment, he called back, "I am," - it could not be the woman he was hearing, "And who are you?"

"Palai'dred, Sword-Bearer of the White Wolf Hall," there was a short pause, "If you would prefer Darrodane, I could leave. But then I'm sure you'll blunder into the goblin war band we passed not a day from here."

Darrodane did not reply -

"And our Champion would not be happy about that."

Elle'dred?

Confusion, had the Sword-Bearer step out from behind the intervening cover of the boulder.

"Hold your fire." he ordered, to the other sentries along the bluff - a little louder than he felt comfortable in the dark.

Two more shapes emerged from the black wall of the wood.

One bent down to haul the bound man up from the slope.

Darrodane waited as the three approached him. The starlight was not ample enough to identify which one was Palai'dred - and the heavy hoods that hid the two unbound persons' faces did not offer any assistance. The three stopped five paces from him.

The second person's hood glanced to the side, and elicited an identical motion from him - as another of his sentries emerged from cover. The man's bow was drawn, and an arrow threatened the two newcomers.

If it had been this man that had fired the two shots before, Darrodane was fairly certain even at this distance he would miss the two - or kill the bound man instead, if any.

The hooded man or woman who held the bound and gagged sentry had a bow of their own - and if they were a knight - or a Sword-Bearer, they were likely a damn sight more proficient than the militia man who threatened them.

The second of the two newcomers raised her hands to her head, and withdrew her cowl.

Features Darrodane had not expected to see again in his life half scowled at him - though concealed much of a smirk.

"What the hells are you doing here?" he found himself asking.

Palai'dred chuckled, "It's good to see you too." she glanced aside, again, at the man holding a drawn arrow at her, "Mind telling him to put that down?"

Darrodane chuckled, and waved a dismissal to the sentry. The man complied with a hesitation to which the Sword-Bearer was not accustomed. He chewed his cheek in irritation; even as Palai'dred pursed her lips in disapproval.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated - the woman before him would normally have been his equal in rank, had the Hall not have been overthrown, and all its knights condemned as traitors.

- For a moment, he felt unbearably glad to be talking to another Sword-Bearer.

"We came to find you and your knights." she answered, more formally, "Before you met up with some goblins."

That did not answer his question fully, "And how is it you came to be here? When you were stationed with the war council in Delphanas?'

Palai'dred allowed a dry chuckle, "We abandoned the Hall shortly before the Magus decided to condemn it," she paused, "And after the circle had decided a coup was in order."

Darrodane did not know how to respond to that.

"Elle'dred can explain the situation better," Palai'dred continued, "And your Champion has ordered your presence Sword-Bearer...that is if you still consider yourself one."

The jibe held more harshness to it than Darrodane appreciated -

Elle'dred?

"The Champion?" he asked.

Palai'dred nodded.

"Elle'dred left on the Tribunal's mission...he would be well into the Bridge Mountains by now."

Palai'dred chuckled, again, "He returned to Ammandorn...though you'll never believe how. And it was the same way he knew how to find you."

The air was alive with fear. And flame.

The village burned.

Incarnates and goblins howled or laughed as they set fire to buildings, the homes, the people.

A man tumbled out of the collapsing refuse of his home, alight with orange flames.

He screamed.

A woman ran, wailing in terror - and had her skull split open by an incarnate's axe. With one hand, the bull-headed creature lifted the body up by a leg. A snort of glee spat steam from its nostrils, as its bestial eyes leered in delight - as the contents of the head spattered to the ground -

The mammoth arm, which held the leg, twisted its garish muscles and tossed the corpse aside without the merest effort; the woman burned amidst the remains of the hut the creature had just set aflame.

The incarnate growled to itself, perhaps it laughed, amidst another snort, and stalked away on cloven feet. Towards the whimpering of the child whose mother it had just killed.

From a cliff above the flames, which looked over the valley amidst the Lingering Hills, the voice of the Immortal stood and watched.

Hell-fire flickered through dying wisps, birthing ash and curling smoke, from snaking tongues of crimson. Amidst a wavering aura of heat, the damning flames that were his skin crackled and laughed.

Syrkyn watched his horde raze the last foothold this world held upon the domain of Perrefiere.

The relentless night above had crawled beyond the wave of Dead Mountains, and stretched blades of encroaching abyss into the grey of the sky beyond.

The Dark Moon was moving, as did its horde.

And its weapon.

Syrkyn watched as the village burned.

A memory flickered amidst the flames of his body - in the life that had birthed this one, he had lain upon a bed of ash amidst a village not unlike this. And he had burned that place away as well.

Hell-fire crackled hungrily - the carnage below, and the lesser fires set by his horde, beckoned to the flames that were his skin. The cape of fire that was his wings unfurled, and carried him into the air. A trail of smoke was birthed in his wake.

Hell-fire roared as he landed, rushing away on all sides to consume wood and stone and flesh alike. A maelstrom of crimson swirled around him and above, over the village and all that stood nearby - two incarnates and a handful of goblins were caught amidst the storm of fire.

Hell-fire blazed and crackled and laughed, as it burned them. And burned them.

They would not stop burning until he wished it - until hell-fire left the hills.

Incarnate and goblin screams filled the air, as the maelstrom twisted inwards and upwards into smoke, and left only black and ash behind. A circle of ash atop the north-most hill, with the channel for all hell-fire at its centre.

The world would be ash soon enough. The Dark Moon promised.

Defined by hell-fire, the voice of the Immortal strode forward, down the gentle slope of the hill.

Incarnates, bull-headed things whose torsos resembled the men they had once been, thundered around him on cloven feet - they paid their immolating comrades no heed. Goblins chattered in fear, some in anger, but all scurried away from the blazing being that led them.

The impossible heat of hell-fire scorched the air.

Syrkyn stopped amidst the remains of the village. A wave of a burning arm and the scythe-like talon amidst those flames ordered the incarnates on, further into the hills.

The goblins crawled after them.

The children of ash had always been defined by terror, from the moment of their birth they had known only rage and flame. His rage, and hell-fire.

- The memory of that older world - that first world - faded amidst the knowing of his mask. His face, abyssal black and unviolated by the touch of hell-fire, whispered the truth to him.

He turned.

- To the remains of a hut; half-collapsed, and half-burned. Now guttered out. The smouldering wood and thatch had buried the building, and had been overlooked by the incarnates and the goblins.

But the mask had seen.

Inside the enclosure, touched only by the smoke - and then not enough to extinguish life - a mother and her daughters huddled in terror. The children cried into their mother's breast; a soft whimpering, and tears. The mother mumbled again and again, 'be quiet, be quiet, be quiet'; she dared not look up from the youngest's hair, not until silence had returned to world outside.

The children were not as terrified as their mother. They did not understand.

Innocence had clouded their fear, but offered no consolation.

They could both feel the farthest touch of the hell-flame that burnt outside. A gnawing, terrible despair. Beyond the wooden walls of their home.

Syrkyn stopped.

The abyssal eyes cradled by the sockets of the mask fell upon the half-burnt hut.

The last goblins from behind had fled down the hill, into the further stretches of the village. Only the roar of flames, burning yet on the other huts, accompanied the rumbling, malevolent crackle of his skin.

Hell-fire laughed, softly.

He stepped forward.

The sadistic heat of hell-fire crawled across the ruins before him. In the black space that hid the mother and her children, despair slipped in to fill the air. The youngest cried - innocence would be ravaged by despair, by fear, before the pain.

Syrkyn blazed, snakes of flame crawled away from his feet across the earth. Their heat alone scorched the stones. Turned them to molten slag.

Inside the darkness of the hut, the eldest cried out in pain - its mother likewise in terror.

The girl knew the torment that approached.

- As he once had -

The memory glimmered amidst the madness of his mask, an echo - a whisper amidst the cries. Once, he had lain, as helpless as the child; though he had had no mother to comfort him; he had lain - chained to a wall, and watched and known the burning torment that approached.

He had been so afraid -

The terror and despair had sat with him for so long.

Helpless. Powerless. Afraid.

- Syrkyn roared.

A river of crimson flame burst from his chest and arms and legs; a monstrous torrent that crashed through the air and the village, and splayed across the ground - and effaced the hut and the earth beneath.

Amidst the roar, and the laughter of his fire, he could hear the screams of the mother and her daughters.

The screams that once had been his -

And were now drowned out. By the hell-fire that filled the air.

He was hell-fire now.

And hell-fire was not afraid to burn.
Chapter 10

Elle'dred, the Champion of the White Wolf Hall, marched at the head of the column.

Alongside Palai'dred, a Sword-Bearer.

Darrodane still did not believe it.

The man's explanation of how he had returned to Ammandorn, and how he had known where to find the column, still baffled the older Sword-Bearer. As did the fact that they had made it through the foothills safely - and were now heading to the edge of the forest of Dwener'dier.

The world had gone mad.

Under the noon light of the southern sun, the resistance base camp emerged from the flatness of the grassland. The small encampment of tents rose quietly and slowly up from the green, as their inhabiting people emerged amidst and around them to witness the column arrive.

The sight of the tents was a sight more welcomed than Darrodane liked to admit.

Still, it bothered him how close they were to the forest.

The column reached the edge of the camp - Elle'dred, Palai'dred and he, first.

Darrodane recognised the two faces of Elle'dred's lieutenants - the knights Ellario and Athan.

A woman he did not recognise stood beside the knights; she had the most shocking of white hair - and wore a magus robe.

Magus Syla - that part of Elle'dred's explanation still baffled him.

Elle'dred gave orders for the column to be tended; the wounded needed seeing to.

The Champion ordered the two Sword-Bearers, and the magus to the command tent.

Darrodane followed them through the centre of the camp.

The Sword-Bearer gave a quick survey of the men and women that moved about - too many familiar faces he was glad to see. But there were many more that he did not; only a few dozen knights had fled Delphanas - the others had been arrested unawares across the plains. How many knights of their order had survived, he could not say for certain.

The magus and the two Sword-Bearers filed into the main tent behind the Champion.

Elle'dred moved to the far end of the table and waited.

For a moment, Darrodane was not sure who would begin.

Elle'dred met his gaze, "Darrodane, this is Syla." his second in command; Elle'dred glanced at the magus, "Syla, this is Sword-Bearer Darrodane."

Syla gave him a nod.

He returned the gesture.

Elle'dred sighed, "Now that you have seen the camp, is there anything else you want to ask?"

Darrodane was quiet a moment, before the phrase came sardonically to his lips, "When the hells do we attack Delphanas, milord?"

Elle'dred and Palai'dred both allowed a laugh.

As the chuckling faded, silence returned to the tent, and it lingered for a while longer than any of them might have appreciated.

Darrodane held his gaze on the - much, younger man who was his superior.

"The resistance is not the Hall of the White Wolf," Elle'dred stated, meeting his eyes, "If and when we do fight the Magus, we are not going to be leading an army of knights."

They had discussed this more than once during the march back to the camp; Darrodane still found the idea unpalatable, and by the discomfort Palai'dred had shown more than once, he knew the other Sword-Bearer did also. As did the knights.

"Syla," the Champion continued, "How long will our supplies last with the new numbers."

"A month at most." the magus answered.

"Then that is our first concern," Elle'dred stated, "Once the knights have had time to recover, we will need to scout out the plains, and launch raids to secure further supplies."

The last phrase caught the attention of both Sword-Bearers.

Elle'dred met them each levelly, "The armies and soldiers of Ammandorn are our enemies. Until we have established enough influence to turn some soldiers to our side, they are the forces of the Magus. Is that clear?"

Palai'dred nodded.

Darrodane did not - the order was not a surprise, and the memory of seeing his knights gutted by soldiers of Halesus when they resisted their unlawful arrest was not easy to forget - but too many years as a Sword-Bearer maintained that those soldiers were still Ammandorn's men.

His hesitation drew his counterpart's gaze.

After a moment further, of his already too long pause, he nodded.

Amidst a camp of knights, in a briefing with his Champion, he could no longer be a knight of the White Wolf Hall. The idea was, at its very heart, wrong.

Elle'dred stared at the table for another long moment, before glancing back up; there was something in his eyes - a disappointment, that took the Sword-Bearer off-guard.

"There is another thing that I have not told you, Darrodane." the Champion began, "The reason that the resistance must exist. And one that you will not wish to believe," the younger man met his eyes levelly, "There are six bloods. The sixth is that of the necromancers, and all those born to the blood are murdered at birth." Elle'dred paused, "As they have been for centuries...and this crime was committed in secret, by both the magus Tribunal...and the archivists."

Darrodane stared in disbelief -

The world had gone entirely mad.

* * *

Faldorn moved through the mass of knights gathered at the northern end of the camp. The former archivist had been enlisted to help distribute food, bedding and clothes amidst the new arrivals.

He had been told these knights had been held as prisoners for some time before their escape.

The marks of magus abuse were rife throughout the group.

Yet somehow, despite their captivity, and the brush with death both their execution and their escape had undergone, the mood amidst the camp was more alive than it had been since its founding.

The knights of the resistance had reunited with a large number of friends and fellows.

- It was a mood he did not share.

He was out of place. He was not a knight, nor did he know any of these people; and he could not be more aware of it, as he moved amidst the men and women handing out the rations.

He was alone; an outsider, now, amidst the camp. And the reminder followed in echo that this place - the resistance, was not his home. His home was gone. It had been torn away by the -

A glance up stopped him. And he near dropped the pack he carried at his side.

The bastard from the medical tent was moving through the crowd ahead. Distributing rations.

The magus was clothed this time - but he still stumbled awkwardly with embarrassment. Every step.

- The man had a limp, in one of his legs. It shortened his stride.

A knight beside the magus, conversing with his fellows, bellowed a laugh, turned to step away - and half knocked into the bastard.

The magus' lame leg could not catch his balance; he tripped and sprawled.

A moment later, the knight helped picked him up. And apologised.

The moment choked in his chest -

Faldorn turned away - the man should be driving a blade through the bastard's chest -

"You going to hand us one of those?" a younger woman with red hair and a weary smirk, beside him asked. Wordlessly, he handed her a ration from the pack.

She thanked him, grinned, and turned back to her fellow knight.

Faldorn moved ahead into the midst of another group. Away from the magus.

He did not glance up again - he could not manage the sight -

It made him sick.

Elle'dred made him sick - for allowing the damn magus free. He was supposed to be fighting them. He was supposed to be leading the resistance against them. He was supposed -

Faldorn suppressed the thoughts; he was no longer involved in the leadership of the resistance. He had not been for a long time. Elle'dred did not need him. And Lyrien -

- Lyrien should have objected when they first met, but she hadn't. Instead, the oracle now lay in their tent, unconscious from the last vision she had forced. Lyrien wasn't their leader anymore. Anymore than -

He had tended her, he had wiped away her blood, again; he had watched her for hours. The only truths of his life. She had been unconscious for two days. And there had been nothing he could do but wait.

The knight Celsye, the camp's official surgeon and nurse, had been called to the oracle's side; the knight had said she was in no danger. Faldorn had not believed that, he couldn't believe that.

He bit back the thought. It didn't matter - nothing mattered anymore.

He handed out another ration to an older knight; the man thanked him.

He did not acknowledge their thanks. He did not want it.

It sickened him.

* * *

The inn was empty, for the most part. The people that had crowded the place for days, fleeing the chaos of the streets, had mostly dispersed.

The riots were over. For the most part.

Sardorn and Hal had both brought words that small outbreaks still plagued the less affluent districts. But the city had been restored to order.

It had not been the city guard's doing, though.

The news had come as something of a shock, and had sparked hours of anxious apprehension.

An army of bloodhounds had spread throughout the city.

On every second street men or women in black robes lined in azure, hidden by those reflective, featureless masks could now be found. The gnarled, brown staves, and brazen censers, populated every district. That scent seemed to be everywhere.

Two of the robed magus had arrived at the inn some days ago. They had questioned Nareen for what seemed an eternity; they had given some euphemistic explanation, and assured the woman she was not suspect of any crime. They had thanked her when they had left.

That smell had remained, after them.

She had thought of abandoning the inn that night, moving to another safe house in another district of the city. Or returning to the mountains.

But reason had placated the inane panic enough to keep her here. For the moment.

It did not help that a large number of their 'friends' had been detained, and some had been killed while resisting arrest. It was unfortunate - their avenues of attaining information had been cut in half.

And information was what she needed now.

She needed to know whether it was time to run, or if it was safer to hide.

Rumour was spreading that half the city had been arrested - and that the other half had been hanged in the streets. Though the rioting had stopped, the fear that pervaded Armanas had only heightened; fear of what would be seen in those featureless reflective masks.

The curfew had been enforced unequivocally. Anyone found out after nightfall would be arrested, and at that only after being reduced to unconsciousness from the force of a glaring, crystalline rune. The power of the magus blood had been wrought without exception - and the irony was that the bloodhounds' arrests resulted in fewer deaths than those of the city guard.

- Two bloodhounds moved along the street beneath her.

She stared out the window of the second floor room of the inn; apprehension knotted her gut that the two black robes would stop below, and enter the building. They would be here to arrest Nareen.

And when they came for her and Lana, they would die for their trouble.

With only a touch from her hand.

She almost wanted that - at least it would resolve her decision once and for all.

The two bloodhounds moved past the inn, and headed down the street.

Unintentionally, she breathed a sigh of relief.

- A wail broke the tenuous silence behind her. The baby had woken, as he had so often in the past few hours, and throughout the night.

She turned away from the window, and moved over to the cot.

The infant whined loudly again, before she picked him up. The babe's cry turned to a contented giggle, as she rocked him gently against her breast. He gurgled a burp, and buried the chubbiness of his face into her chest.

She smiled.

They had not found a home for him yet. Amidst the chaos of the rioting, they had been unable to contact the houses where he would be safe, and since the arrival of the bloodhounds she did not dare take him out of the inn into the streets.

She had saved his life only a handful of nights ago, and she did not intend now to let the magus discover him inadvertently and take it away. A girl had lost her life that night.

Rana had cared for him, for the most part, as she had more than one other infant they had rescued. The old oracle had been grateful to her for finding him; it had helped allay the hurt that her other visions had been ignored. Rana had had more visions in the past week than she had had in the months preceding it. And not all had been new-borns. Some had seemingly escaped a birth-reader for their first few years.

There was nothing they could do for them, it was too dangerous.

The boy in her arms had drifted to sleep again, and continued to snore softly as she placed him back in the cot.

There was a quiet knocking on the door.

"Come in." she said, softly, so as not to wake the infant.

The door opened with a fortunately quiet swish, and admitted both Hal and Sardorn.

She was relieved to see them, and more so that neither seemed hurt.

Sardorn nodded a greeting, followed by Halthyn.

The young man moved over to the bed and sat, as the older necromancer closed the door behind himself.

"Any news?" she asked, in a hushed tone.

Sardorn glanced past her, at the cradle, before replying, "Perhaps we should talk somewhere else?"

She pursed her lips, "Here is fine. But keep your voice down."

The older man smirked, and gestured for Hal to vacate some room on the bed closer to the door.

As Sardorn sat, he remarked, "The streets are still full of dogs, if you couldn't tell. And no one's talking very loudly, for fear of it. That said, I have heard something -"

"The same thing as I heard." Hal added, "The Tribunal's here."

Sardorn glanced aside with a sour look; the magus responded with a refuting grin - they both chuckled.

- The infant wailed.

"Damn it." she muttered to herself, as she turned around to the cot and lifted the boy out again.

Thankfully, once again, a moment's gentle rocking stopped his crying. He liked being held, this one, and seemingly more by her than by Rana. Though that was not something either woman wanted to admit.

She glanced up with a reproachful glare at the two men seated on the bed.

A similarly guilty look was shared by adoptive father and son.

"You were saying?" she said more loudly now.

"We've heard there are Tribunal members in the city, reports range from one to a dozen...as there are only five members of the Tribunal at any time, I think we can rule the last one out though." Sardorn quipped.

She tried to smile - but apprehension stifled anything beyond itself.

"Seems they are here to oversee the bloodhounds - and convict the Garrison Commander." the older necromancer finished.

"That's what I heard too." Halthyn confirmed.

She continued to rock the infant, in silence.

After a long pause, Halthyn asked somewhat timidly, "You ever think we could kill one of them?"

"Yes, and then they would kill you." Sardorn responded - more harshly than she knew he intended.

The magus turned away with a pout.

"It wouldn't help us, in any case," she added, "The rest of the Tribunal would simply bring a new member in to replace them. And then they would know we are still alive when we shouldn't be, if they didn't capture you in your attempt and interrogate-"

"I get the point." Hal snapped, as a sullen look moved over him.

Silence filled the small room for a moment.

"We should keep our heads down." Sardorn said.

She nodded her agreement, "I considered leaving, but with so many bloodhounds and the Tribunal in the city I don't want to risk it. And I would say none of us should be seen outside the inn for a few days," she glanced at the magus, "Especially after curfew."

Hal glanced up at her, "I didn't -"

"Hal, please." Sardorn added.

The magus was caught off guard by the earnestness of the request - and after a moment, he nodded, "Fine - fine."

For once, she actually believed he intended to keep his word.

* * *

Syla walked towards the oracle's tent. Night had fallen across the plains, and the mountains to the west stood as a mound of shadow against the starlight. A handful of fires had been lit around the camp; she had told Elle'dred that it was safe - they were warded against discovery.

Even now, she could feel the magics she had cast, the warding spells.

She tried to ignore them.

She had learned that the oracle had been unconscious for several days; when Celsye had informed Palai'dred, Syla had overheard. The oracle apparently had forced another vision, and the effort had exhausted her considerably.

The Sword-Bearer had been bothered by the news.

Lyrien's condition had been overlooked amongst the general excitement and relief that yet pervaded the camp. Though not at all very obviously, the knights - both the former prisoners and the initial few who had fled Delphanas - were celebrating.

She was grateful for it; it had afforded her some time alone.

Elle'dred had spoken with her about the ambush - he had agreed it was the right thing to do.

She had not questioned that. Though not for the same reasons as Elle'dred.

She approached the tent. The light of a lantern extruded between the parting of the flaps - and voices, loud voices, accompanied it.

"...this is all there is." Lyrien's voice - there was a huskiness of fatigue in it, which Syla could not mistake. She stopped. For a long moment, silence fell amidst the tent before her.

The magus lifted the flap.

Her presence received both the older woman's and younger man's glares; the former archivist looked away - back at the oracle, then moved towards the open entrance.

Syla backed a step to allow him to pass; he did not look at her.

She glanced back into the tent, "I apologise if I am intruding," she began.

Lyrien shook her head, and gestured for her to enter fully.

Syla moved into the confines of the canvas enclosure.

The oracle, seated on a cot, stared at the flap for a moment, before meeting the magus' eyes; the older woman was palpably exhausted.

"What can I do for you Syla?" the oracle asked, though there was an edge to her voice that suggested she would have preferred the magus were not here.

"I came to see how you were." she answered, "Celsye -"

"I am fine." Lyrien stated, implacably; the airy huskiness of her voice contradicted the refutation.

Syla paused a moment before she said, "I was not aware that an oracle could force visions."

Lyrien raised a curious brow, "The laws that governed my blood are as falsely imposed as those that govern yours. And the necromancers."

Syla did not reply. For a moment, she could not.

Lyrien sighed, "Could you sit? I am tired of everyone standing around me."

Syla did not mistake the glance up at the closed flap of the tent; she lowered herself down on the other cot. The former archivist's.

"The visions require effort." the oracle said, "And the resistance requires information."

Syla did not say anything in response.

Lyrien let out a sigh, and paused; more levelly, she continued, "I have seen a rebel group forming in Delphanas, or...rather, one that will form." she paused, "I asked Faldorn to inform Palai'dred."

"I do not think that he did," Syla answered, reflexively - neither Palai'dred nor Elle'dred had discussed the information at their last convening, and neither the Sword-Bearer nor the Champion would openly ignore such a fact.

Lyrien sighed, again, tiredly, "He is...displeased with me." she pause, "I forget how young he is...though not much younger than yourself or Elle'dred. And you seem to have a better hold on your composure."

Syla almost wanted to laugh, at that, if not -

"I came to ask a favour of you," she stated; her voice concealed the tremor, which for a moment she had to fight to suppress, "Something I need to know."

Lyrien prompted her tacitly to continue.

"My mother," Syla finished, quietly; her voice was flat and steady, "I need to know if she is alive."

She met the oracle's eyes for a moment.

A heavy silence fell between them. Lyrien finally, nodded.

Syla wondered if the eyes of the older woman beside her saw more than simply a magus - and if the weight of exhaustion they both shared and tried so hard to conceal was as obvious as it seemed. 
Chapter 11

In the grey murkiness of the pre-dawn light, the black's snorts emerged as clouds of pale steam. His own breath filled the air ahead of him, as he checked the tack for the last time.

With a gloved hand that only partially warded off the chill of the morning's air, Elle'dred patted the black's neck - the gesture seemed more to reassure himself than the horse, however. Palai'dred, ten other knights and he, were riding out to scout the plains for supplies. Whether they would find such in the remains of a village abandoned by its people, or in a baggage train dispatched from a stronghold to resupply a garrison, he did not know.

He hoped for the former.

Syla appeared at the edge of the camp; her white hair was bound in a tight braid behind her head, shortened in a loop. Although she had changed her magus robes for a simple tunic and trousers, her hair, and what it identified her as, could not be disguised.

The knights, Darrodane included, had found Syla's rank amidst the camp difficult to accept.

Syla nodded an acknowledgement to him, as she drew alongside. Her pale cheeks had flushed somewhat in the chill of the morning air.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked.

She returned the slightest glare, and a scowl at the question.

Elle'dred chuckled.

"When you are ready." she replied; she was not referring to the order to mount up.

Elle'dred mounted the black, allowing his movement to draw the attention of the other knights, "The resistance needs supplies, and we must find them. Likely, we will have to take those supplies from the soldiers of Ammandorn," he paused, "No quarter is to be given, there are to be no survivors, no prisoners. No way for the magus or the armies to track us. If we are pursued we will not lead the enemy back here. Mount up." He glanced down at Syla, and nodded.

The magus began to chant inaudibly to herself, and moved her hand through a gesture across the knights before her; a moment later she released a heavy breath and her shoulders visibly eased, the only signs of the fatigue exerted by her magic.

She recovered herself quickly, turned to him and nodded. She moved beside her chestnut and mounted; the last of the group.

Elle'dred kicked the black into a trot, Syla alongside, Palai'dred and the other knights behind.

The magus glanced over at him, "Elle'dred. What if we find a village without soldiers?" - but others; he knew what she had not asked.

When he met her eyes, there was more to the question than she had asked, and as much reason for it masked by a harder glint.

In a lower voice that only Syla could hear, he answered, "My orders stand." he paused, "...we will avoid villages where we can."

I'm not ready for that - though he knew he would have to be.

The group left the resistance camp at a gallop.

* * *

Darrodane moved through the larger encampment of men and women, which now bordered the smaller gathering of tents beside it. That his men were allowed the rest they needed, was a fact he was grateful for; though admittedly, the resistance did not seem the refuge he had thought it was.

The world was steeped in far more wrong than he had allowed himself to believe -

And he was still trying to come to terms with that fact.

Children were murdered at birth.

By the Archivists. By the magus. The latter did not come as any real surprise - his recent experiences, and a little enmity allowed the thought. But he could not make himself accept the former. The White Wolf Hall served the Archivists, and the Archivists served the people.

Their duty was to protect the people of Ammandorn.

The way the Champion had phrased it seemed to place more blame on the Archivists than the magus; it was obvious the betrayal of their ideals had stung Elle'dred more harshly than most.

The Champion really was too young.

Darrodane had argued with Cyrradorn more than once about the danger of that fact, and joked that it would likely bring down the hall - the hall had been brought down; though not through the actions of an overly young Champion.

He chuckled to himself, at that.

The morning had warmed some, and the southern sun was slowly climbing amidst the levels of cloud towards midday. Darrodane stopped for a moment and gazed out over the flat grassland to the south.

"Uncle." his niece greeted, having managed to approach through the crowd unseen.

"Nelhana."

"It is not what I expected," she remarked, "And I can't say I like being this close to the glade."

Darrodane chuckled, "No, I do not, very much, appreciate it myself."

Nelhana was quiet for a moment, "Why is it that a rebel camp is here?"

"No one has bothered to tell you?" the Sword-Bearer asked.

"I've heard what has been said by the others - all the rumours, but I don't know what to believe."

And there is too much more you do not know.

"The oracle who led the knights from Delphanas is certain Dwener'dier has some part to play in this whole mess," Darrodane muttered, "And as apparently Elle'dred hasn't vanished or died while walking through the forest, she might be right."

Nelhana was silent for a moment; she glanced over her shoulder - and after another moment had passed, had not turned back to him.

Darrodane followed the direction of her gaze; the other magus, that he had been told was brought from Delphanas, was moving past the encampment.

The young man's limp prevented him from walking at a fast pace, and he kept his eyes locked on the ground, away from the men and women he passed. The mood of the knights around him fell silent with a bitterness Darrodane could not mistake, even at a distance. Although no one openly tried to confront him.

The magus' guard moved some paces behind, and exchanged some words with a group of seated men.

The young man slowly achieved the edge of the encampment, and moved away towards the north; his guard following behind.

"Why is it that there are magus here?" Nelhana asked.

Darrodane glanced at her - admittedly, he had wanted to ask the same question, and as yet, no explanation that was not entirely vague had been offered as to why that magus in particular had been allowed in the camp, "You, yourself, were a magus guard not a week ago."

Nelhana glanced aside, to him, "Yes, and I came to my senses when I was ordered to execute my uncle."

Darrodane chortled, "Fair point."

Nelhana was silent for a long pause.

The question emerged somewhat unintentionally, "Were we the first knights you were ordered to kill?"

She held her silence moment longer before answering, "No...and I didn't question it until after."

Darrodane wondered what else his niece had had to do before she rescued him - what else the magus had forced her to do -

And, briefly, whether or not she had been forced.

* * *

Two days had passed. They had not encountered anything beyond the rare hill, or barest rolling of the land beneath. The plains of Thgad seemed devoid of all life, beyond the grass beneath their horses' hooves. While they were much further south than he had been the last time he ventured across these plains, Elle'dred had expected a skirmish with a goblin force, at the least.

So far, however, there had been no signs of goblins. Or enemies.

For that, he reasoned he should be grateful; there likely would be incarnates alongside a goblin force - as there had been the last time he was here. And they did not have an undying deathwalker to defend them this time.

The reminder that he had lost a friend - too many friends, had been impossible to quash. Riding across these plains had evoked the memories continually, during the otherwise monotony of the days.

As the southern sun set behind the Riven Mountains in the southwest, they stopped at the base of an outcrop that broke the otherwise unbroken green flatness of the land. They would rest for an hour, before continuing on under the starlight.

Rations were distributed, and they ate in silence, as the knights Garran and Pyrrel attended the horses.

The man and woman were both tamer-born, and the power of their blood was not one Elle'dred had encountered for some time. In retrospect, he wished he had had a tamer's skills when last he had been here, on the plains.

The woman's hawk scouted ahead of them, and the knights could quieten or liven a horse with a touch.

There were many things Elle'dred wished, now, he had done differently.

- A cry in the distance broke the silence of the dusk.

Pyrrel looked out over the north; another cry echoed across the plains.

The knight turned to her Champion, "Hara's seen something, perhaps an hour's ride to the north."

Elle'dred nodded, and ordered to the others, "Mount up."

The tamer took the lead and they left the outcrop at a gallop, as the last of the day's light faded beneath the mountains to the southwest.

The plains were black, even under starlight. Elle'dred remembered this all too well; at night, the sweeping expanse of flatness shrunk to a small patch of blue-grey grass edged in by a wall of obscuring black. Only the massive veil of stars and indigo blue above served to light the plains.

The ride, however and fortunately, passed quicker than he expected.

Pyrrel reined her horse to a stop, and her black silhouette turned to her Champion, "A caravan, amidst the hills ahead, milord. They're moving, albeit slowly."

Elle'dred met the dim glint that was her eyes, "We'll approach on foot."

The knight nodded, and dismounted, as did the others behind him. Syla drew alongside, seemingly anticipating his next request.

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Yes." she answered, quietly, and began to murmur the low phrases of a spell; she seemed to complete it without Elle'dred noticing, "They'll not perceive our approach."

Elle'dred nodded his thanks, "Pyrrel, Darrick, with me."

He moved away, followed by the silhouettes and sounds of the two knights.

The land rose somewhat unexpectedly amidst the darkness; and they crossed the rise and fall of two large, gentle hills before mounting the crest of the ridge that overlooked the caravan. They had seen the reflected glow of the caravan's torches long before.

- There were wounded.

Evidently, the caravan had been attacked already and they were likely the survivors of what had been a baggage train for the armies operating on the flats. Now, they were ferrying wounded back to a keep, or a village.

Elle'dred counted five soldiers mounted, bearing the silver tiger of Thgad on green tabards. The other soldiers, near thirty at quick count, were on foot, and half that number bore stretchers with wounded between them. Two large wagons were driven by a handful more men and horses at the centre of the group.

In the glow of the numerous torches, held by the foremost riders, only a few looked ready for a fight.

A glance aside, showed that both of his accompanying knights had themselves gathered what there was to be had of the situation, and at his silent direction, they turned and retreated down the slope behind. Carefully, they made their way back along the hills to where the other knights and their horses remained.

A low whistle from Pyrrel alerted the group to their approach.

Palai'dred moved to meet her Champion, as did Syla, alongside.

"Fifty soldiers in total, half that are wounded or driving the two wagons. They've come from a fight." he paused; for a moment the myriad thoughts were impossible to quash - the reluctance, too much - "We attack."

No knight of the ten around him raised an objection; and if any reservations moved their faces, they were swallowed by the darkness and the starlight.

Garran was left behind to mind the horses, while each of the others removed their bows and quivers, and followed their Champion towards the hills. Syla moved beside him as they mounted the gently rolling crests; even she did not say anything, though Elle'dred could not mistake the uncertainty in her silence.

As ever, though, he wondered if it was more likely mistaken for his own.

In careful silence they reached the ridge-line again. At the limping, ponderous pace, the caravan had not crawled much further along the base of the valley.

Elle'dred unshouldered his bow, drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it; the others knights, spaced along the ridge, followed. They would wait for his first arrow to fall.

Elle'dred drew, took aim - at the lead man on his horse -

And loosed.

The whistle of the arrow was brief - a high, sharp cry, turning into one more guttural as the man shuddered and fell off his mount.

Bows thrummed, barely audible around him, birthing whistles, screams and the thudding of bodies. Shouts of alarm rose from the valley below; men scrambled in sudden panic - some moved for weapons, others ran. The wounded on stretchers were mostly abandoned, to lie for a moment before an arrow in the throat or chest silenced them. Two of the five horses bolted, one threw its rider to the ground, where an arrow found her an instant after.

Elle'dred loosed another arrow - six, seven - his eighth missed.

A handful of soldiers had taken cover on the far side of the wagons - the only place shielded from the knights' shafts. All the others lay dead, or dying.

Elle'dred waved a direction at Palai'dred; the Sword-Bearer nodded, and she and four other knights moved away, to circle around the ridge. The remaining men drew shafts to pick off any man who might chance to run in the brief lull.

Elle'dred waited. Long, slow, minutes passed as the other group of knights circled around to the east beyond sight; somewhere in the darkness they must have descended to the base of the valley.

And up onto the height of the northern ridge, atop a slope too sheer to climb.

- Arrows fell from the far ridge-line.

There were some final shouts and cries. Then silence.

Elle'dred replaced his arrow in the quiver, shouldered his bow, and moved away from the edge of the ridge; two knights and Syla followed behind him. They descended their ridge some way to the east, and moved up along the basin below; a wave to the Sword-Bearer on the height of the precipice above, had Palai'dred move out of sight.

The two other knights continued ahead, as Elle'dred paused, and Syla alongside.

They moved into the remains of the caravan.

- There were moans.

Elle'dred glanced up; of the knights ahead, one had drawn her sword, and bared open the throat of the soldier who was yet dying from the arrow in his gut. The other knight met his gaze with uncertainty.

"No survivors." he reiterated.

The man raised no further question.

A groan to his left had the Champion's Blade drawn naked in his hand. The woman's blood spilled softly against the perfect silver of the sword, as its edge opened her throat.

Elle'dred paused - for a long moment he stared at the body beside his feet. The woman had been a soldier of Ammandorn; and she had crouched over the wounded man - now dead - on the stretcher she had carried. Elle'dred met her now vacant eyes, with his stare.

- He barely heard the bow-string thrum -

Pain erupted in his leg, as the crossbow bolt drove its way into his calf. His leg buckled and he sprawled, amidst a sudden gasp.

There were shouts. The knights ahead dropped to the ground - and a sword blow, amidst the darkness underneath the rearmost wagon, dispatched the hidden soldier who had loosed the bolt. The man's head was cleaved in two.

Elle'dred watched amidst the haze of pain that washed across his vision - before glittering nausea clouded his sight. He heard boots moving to his side, and could feel Syla's presence kneeling over him.

An instinct had him reach for the bolt, but the movement sent a surge through him that all but reduced him to unconsciousness.

Amidst the adrenalin, and the pain, he found himself surprisingly lucid.

- They had ambushed a caravan of wounded soldiers fleeing a battle; their ambush had been swift and precise. Only soldiers of their enemy had died.

It was all too much -

* * *

Ragmurath stood, staring out across the featureless grey crags of the mountains that encircled the city. The window of his chamber opened across the slopes of sharp, bleak rock. The mountains that surrounded Delphanas were unfailingly grey, imperturbable, obedient and characterless. All that they lacked was the perfect alignment of shape; the undisciplined violence of their ridges and valleys had not been hewn into a flawless symmetry - unlike Grgadorn.

The mountains were rock - earth that could be shaped, that obeyed the power of the superior blood. That remembered its place. But the ring of white marble that stood at their centre, that surrounded him on all sides, was not - it was a monument of lawlessness, of disobedience and sloth.

Riots had broken out, again.

The people had objected to the new laws of conscription that had been passed - to having their sons and daughters forced to perform the duty they owed to their homeland.

Ragmurath's lip twisted in disdain; the people had not been the only ones to object. Gerdanath had raised question to the necessity of the move - the forces of the west were holding their own, and the reinforcements from Ygoth would be sufficient to maintain their defences for some time.

The forces to the west were holding their own solely due to the intervention of the Tribunal, and the Magus Order. Under his order, magus of Grgadorn, and Delphanas, had funnelled circle magic into the spells that bound the twelve keeps together - magics of destruction.

Gerdanath had objected to that as much as anything - and she had dared accuse them, her Staff-Bearer, of a lack of understanding. That they did not understand the warding spells as they once had.

He had dismissed her. From the Tribunal's convening, entirely.

That left only High Magus Salynath and himself.

Gerdanath had been ordered to lead the circles in their spells. She had obeyed. If nothing else, the woman was a talented and powerful magus, though more so than Ragmurath appreciated. Her insubordination - her objections, were a problem.

And, unlike two of the magus of the circle, she had not died from exhaustion.

The spells had taken more to cast than he had thought.

A storm had swept across the plains, from the north - a wisp of the storm that was now said to dwell perpetually upon the inland sea. The storm had rained down upon the plains for three days - five of the seven lakes and their adjoining rivers had flooded, broken their banks, and washed across the fields and grasslands - and war bands. When the storm had cleared, enough goblin and incarnate bodies had surfaced to warrant the collateral damage to the surrounding villages. And armies.

A report arrived not long after, of a war band turning on itself - goblins had cut down incarnates, and been slaughtered in return. Infighting, a bane of self-destruction was moving amidst their foes once again.

Ragmurath had been pleased by the results, though the war was far from won.

Conscription was the next step. The magus had done enough for now; the other bloods would bear their share of the war for a time. And the people's answer had been rioting.

He scowled; Delphanas would be returned to order, the magus guards would see to that.

A knock at the metal door, which barred the only entrance of the room from the gardened atrium outside, pulled him from his ruminations.

"Enter." he ordered.

The sound of the locks, each being turned by their respective keys, filled the white marble space of his chamber. The metal slab slid open silently, and effortlessly, on its hinges, admitting the swaying, ebony and azure robes of the High Captain. Her glaive clacked on the marble of the floor, in perfect synchronicity with her boots, as she led the man in behind her.

"Staff-Bearer." she acknowledge with a bow; her voice, muffled by the characterless, silver face-plate that concealed her visage. The prisoner behind her followed silently into the room.

Ragmurath stared at the man's face; his eyes did not leave the ground. Gerdanath had objected to the manner in which this prisoner had been treated; his 'trial' and his sentence.

Ragmurath had dismissed her. Objections, after the fact, held no consequence.

"Leave us." Ragmurath ordered.

The silver, characterless face beneath the gilded helm, bowed again, and turned away. The same face, missing only its jaw, yet stared at the Staff-Bearer as the woman exited the room. The door slid back into place, followed a second after by each of the myriad locks.

Dus waited, where he had been left.

Ragmurath held his callous gaze on the man; the prisoner did not move. The corner of the Staff-Bearer's mouth flickered through the barest curl.

"Approach."

Dus moved ahead towards the heavy, mahogany desk which stood between them. He stopped between the chairs on its far side.

"Sit."

The prisoner obeyed.

The Staff-Bearer quashed a sneer, "In weighing the statements you had made during your trial, I have decided to show you some further leniency for your crimes. As you were not wholly responsible for your criminal inaction, I have decided that your sentence will be amended." he paused, "Your servitude to the magus order is subject to parole...if and when I feel that it has addressed the crime. Furthermore, I have decided that you will serve exclusively at my behest...as my personal aide."

Dus showed no signs of reaction.

Ragmurath sneered, "That is the leniency I am willing to afford you."

A long silence occupied the room. The prisoner made no move to speak, or nod.

An order to do so formed on the Staff-Bearer's tongue -

Dus glanced up, and met his eyes. Again.

For an instant, his lip curled in disdain, and the order turned to a reprimand -

"Thank you, my Staff-Bearer." the man said. His tone was submissive, almost gentle.

As he averted his eyes, the man raised his hands to rest upon his lap; Ragmurath's eyes drew to the scarred hand, warped and twisted from burning. For a moment, the similarity was undeniable.

Ragmurath glared.

Leniency, he thought to himself.
Chapter 12

They had returned to camp. Rain-soaked, and delayed more days than she knew.

Their return had been hazardous and slow; blinded by rain, buffeted by shrieking winds, and weighed down by water. The rain had beaten down across the plains for two days. Unceasingly.

Syla had weathered it. But the rain had worn her to the bone.

The thick black clouds that concealed the sky - were wrong. She could feel it, the spells that had drawn the storm, the savage rage and power that drove the clouds, the winds. The sheeting rain.

She had to feel it.

The rain had washed their tracks away - likely all trace of the caravan they had attacked as well.

It had continued some way to the west, but had stopped an hour before they reached the camp. The camp itself had not suffered a drop - the afternoon's sunlight bathed the grouping of tents.

The mass of the storm hung over the east, like a scar across blue sky - and the sky was blue, above it, beyond it, at its edge where the southern sun crawled out from behind the choking black and edging wisps of grey. A wall of rain and shadow was dragged along beneath the storm's mass, unperturbed by the waning light of the sun.

Syla had reined her horse to a halt at the edge of the camp, and watched it move - the clouds' slid across the sky; the open blue yielding inescapably, slowly to thick black.

The clouds would not move west, the storm could not; that much, she knew.

They were held back by a warding spell; one that warped even now to bear the weight of the clouds, and the unseen power that forced it to keep the storm aimed at the east. Syla had felt that too, as she had crossed it.

She turned away, made her way to her tent. In its confines, she removed her wet clothes - sought for others. For a moment, her eyes rested upon her magus robes. The thick, black robes were the only clothes she had that fit her. That had been made for her - they would be warm.

She retched.

Silently, privately, concealed by the canvas walls of her tent, she let the sickness overwhelm her. Thankfully, she had not eaten since the previous night.

There was no mess to clean up, only a foul taste that filled her mouth and nose, and watered her eyes. She did not know if she was crying.

For a minute, she knelt, braced with one hand while clutching at her bare stomach with her other, and shuddered. She did not want to breathe back in. It hurt too much.

She sucked in a breath.

Another -

Another.

They might have been sobs.

She steadied herself, levered herself back slowly to sit on her legs. The muscles of her calves strained beneath her thighs; there were quivers from the nausea.

There was more.

She held it in check.

She breathed.

Her hand moved away from her stomach to her side -

And flinched away at the feeling of bone. After the initial second of shock had passed, Syla felt her side again - she had not known how much weight she had lost. Beneath the slight curve of her breast she could feel her ribs; there seemed barely a strip of skin between the bones and her hands. She did not know if it was the result of months spent marching across plains and mountains, or the signs of more recent days.

For some long minutes, she sat naked, alone in her tent, and examined the disturbing thinness.

After slipping on another spare tunic and trousers, and towelling the yet drying rain from her hair, she moved out of her tent into the camp. A glance at the sun, hovering beside the white peak of the mountain to the west, showed she had wasted a great deal more time than she had intended too.

She frowned. And increased her pace.

She arrived at the medical tent to find both Sword-Bearers, and the knights Athan and Ellario gathered around the cot that bore Elle'dred. Knight Celsye was tending the last bandages on his leg, as he held a discussion with the older Sword-Bearer.

At the far side of the tent, seemingly unnoticed or disregarded, Keylyn sat on his own cot. The other magus glanced up her listlessly, as she entered, and looked away.

Elle'dred acknowledged her with his own nod.

"...we should get what information we can from the villages." Darrodane finished.

"If there are any not abandoned." Ellario muttered.

"What are we to barter?" Athan asked, "There's not much we have that we can spare."

Elle'dred paused a moment before he responded, "Weapons."

Syla caught the mild surprise on the knights' faces.

"We can trade crossbows. As I'm to understand, we have an ample supply?"

Athan nodded, somewhat reluctantly.

"Any villagers we find undoubtedly want to defend their homes. And anyone can learn to use a crossbow." Elle'dred paused, and chuckled, "Although, it would have helped if you'd visited the Hall's coffers before leaving Delphanas."

Palai'dred smirked, sourly, "My apologies, milord."

Darrodane and Ellario chuckled.

"What happens when reports reach a keep?" Athan asked.

Elle'dred met the knight's flat gaze, and then turned to Darrodane, "I want you to choose only men from the militia, and the magus guard. I don't want to risk any knights being recognised."

The Sword-Bearer nodded.

"You are also leaving, Darrodane," Elle'dred continued, "You and Ellario will lead another group to scout out the southern plains. And attack any opportune targets that you find."

Darrodane paused, before nodding again.

"You have your duties," Elle'dred finished, "If only to get some rest," he glanced over Palai'dred, but his gaze came to meet Syla's, "Dismissed."

The knights each bowed, and left.

Syla nodded to each of them as they passed her. She turned back to Elle'dred. He met her eyes again, moved to speak - but paused. A glance over his shoulder drew Syla's own to Keylyn on the other side of the tent. Elle'dred looked away.

Stiffly, he levered himself off the edge of the cot and onto his feet - a grimace concealed a grunt of pain as he placed some weight on his wounded leg. His balance wavered for a moment.

Syla moved to his side, and offered her arm for support - she flinched unexpectedly when he took it.

"Thank you." he muttered, and reached for the crutch lain askew across the adjacent cot.

Syla withdrew her arm as he managed to steady himself.

He turned away from her, momentarily, and acknowledged, "Keylyn."

The magus looked up at the Champion, "Milord." he replied, hesitantly.

Elle'dred turned back to her, "Syla." and began to move towards the entrance to the tent.

Syla threw a departing glance at Keylyn, before turning to follow.

Elle'dred hobbled at a reduced pace into the lanes of the camp; each step provoked a twinge of a grimace across his tired features. Syla was in part glad he could not manage a faster pace; her own legs were sore from the ride, and she was more than a little tired.

For a long time he did not say anything, just made his way through the camp, towards the west. He nodded acknowledgement to each knight they passed, as they did to him.

"Milord," oft covered the lack of greeting Syla herself received.

They made their way to the western perimeter of the camp.

"That storm is not natural." he said, breaking the long silence; he glanced across the encampment to the east. Above the peaks of the tents, the terrible black mass concealed the sky.

"No." she replied; she glanced up at the storm herself.

She looked away.

"It's the Tribunal's work isn't it?"

"Yes."

He turned to meet her eyes, "The spell they cast on you...the possession, could they cast that spell again?"

Syla was silent a moment, "No." she forced herself to say, "Llrsyring cast a spell, protecting me." After.

Concern flickered across Elle'dred's face, but was quashed by his next question, "Could they cast that spell on someone else?"

"Only a magus."

"So they could cast that spell on Keylyn?"

Syla stared at him for a long time; she did not reply, more than tacitly.

"Could you protect him, like Llrsyring did?"

For a moment longer she was silent, "I...I wouldn't know where to begin." she hated that answer - Elle'dred needed more from her - "I could try."

Elle'dred's mouth curved into a wan smile amidst a nod.

Silence lingered over their small patch of grass, surrounded by the canvas walls of tents.

"I still have his armour in my tent," Elle'dred muttered, idly, "It's just armour now."

Syla did not say anything in reply; she did not know what to say. She was too tired - all she wanted to do was retire to her tent, and sleep.

- There was a moment of bitterness on Elle'dred's face, though his eyes seemed lost in distance.

"I wish he were here too." she found herself muttering -

"I've ordered the knights - the militia men - groups to move out into the plains. Find what villages are left, and trade what we can for supplies." Elle'dred paused, "Hopefully we can stock some of what we need quicker this way."

Syla nodded.

"Honestly, I don't know how much I can trust them," he was muttering more to himself, it seemed, than to her, "If any of them are captured...and they might be..."

"The warding spells I put in place should protect us somewhat, in that event." - she could feel them too, subtly, alike the storm and a wall to the east. She silenced the thoughts.

Elle'dred chuckled, "I still don't understand magic."

Silence returned for a moment -

"Do you regret attacking the caravan?"

"No." his response was immediate, and he met her eyes levelly - more than you know.

Syla held his gaze for a long time, before he glanced away. She hoped he would dismiss her then; that she could return to her tent for a few hours. She wanted to be alone.

He turned back towards the camp; she followed.

"Keylyn is staying in the medical tent, it would seem," he remarked, "I think it's best. It's the least visited place in the camp," he chuckled, "A bolt in the leg is the first injury we have sustained in a while...though that might change. I think it is best he stay away from the others where he can."

Syla did not finish the thought.

- The former archivist's flat voice, from behind, caught her off-guard.

Both she and Elle'dred paused.

"Milord." Faldorn acknowledged, as he approached. Although he tried to conceal it more now, likely due to the presence of the Champion of the White Wolf beside her, she could see the exacting likeness of the matter that had just gone undiscussed.

Elle'dred nodded in return.

The young man's dark eyes turned to her, "Syla." he said, flatly, "Lyrien requires your presence."

She nodded, and glanced aside to receive Elle'dred's approval.

Faldorn uttered "Milord," again, before turning and moving off. His disregard for her was evident in his wake, and an equal frustration in his stride.

She followed him to the oracle's tent.

Faldorn held aside the flap for her to enter - she caught the flicker of a glare, levelled at her feet, as she passed him. He did not enter after her.

Lyrien sat on her own cot - the older woman looked as exhausted as Syla herself felt; and for a moment, in the dimmer light, almost as pale. Lyrien glanced up to meet Syla's eyes; the oracle only stared, as though she did not see the magus in front of her. She blinked the distance away.

Recognition moved into her gaze, gently. She gestured for Syla to sit, on the other cot.

Syla did.

"She is dead, Syla." Lyrien said, after a pause, "Your mother. The Tribunal's Staff-Bearer had her executed."

Syla met the older woman's gaze; after a moment, she asked, "How?"

Lyrien shook her head.

Syla glanced away.

"It was some time ago." Lyrien finished, gently. The oracle reached out a hand to rest on hers.

Syla let it lie there for a moment, before she moved hers away, and stood.

She muttered her thanks, and moved out of the tent. Slowly, she made her way across the camp, and back to her own. There, alone, she found her cot and lay down. Sleep came too easily.

* * *

Darrodane rode across the soft mud that was the grassland beneath the storm. The black clouds strangled the sky above - all the sky above; though its downpours were intermittent. Somewhere, whether it was to the east, or south, or above, the wind howled incessantly.

Sometimes distant, sometimes as though it might surge across the next hill, or suddenly out of the flatness to the south - and might bring with it a goblin war band.

He smirked to himself at the thought - but he could not deny how disturbed he felt beneath the black sky. It might as well have been night, for all the good the southern sun did behind the clouds.

They had slowed their pace, after a horse had slipped on an unseen stone and broken its leg; thankfully it had only thrown its rider onto the soft mud and grass beside the rocks. The knight, though battered and bruised, had mounted another of the spare horses, after he had spared his first its suffering.

The infrequency of the downpours made the ride an equally intermittent affair.

It irked his niece more than the Sword-Bearer himself.

A ridge rose somewhat abruptly from a depression in the land ahead; a jagged mound of rock, spearing off towards the east. On its slope facing them, a short, stout watchtower had been built.

- A bell was already tolling from inside.

Though, thankfully, too randomly to have been deliberate, and half drowned-out by the wind. And the rain. The downpour spattered its first hard drops on Darrodane's cheek, and was a moment later joined by a battering barrage.

The bell was silenced amidst the roar of the rain, all around. And the sudden howl of the wind. A gust buffeted the Sword-Bearer from behind, and had his mount totter and cry, uncertainly. He steadied the horse, and turned in his saddle to the knights behind.

He squinted, half blinded by the rain.

The tamer Garran had dismounted, and was moving amidst the spare horses to the rear.

The others were trying to keep their own unsettled mounts steady, while the sudden force of the storm threatened to unseat them.

Darrodane turned back to the south, beyond the rain he could not make out more than a blur of the watchtower. He reined his horse around to his men.

"Follow!" he bellowed, and waited for the tamer to remount.

Slowly, surrounded by the roar of the battering water they made their way towards the growing height of the ridge. At its base, Darrodane turned west, to circle around to the far side. Despite the change in direction, the rain and wind from above seemed to have shifted - now it was blowing from the west rather than the south. It full force was still in their eyes.

- The storm was not natural, though until this moment he had not fully comprehended what Palai'dred had meant when she had told him that.

Another gust ripped around the ridge, and near hurled him out of the saddle - the shriek against the rocks, seemed to tear over him and his horse. His mount reared and cried in fright - as did another behind him, and likely more, though the sounds were lost amidst the spattering aftermath.

Darrodane managed to rein the chestnut back into file and pace.

On the far side of the ridge, descending down a bogged mud track, a small village sprawled beneath the overhang of rock.

A village.

Uncertainty swelled in his gut for a brief moment, before he dismounted, and turned to the others.

"Dismount!" he shouted again. The knights complied immediately.

Carefully, he led his horse down the track that descended into the village. Half-blinded by the rain, and unable to hear more than the thump of his heart above the roar, he reasoned now he would probably slip at the next gust of wind and tumble down the rest of the slope.

As he descended the track, the overhang of the ridge began to ward off some of the rain. He could see, albeit only a little more clearly.

- Half the smaller buildings had collapsed; either under the weight of water on rooves ill-fitted to accommodate it, or under the force of the wind. The larger buildings, one of which clearly possessed an outer stable and was sheltered under the overhang, were still intact - untouched by the storm.

After achieving the level ground at the bottom of the slope, he led his horse and his knights through the centre of the town towards the building.

Its two stories climbed up almost to reach the rock above; its walls themselves made of the same rock, amidst beams and balconies of wood. What windows there were had been barred, and the Sword-Bearer guessed the door to the first level would not open.

He handed the reins of his chestnut to his niece, before moving to the door, and pounding on the thick, oaken façade with a fist.

- There was no reply. And no light could be seen through any crack, of the windows or doorway, beyond. He forced his shoulder against the wood. It did not budge.

With a chilled, rain-soaked sigh, he turned to the others, "The stable."

They moved to the open entrance that led into the darkness of the stable; the doors here had evidently not been closed when whoever it was had abandoned the place.

Darrodane led the knights and the horses into the wide confines of the outbuilding. There were stalls enough to accommodate their mounts, and most of the other horses, though some would still be left standing in the central corridor between. There was ample space in the hayloft above for the knights themselves.

He inspected one of the stable doors as he passed it - and came to a halt.

It had been forced in, from the outside. And he doubted by the returned villagers.

The Sword-Bearer moved further into the stable, and turned into one of the stalls. He did not need to give the order for the other knights to do the same; the thought passed along with a twinge of regret, at how loudly he had shouted throughout entering the village.

The scent of manure caught his nose; the chestnut had dropped it some moments ago. The wind and the rain had cleared out the air somewhat, but crowding eight knights and fifteen horses into the stable for however long it took for the rain to pass might soon make it hard to breathe.

He smirked, or scowled, to himself; at least the air would be warm.

"We'll make camp in the lofts above," he told the others, "Wait for the worst of the storm to pass."

After tending his horse, Darrodane removed the heavy cloak from about his shoulders, and the oilskin beneath, draping both to dry over the stall's partition; despite them, his clothes were still soaked through.

The gradual deepening of the already heavy gloom, evinced that night was falling amidst the roar and howling outside.

Darrodane hurled his pack up onto the loft above, before joining it himself, and two of the other knights; the man and woman were each stripping their own soaked clothes and armour. Sleeping naked, wrapped in a drier blanket and huddled together, seemed intensely more palatable than half-freezing to death in wet clothes amidst the errant drafts from outside.

Only the first watchmen would have to retain their drenched trappings, and at that only for a few more hours. Nelhana volunteered, with the other knight assigned to the task.

Darrodane scowled at himself; he should have taken first watch - he was getting too old.

The tamer Garran was the last man to join them in the loft, as complete darkness fell throughout the stable, the man stripped his clothes and retrieved a blanket. Darrodane only heard his footsteps as he moved alongside the Sword-Bearer.

"Sir, the horses are unsettled," he muttered, "The storm is not natural, and they know it. I've calmed them as much as I can; but we can't ride for long out there. Once we leave -"

"We'll only leave once the worst of it has passed." - however long that takes.

Garran was silent a moment, "The worst of it will only fall when we are out there."

Darrodane raised a querying eyebrow - although the knight could not see it in the dark, "And how is it you know that?"

"It's what has them so afraid." the knight replied.

The horses.

Darrodane scowled; the oracles had their visions, the tamers some bond with their animals, the magus magic enough to cover half of his homeland in a storm -

All he had was a sword, and when he was lucky a bow and some arrows. He chortled to himself, and let the paltry warmth of the blanket soothe his tired body into sleep.

* * *

Faldorn uncorked the wine skin, and drained a mouthful. The tart, sour red washed down his throat with an almost nauseating feeling. He was already too drunk to care.

The wine had washed away the frustration, the anger - its dizzy somnolence had made things that much easier to bear. He just wanted to sleep, now; to close his eyes and rest. To forget the camp, the tents - his life. He did not want this - any of this, anymore.

Months ago, Lyrien had asked him for his help, and he had given it.

He had helped her all the way here. But he couldn't help her now - they weren't a part of the resistance anymore. They weren't needed anymore. Though Lyrien would not admit that to herself - instead, she strove harder and harder to kill herself. She was killing herself - slowly.

- For the magus bitch - and the Champion that had put her in charge -

Faldorn took another mouthful, half-gagged and spat it out. He might have retched.

The numbness, the blind happiness of the initial gulps had melted away, and the more he drank the less he could recover them. Like his life. His life was gone - Delphanas, the assembly, his friends, Phio - Keron -

He wanted Keron; he wanted to curl up in his bed, in their quarters, with Keron. The man's soft lips pressed against his - his smile, his eyes, his skin - they were gone.

He was dead.

He had been murdered by the magus - by the magus bitch!

- He hurled the wineskin across the tent. It struck the canvas wall, spattered a stream of red against the sallow white, and flopped to the ground.

Faldorn sucked in a heavy breath - in part from rage, and from the alcohol - and it emerged as a sob.

He wanted Keron - he wanted Keron -

The only thing he could muster amidst the haze of alcohol -

The dizzy weight dragged him down to the grass beneath him, near the canvas wall behind. He could not fight the sleep that came unwillingly upon him, any more than the echo of the thought that filled his mind. And sleep might do what the alcohol had not - conceal the anger, the rage, the despair the thought engendered.

Keron -

* * *

Ragmurath scrawled his signature onto the parchments without thought. His wrist had strained some hours ago from the task, but he would not allow that weakness to hinder him. The ache in his arm could wait until he was done.

Until justice had been served.

Each parchment, each signature he signed, condemned a traitor to death.

- The knock on the thick metal of his door came unexpected and unwelcome.

He glanced up from the parchments to the entrance of his study, and scowled, "Enter."

The slow, methodical clicking of the myriad locks filled his study for some long moments, before the door slid almost silently open - and admitted the High Magus.

Gerdanath nodded her acknowledgement, "Staff-Bearer."

His scowl twisted into a subtle sneer of contempt, "I did not summon you."

"My apologies Staff-bearer," Gerdanath answered, flatly, "But there was a matter I thought warranted your attention."

Ragmurath stared at her for a moment, "And what would that be?"

"It concerns a prisoner that was brought from Grgadorn a few weeks ago," the High Magus approached the far side of his desk, "Seemingly, she was detained in secret, and no charge has yet been levelled against her," Gerdanath paused, "Despite this, she was convicted, sentenced and executed - by official command of the Tribunal."

Ragmurath's gaze narrowed sharply - his inferior waited for a response. Slowly, he rose from his chair to bring his eyes level with hers, "Then she was guilty of a crime."

Gerdanath's visage wavered for a moment, "She was not -"

"If an official order has been passed condemning a prisoner to death, then that prisoner was guilty of a crime warranting it -"

"Being the mother of a traitor?" - the flatness of the question sharpened into silence.

Ragmurath glared - a snarl swelled in the back of his throat, "She was guilty of treason," he iterated, "Is that understood, magus?"

The woman before him was silent for an amount of time that bordered on insult, "Yes, Staff-Bearer."

"Dismissed." - the word came out amidst a snarl.

Gerdanath bowed, turned and exited the room.

Ragmurath glared after her.

* * *

Darrodane waited amidst the remains of the hut on the western side of the village. An arrow was knocked to his bow. The wind had quietened, the sheeting rain had faded to a light drizzle now pattering on the rooftops, and the malevolence of the storm had seemingly moved on.

But in the renewed calm they had heard voices above the rain - some shouts that had echoed dimly from the far side of the rocky ridge. They had donned their armour as quickly as they could - and drawn their weapons.

Half of their group had spread out amongst the village, around the main road that led through the centre of the basin which held the village. The voices had grown louder.

Shapes had moved into view, atop the ridge of the basin's far wall - and had begun moving down the mud track that led into the village. A half dozen men, and a horse - the mount bore no rider, but rather a heavy load of baggage strapped to its back.

None of the men wore insignia, and judging by their rough attire and language, the Sword-Bearer doubted that they were the returned villagers, or soldiers. Likely, they were raiders.

Darrodane drew back his arrow, and prepared to give the shout that would have the others each emerge from cover and release.

- The man in the lead of the new group held up his hand. The others behind him fell silent.

The man pulled his heavy cowl away from his face -

A face Darrodane recognised.

The Sword-Bearer paused. After a moment, he stepped out from the cover of the wreckage of the hut - his arrow still drawn. In an instant, his other knights followed suit, their arrows visible to the group in their midst.

A raider barked in alarm - another moved for the axe at his belt -

And received an arrow in his shoulder in return.

The man released a cry, and collapsed into the soft mud beneath him.

The moans that followed stifled the movements of the others.

Darrodane met the lead man's eyes - and allowed his bowstring some slack.

The man was young, Darrodane knew, less than half his own age, but the hollowness of the man's gaze added a lifetime to his face. As did the bright redness of the scar, which made its way across his neck - near from one side to the other.

Darrodane allowed a tick, "Yrradorn."

The man did not reply - slowly, calmly, he surveyed each of the knights, surrounding him in ambush.

He nodded to the knight over the Sword-Bearer's shoulder.

Darrodane half-glanced back, and allowed a scowl; he gestured for the others to lower their weapons.

Under the furious gazes of the men behind, and the moaning, Yrradorn turned away and moved to the injured man's side; hoisting the man out of the mud, he handed his weight to the raider beside and muttered, "Don't raise your weapons again."

The man scowled, and bit back a snarl, but raised no further objection.

The younger man - the knight, met Darrodane's gaze again, "I thought you were dead." he stated.

The Sword-Bearer chortled, "I should say the same about you. What are you doing here?"

Something flashed across the younger man's eyes for a moment, before he answered, "May I speak with you in private?"

Darrodane nodded, and gestured for the knight to follow him. They moved away, towards another of the huts that had not been toppled by the storm.

Once inside the confines of the structure, the Sword-Bearer turned to face the younger knight.

"Are you going to arrest me?" - the question filled the rain-pattered space before Darrodane could speak.

The Sword-Bearer was taken aback, "For what?"

"Aiding outlaws."

The confirmation of what he had already known, struck Darrodane somewhat more forcefully than he had expected - as did the thought that the mission he himself was on was in many ways no different.

"No." he answered - and paused, "How did you end up with the likes of them?"

Yrradorn met his eyes levelly, but the same flash from before disturbed their steadiness, "They were the only hope I had of surviving."

Darrodane glanced down, at the large red mark that covered the man's neck, "I am supposing they had something to do with -"

"No." the answer was sharp and final; Yrradorn paused, "They happened after. They found me a few weeks ago - they would have killed me, but I proved a knight was more valuable alive, than dead."

Darrodane was silent for a long while, "Are you still a knight?"

The ferocious glint that filled the man's gaze was all the answer the Sword-Bearer needed, or would receive. Darrodane sighed - the world was mad - but the tenets that had defined his life were hard to ignore.

"Then you'll be wanting to join us." he finished.

Yrradorn was silent a moment, "What are you doing out here, sir?"

Darrodane allowed a smirk, and chuckled, "No doubt what your outlaw friends have had you doing."

A flicker of confusion moved across the younger man's face.

"Perhaps I should start at the beginning," Darrodane muttered, "Firstly, our Champion is alive; he returned from the Tribunal's mission not long ago. And secondly, he has taken charge of the few knights that managed to survive, as a resistance opposing our new magus government."

The knight did not reply.

Darrodane restrained a smirk, "We were sent out to raid any baggage trains we find for supplies. The resistance has grown recently and soon we won't be able to keep all our knights fed."

Yrradorn paused a moment before responding, "There is one close by, less than a day's ride from here. It is overly large and ill defended - we have raided it twice in the last week, without sufficient resistance. How many men do you have out there?"

Darrodane raised an eyebrow at the flatness of the information - and the admission, "Ten. And twice as many horses. The rest are in the stable - I assume your men were using it before us?"

"Yes. And they are not my men." Yrradorn answered, "Naryck prefers to have his blade at my back, than mine at his. And I am a better tracker than any of them." the knight paused, "It would be better to leave them alive for the moment; I can convince them to aid us in the attack."

"I was wondering if you would vouch for them -"

"I can't. They were raiders before the war started." the knight paused, again, and glanced over his shoulder at the open doorway, "It would be best if you dispatched them after the raid. They won't want to join this resistance."

Darrodane was taken aback momentarily by the statement - reflexively he asked, "Do you?"

The same glare that had been levelled at him not long before returned to the younger man's eyes - as did a brief flicker of some other emotion.

The crack of thunder, somewhere in the distance outside, broke the silence that fell between them. As did the return of heavier rain.

The world had gone mad - the thought resounded once again.

"You'd best ask them not to force us to waste our arrows then," he muttered, "I'll prepare the others to depart."

Yrradorn nodded, and turned to move away.

"Sir, would be protocol, knight." Darrodane remarked.

Yrradorn met his eyes again - the same hollowness he had seen in that first moment deepened; that world is gone, the other knight's eyes replied, though he answered with, "Sir."

Darrodane watched the younger man depart.

Mad, he thought again to himself.
Chapter 13

The convoy had been less than an hour's ride away - a snaking column of wagons and carts and horses, stretching across the gradual undulation of the hilltops, beneath the black mass of the sky. In the deepening gloom of dusk, Darrodane counted the number of soldiers that defended the convoy.

Few. Far too few. As Yrradorn had said.

The Sword-Bearer chewed his cheek as he watched the convoy make its slow way, under the spatter of the rain, across the hillocks. They would attack after nightfall.

Thunder rolled distantly above the east, and the patter of the rain turned heavier once more. Darrodane was already soaked, and the chill of the approaching darkness had begun to seep into his muscles. The wind shrieked somewhere beyond the northern hills. Their attack would be swift.

The thought did not bring any comfort, or dispel any misgivings - the Sword-Bearer recognised an emergency supply effort when it crawled before his eyes. Ammandorn was losing the war - or not winning at the very least. He stifled a chortle.

During the ride, Yrradorn had shared what he had seen during his partnership with the outlaws; the villages of Thgad had for the most part been abandoned, where they had not been razed by goblin war bands. The people had fled to the keeps throughout the plains; many of which had been attacked, and a number of which had fallen. Those that could, or were willing, were fleeing north or east, across the Fore-guard mountains.

When last he had been party to an army, the younger knight had heard that the withdrawal from the valley of Ythordor had cost more men than any of the Generals were willing to say. Though that had been some time ago.

Supply trains were rife throughout the plains. Unlike the soldiers who were supposed to defend them.

The information had not been a surprise, but it had been disturbing.

Darrodane wiped away the rain from his eyes, though a moment later his vision was blurred again. A gust of wind buffeted him from behind, though its frigid touch was mostly absorbed by the drenched material of his cloak.

Night had fallen, or the dusk had been entirely blackened by the clouds.

The Sword-Bearer rose -

Lightning cracked across the sky above; for an instant filling the black with ghastly white - and as quickly falling back into darkness. Thunder boomed, deafeningly. The rain crashed down, as heavy as a day before.

Perfect. He suppressed a smirk.

Darrodane snorted, and turned to the knight beside him, "Swords, we'll do this quietly." - though he near had to bellow the order to hear himself above the roar all around.

The knight nodded, and moved away across the line of men and women beside him, repeating his order.

Somewhere in the dark beside him, amidst the battering rain his knights each drew their swords - or axes where the outlaws were concerned. Yrradorn had said they were competent enough, though Darrodane had his doubts.

In the dark beside him, under the rain, the others moved forward; their line dispersed into four groups.

He slid his own blade from its sheath and began to move forward. A sudden gust of wind stalled his stride for a moment, near toppled him, and slashed water into his eyes. Recovering his balance, he fought his way ahead; another shriek flung rain against his chest.

The storm was not a natural thing. He had dismissed the tamer's words so idly - but as he drove a step forward, each drop seemed to fall as hard as an arrow, sheeting in volleys from the black nightmare above. The water battered his leathers, his head, his skin.

Lightning cracked jagged across the sky, illuminating the hillsides - and cast gargantuan shadows down the slopes of the three groups that waded through the mud to his left. Thunder boomed across the sky, the sound itself striking his shoulders amidst the rain.

Lightning flashed again -

There might have been a cry of alarm up ahead, and the flash passed before he could tell if the silhouettes had begun to move. Into a more defensible formation.

Thunder resonated in his skull like a hammer on the bone. The rain slashed from the east into his eyes. The wind made every step amidst the sloughing mud a chore.

The Sword-Bearer clambered up against the storm towards the top of the hill - the flash that seemed to fill the horizon behind the mound of mud and grass framed the silhouettes in perfect darkness.

Massive looming shadows woven together like a wall of blades.

The storm will get us killed. Darrodane almost chuckled to himself.

He mounted the hilltop, and raised his blade -

Lightning flashed behind. For a brief moment, the convoy that now lay only a step before him was caught under glaring white; the wagons and carts and drivers and soldiers turned to savage spectres against a blackened sky. The Sword-bearer half expected to see a man, or more, with crossbows cocked and loaded, pointed at his chest -

But amidst the sudden starkness of the flash, not one man had moved.

The soldiers had not seen them. And no alarm had been raised.

In that moment, the winds turned. A gust blew at his back, from the west, savage and violent -

Thunder roared and cracked and rolled.

Lightning flashed, stark white -

The first man he spied, had raised his arm against the light and the sheeting rain to keep from being blinded, and as he lowered it, the flash amidst the sky turned into the sharper flash of a blade.

The man gurgled a bloodied cry, and collapsed to the mud, with Darrodane's blade buried in his gut.

The Sword-Bearer did not pause; sliding his sword free of the body, he moved to the driver of the wagon, ahead. Blinded by the rain, the second man had not seen the first one fall.

The soldier glanced aside, as Darrodane hauled himself onto the ledge beside him - and opened his throat with a circling blow.

The lightning flashed again behind; the wind shrieked against his back. The force of the storm was at his back - howling, behind -

Darrodane glanced up - the soldier on the far side of the wagon had seen its driver slain.

She drew her sword, and shouted - swallowed by the crack of thunder.

Darrodane leapt off the ledge at the fore of the wagon, and landed in the soft, catching mud beside her; he lashed out with his blade. She stepped beyond its range, and closed again in reprisal.

The Sword-Bearer met the blow with his own sword, one handed, near the hilt; and as quickly held her sword-arm in place with his other hand. Twisting her arm as he advanced, her sword angled harmlessly away - as he drove his own into her chest.

She gasped, lost amidst the rain, and fell.

The wind screamed, against the flash of the sky - he glanced to the north through the roar of the falling rain. The dark shapes of his knights flickered through horses ahead, the flash of their blades lost amidst the recurrent dark.

A man screamed in the blackness behind him.

- And another lunged out with spear in hand.

The Sword-Bearer turned with the blow, though the spearhead sliced into his shoulder. His leathers took most of the thrust, only a shallow cut opened beneath. He backed a step against the second thrust of the spear, and turned its head away with a batting of his blade. The spearman shouted something at him - as he grasped the spear shaft with his free hand, and pulled it forcibly towards him.

The man stumbled forward, onto the Sword-Bearer's waiting blade.

Darrodane dropped the haft, and freed his sword. The fourth soldier he had killed dropped with a gurgle at his feet.

Lightning flashed. And was joined a moment after by the gentler roll of distant thunder - there were no more soldiers at the rear of the caravan.

The rain continued to the sheet against his back, driven by the wind.

Darrodane turned to the head of the convoy. The drowning tumult of the water covered any clash of blades. Or screams of men, or horses.

The Sword-Bearer trudged forward, amidst the rain.

The battle was over. In moments he had scarce felt pass.

The wound on his shoulder stung, as drops beat into it from above - even the rain was clearing. The violent downpour that had fallen only breaths before had passed with the soldiers of the caravan.

No more thunder rolled, distant or above. The lightning had been swallowed by the dark weight of the sky. The wind was quiet.

The storm was not a natural thing, he had not fully understood until now.

No part of him wanted to remain beneath it.

Somewhere in the dark ahead he heard the rough voice of one of the outlaws, shouting some jape to his friend beside - what he caught, had him grind his teeth.

He bit the impulse back, and the bodiless nausea of the storm, "Halyse, Nelhana!" he shouted, and waited for both the knight and his niece to join him - the sequential squelch of boots beside him evinced their arrivals, "Light some torches. Halyse, return to Garran and bring up our horses. Nelhana, have Yrradorn and his new friends join me."

Both women moved off to carry out their orders.

Some minutes later, two torches flared to life amidst the dark, hissing under the sparse, spattering drops of rain. Nelhana moved off towards the head of the caravan, the knight the way they had come.

A few minutes later his niece returned, with Yrradorn and four of the outlaws trailing behind.

The man that had been identified as Naryck, their leader, wore a disgruntled scowl and a yet bleeding wound on his brow.

"Bosryck's dead," he growled, "That arrow wound o' yours buggered his arm."

Darrodane did not reply.

Yrradorn drew alongside.

For a moment, all that broke the silence was the hiss of the rain amidst the flame of Nelhana's torch.

Darrodane gave a nod.

Four arrows leapt free from the thrum of bows, and thudded into the backs of the men before him. Each fell into the mud at the Sword-Bearer's feet.

Darrodane glanced at his niece, "Load up the horses."

She nodded, and handed him her torch.

As the former magus guard began to move off, Yrradorn stepped forward to follow - but was stifled by the Sword-Bearer's hand on his shoulder.

Darrodane met the younger man's eyes. For a moment they shared the same hollowness. Like the black of the storm above.

* * *

Elle'dred neared the oracle's tent. The quarrel wound still hampered his stride, but it was healing far quicker than it he would have thought.

He pushed aside the flap and entered the small enclosure.

The young man - the former archivist, was tending to the oracle, as she lay sleeping on her cot against the far wall. He was dipping a cloth in a pail of water, and wiping away the blood that had crusted to her face. The water was tinged red.

Elle'dred was taken aback, momentarily, by the sight.

He had spoken only lightly with Palai'dred about this, and in truth he had not fully recognised her concerns. Palai'dred had said her visions were costing her more and more.

Faldorn glanced up and met his eyes.

The archivist hid the sum of a glare that tested his features; and turned his dark eyes away from the Champion's. For a moment, Elle'dred continued to stare at the oracle.

"How long has she been like this?" he asked.

"A day, maybe more..." Faldorn replied, "This happens after each..."

After each vision. The thought caught Elle'dred off-guard.

A glance aide, in part from shock, in part from concern, drew his gaze to a stack of parchment on the ground beside the oracle's cot. The yellowed pages were covered in broken lines of text. Elle'dred moved a step closer to view them more clearly.

The archivist muttered, seemingly in response, "She says she sees something larger than one vision can bear..." he paused, and dipped the cloth again, "She's too weak to do much else but mutter...I write it down, for her..."

The anger in the former archivist's voice stifled anything else; he half-hid an exasperated sigh.

Elle'dred bent down and removed the top piece from the pile; many of the phrases were unfinished, many seemed to make little sense, but one word caught his eye - in its prolific repetition amidst them all. Dwener'dier.

The answer lies in that forest.

Lyrien had said those words to him when they had first met.

Elle'dred put the parchment back down, atop the pile.

"When she wakes, let me know."

The archivist did not acknowledge the order.

Elle'dred turned away and moved towards the swaying, half-open entrance.

"She's dying..." Faldorn's voice was hushed, "She's killing herself..."

Elle'dred glanced back - amidst the duties of the resistance, he had forgotten about the oracle; though he did not want to admit it to himself. A pang said he owed her more than that - had it not been for her vision, the knights of the White Wolf would have all perished in Delphanas. Or in those hills with Darrodane. Dwener'dier.

The answer lies in that forest.

He still did not know what that meant. In some ways it sounded more a warning than advice -

Another pang filled his chest, as he stepped out into the brisk night's air. He had been given a warning before, by his closest friend.

There were so many warnings in his life -

And not all he thought he saw fully.
Chapter 14

They had returned to camp. Atop exhausted mounts loaded with supplies. Clouds had blackened the sky across the long ride back; thinner than before. The storm seemed to be passing from the plains - save for when they neared the west. They had ridden between the keeps at night, and crossed the line that composed Ammandorn's western most defences.

Under the cover of both the dark, and the rain. A last cloudburst had seen them through the waning hours of the night; at moments, it had been so thick the Sword-Bearer could not see. More than once, he had worried that they would blunder into a stronghold rather than ride past it - though had his knights been that far off in their navigation he would have been somewhat disappointed.

They had reached the camp some hours after dawn, although when 'dawn' was each day was a matter of opinion. Though the clouds were thinning, they yet filled the sky above the east - and Darrodane had wondered if the southern sun would ever rise again before midday.

He was glad to be away from it. Out from underneath.

Although dogged by fatigue from a day and night's hard ride, he had turned his attention to tending his own weary mount. Garran had pushed the horses as far as the power of his blood could, but they had lost more than one during the ride. Fortunately, the convoy had equipped them with quite a number more than with which they had left.

Darrodane led his untacked mount away from the others, into the small flat beyond the wall of hills that concealed the camp to the east. He let it free to graze.

As he made his way back into camp, Yrradorn drew to his side; in silence, under the growing light, they made their way to the main tent.

Elle'dred was waiting for them inside. Athan and Ellario each stood at his sides.

"Darrodane." the Champion greeted him - Elle'dred's eyes lingered on the new knight beside him.

"Milord," he returned, more tiredly than he intended, "I found Yrradorn on the flats, along with a baggage train. He came in some use."

"Milord." the younger knight beside him acknowledged.

From the flicker of concern that moved across the Champion's gaze, Darrodane could tell his attention lingered on the scar that covered most of Yrradorn's neck.

"How did you come to be on the plains?" Elle'dred asked.

Yrradorn did not pause, "I was found by some outlaws. I joined them to keep my life."

Some feelings Darrodane identified with, moved momentarily across both of the knights aside the Champion; Elle'dred however, did not react to the statement.

"Have they joined the resistance, as well?"

Darrodane bit back a scowl, "No. They were not the type." he paused briefly, before finishing, "We left them with the convoy."

Nor did that provoke a reaction in the Champion.

Elle'dred glanced back at Yrradorn, "It's good to have you with us."

The knight nodded back.

Darrodane stepped forward to the edge of the table; a map had been laid across its surface - the plains of Thgad stretched on parchment before him.

The Champion turned back to the Sword-Bearer, "Several more parties were dispatched during your absence, some to raid, others to scout. We need to know what the south holds before we can do anything else."

Darrodane met his eyes with the tacit question.

Elle'dred continued, "Once properly provisioned, most of the knights will be leaving this camp."

The order did not overly surprise the Sword-Bearer; he voiced the rest of the thought, "To what end?"

"To gather the support of the people." Elle'dred paused, "There is very little we can do here, hidden beyond the reach of Ammandorn."

Darrodane glanced back down to the map; markings had been scrawled only as far east as the centre of the plains.

Elle'dred continued, "The order has been spread, the first are to be dispatched tomorrow night. They'll make their way across the plains to the village of Yaranden."

The Sword-Bearer followed the Champion's hand to the location of the village - it was well beyond the Aft-guard mountains, in the highlands of Ygoth.

"Why there in particular?" he had to ask.

Elle'dred met his eyes, "Because a rebellion is - or rather will be growing there, already."

"Will be?"

"Lyrien has seen it."

Darrodane allowed a tick in disbelief.

The Champion responded with a smirk, "I trust her. She has gone to great efforts to attain her visions." Elle'dred paused; something darker moved across his gaze, "There are several places that the real resistance will begin, though we will have to move quickly - any uprising that begins without us will more than likely be as swiftly put down by the magus."

"And if they get word enough of a coordinated rebellion being mounted under their noses, they'll likely reassign the armies to placate the people." Ellario finished, with a hint of bitterness.

They had before, in Delphanas. Despite the war.

Darrodane sighed, "The war does not go well. The caravan we attacked was likely an emergency supply train to the north of the plains. I would say the idiotic retreat weakened the armies no small amount."

And have been further worsened by our raids.

The tent was silent a moment.

"The more so the better," - the words came out flat from the Champion's mouth; Elle'dred continued, "The heavier the casualties on the plains, the more need there will be for reinforcements. And the more severely the magus will have to enforce conscription, setting them further against the people."

The silence returned.

The world had gone mad.

"If that is all, milord?" he ventured, "I am a little tired from the ride."

Elle'dred let a half-smirk shift his features, "Dismissed."

Darrodane nodded his thanks, and moved out of the tent. Yrradorn followed a pace behind him. He glanced over at the younger man. Beneath the matted locks of black hair, which swayed on either side of a thin beard, his features were as expressionless as they had been since they had met in the abandoned village - the hollowness of his dark brown gaze moved up to meet Darrodane's.

The Sword-Bearer paused a moment, "You'd best get some rest." he muttered, "We'll likely have more caravans to raid soon."

Yrradorn nodded, impassively, and moved past him, towards the tents.

For a moment, the Sword-Bearer stood and watched the main tent where the Champion and his council of the resistance yet gathered, then threw a glance over his shoulder at the black mass that hid the sun.

Mad.

* * *

Faldorn moved through the bustle that was the northern end of the camp. Knights moved to and fro, either unloading supplies from the column of horses that had arrived in the morning with the raiding party, or were helping to distribute those supplies as were needed around the camp.

The camp was alive with movement, and voices.

Several groups were setting up tents to provide some larger shelter for the two hundred odd men and women who had little other than campfires to sleep around for the past weeks.

Faldorn moved into the slouching mass of canvas that was the beginnings of a tent, held up by three poles. A group was arguing somewhat incoherently around the eastern most pole, while another two were trying to finalise the securing of the west.

For a moment, Faldorn stood amidst the absence of a canvas wall and watched.

One man muttered something that had his compatriots burst out with laughter, and provoked the female knight beside him to release her grasp and deliver a strike forcefully enough to elicit a yelp. Renewing the laughter all around.

Faldorn glanced away. The thought held within, that he did not want be here -

Someone brushed past him, inadvertently, glanced aside an apology and proceeded to the northern pole. Several others followed him, past the lingering archivist.

The tent was full of more people than he could stomach -

He moved further in, ducked under the drooping canvas, and lent a hand to the few people that had diverged off to secure the last pole of the enclosure.

"Thanks." was muttered beside him. He grunted an acknowledgement.

Together with the people either side of him, he half-braced and half-pushed the pole into alignment. A hand fell near his from the person to his left, as they waited for the pole to be secured by some voice beyond the canvas.

There was a half-mumbled shout from beyond, he barely understood.

The person to his right released her grip on the pole, tacitly confirming it was secure.

She gave a quick pat on his shoulder, as he followed.

"Thanks." was uttered by the man to his left -

Faldorn glanced aside; long, blonde locks moved upwards to reveal a face that stifled all thought -

The man had had a limp when he entered the tent -

The man had touched his hand - met his eyes -

The ma - the magus.

Faldorn did not remember the thought passing through his head, or if it did it was drowned under the surge that drove his arm - and fist, into the bastard's face. His body weight followed.

The magus uttered a cry, or a gasp - or perhaps a crack of bone, as he was driven to the floor.

There was an alarmed shout from behind. Several. A hand fell upon his shoulder -

For a moment, the magus lay at his feet, unable to move - the bastard raised a tentative hand to the side of his face that had been struck.

The hand from behind pulled on the archivist's shoulder.

"What in the hells?" the female knight snapped, bewildered, into his face.

He did not turn to face her - his eyes only remained on the body, the face at his feet.

"Faldorn!" another voice he did not recognise shouted from behind.

His name snapped some sliver of sense back amidst the rush - and the surrounding silence. He pulled his shoulder from the knight's grasp, and moved past her. He moved out of the tent. Away from the knights, the others.

Away from the damned -

A snarl choked in his throat. And filled his chest. He moved across the camp.

Somewhere near his tent, the burning in his legs halted his stride. He stood for a moment - and almost fell. He had not breathed back in - he could not breathe -

He forced a gulp of air into his lungs. Two more gave a semblance of steadiness - and burning, in his chest.

- His hands were shaking. The knuckles that had met the bastard's jaw had flared a bright red. Slowly, they began to hurt, as did his palm and wrist. As did his chest.

The thought passed that he should have hit the magus again, and again - and again -

His knuckles should have been bleeding when the knights finally pulled him off.

The snarl half-escaped -

His breathing had turned to panting, hard and sharp - and the shaking had moved up his arm across his torso. He glanced aside, through the gap in the flap of the tent.

Lyrien still slept, soundlessly, from the night before. She had not left the tent in days. He had not spoken to her in even longer. Only brought her what she needed.

He slumped to his knees, unable to keep his legs steady.

The tightness in his chest swelled in his throat - for the damned magus bitch, for the damned magus -

He looked away. He wanted a wineskin.

All he wanted -

For the damned magus -

* * *

Syla trotted ahead atop the grey, amidst the pre-dawn murk, beside Elle'dred's black. They had left the camp some time ago, at a slow pace towards the west. And Dwener'dier.

The quarrel wound he had sustained in his leg could barely be said to have healed properly, and yet he was determined to return to the forest. It seemed the new drive that filled their camp had caught especially in their leader; the first group of knights to leave had departed the night before.

Elle'dred had asked her to cast a warding spell on the group; he wanted to take every measure to be sure they would reach the village. She had cast one on each of the knights; it had exhausted her. After, Elle'dred had asked her to accompany him to the Forsaken Glade, in the morning. In that regard, the magics' toll had helped her to sleep; though only for a few hours.

She had not slept in days. It seemed.

"Keylyn was assaulted." Elle'dred muttered, out of the silence, "By the archivist."

"I heard," Syla replied, "While he was helping set up the tents...it did not come as a surprise."

Knight Celsye had delivered the news, after she had tended the other magus. Keylyn had not said anything, beyond repeating what had happened - though the bruise on his jaw likely stifled much.

"Do you think I should have the archivist reprimanded?" Elle'dred asked - somewhat uncertainly.

She paused a moment, before answering, "It would not do any good."

Elle'dred did not reply immediately, "I dismissed the guard on him. It doesn't seem necessary...or that it does any good."

The snort from the black beneath the knight behind them, drew Syla's attention momentarily - and a reflexive glance over her shoulder. Above the east, the black fury of the storm had passed, having moved off into the south, and had left behind a lingering shroud of grey.

The gloom was lifting slowly, as the mountain grew before them.

They were still some ways off the perfect edge of the forest.

Beyond the snorts of the horses, beneath, behind and beside, no other sound disturbed the chill air of the morning. Slowly, the wall of trees emerged and grew in the distance.

Elle'dred reined to a stop, beside her, some distance from the tree-line; the Champion paused for a moment - his own gaze locked on the forest before him.

He glanced aside at her, "I don't suppose I have to tell you that it might be some time before I return."

She scowled, slightly, "No, you do not."

Elle'dred grinned - he hadn't done that in a long time, the thought as much as the grin itself caught her off guard. Though the expression was nearly lost amidst the thick growth that covered his jaw. He had not shaved since the raid.

Despite an effort, she could not mirror it. His slowly faded.

For a moment, his eyes asked a tacit question - which hers dismissed. She could not answer him now.

He glanced ahead, and dismounted.

She followed his lead, a moment after.

Elle'dred handed her the reins of the black, and turned away towards the west. For a moment, something inside wanted a word or more to move to her lips, but she dismissed it with little thought. As he strode towards the trees, he drew his sword.

Syla wondered for a moment if he would return at all - and the pang that followed nearly overwhelmed her. She bit it back, as she had each sleepless night before.

Elle'dred reached the flawless wall of trees and disappeared amidst their ranks, swallowed by the gloom.

For a few moments, she gazed after him, and up at the cloak of green that climbed the mountainside, to the hoary white of the peak above, maned in cloud. She turned away.

Her gaze moved across the silence of the other knight and his horse beside her, and drew slowly to the east. The storm was gone; its black had faded to pallid grey. Peaceful now, and calm.

* * *

Ragmurath seethed. As he stood in his quarters on the highest levels of Delphanas, he stared out at the darkness of the mountains. The night had grown late, but sleep was not something he would permit.

Salynath had shared his bed for some hours before - but no sex, however furious, could serve to allay his frustration. He had dismissed her, once he was done.

She had obeyed.

That could not be said for the others of the Tribunal. High Magus Gerdanath had assumed the duty of the trials for the remaining traitors that had been captured during the coup - and her observance of justice was on the edge of lacking - even criminal.

Those that had been outright guilty had already been dealt with, she had argued; and those that yet remained, were guilty of crimes that were more difficult to prove - where they were guilty.

- They were all guilty. Anyone who still supported the old order - were anarchists. Traitors to Magus rule. Criminals.

And the High Magus he had dispatched to Armanas, had served no better - despite the army of bloodhounds at their disposal, and the reformation of the City's Guard - in so many weeks, they had not yet quelled the rioting in its entirety. Some days would pass between each new incident - and while they were now quickly suppressed, the people of the city were yet resisting the law. Some force was organising the unrest which flared sporadically - and they had yet to be discovered. Or apprehended.

A sneer twisted his mouth.

Ragmurath seethed.

Another thought trespassed against his thoughts - a matter that served to ignite the anger further. A matter, that in the months since enforcing the Tribunal's rule, he had allowed to slip by him. Carelessly.

- Keylyn.

His predecessor's former aide was still unaccounted for. If he remained alive, he was no longer in Delphanas - the sweeps of the bloodhounds after the coup, and since, had been exceedingly thorough. All that was known was that he had escaped his punishment, and seemingly not alone -

The magus could not have broken the binding spell that leashed his powers; and without the power of magus blood, Keylyn could not have overcome that limp, let alone his restraints - and the Staff-Bearer's bastard son.

That death, yet stung -

Ragmurath seethed; he would not allow his unknowing to persist.

He turned away from the window of his quarters, and strode back to the large emptiness of the bed. The sheets yet remained twisted and ruffled, from the hours before. And a lingering scent caught his nose.

The edge of his mouth curled.

Removing his robe, he lowered himself to the mattress - the soft chant of a spell emanating from his lips.

The words of a dreaming spell.

While frustration and a tide of thought had withheld sleep for hours, the power of his blood needed only moments to dissipate them and instil a weary somnolence. His eyelids lowered, and the drowsiness before sleep slid like ecstasy through the tension in his body.

He passed a moment of darkness, and slipped into the dream.

For a time, the spell was empty - a listless thought that drifted in the fathomless void of sleep and night. The magics were reaching out for the mind of the magus he sought.

- And found it, deep in slumber.

Keylyn was alive. The thought resonated amidst the empty darkness of the void - a spark that bled into a maelstrom of furious shock. Fire burned amidst the dream, for the briefest moment.

He restrained it.

The dream was his to control - as soon would be the mind of its target.

Amidst the unseeing haze of sleep, Ragmurath focused his thoughts into clarity - into a place that would suit this meeting best. Into the cell where Keylyn had been kept - into the confines of the basement where he was to meet his -

Something moved through the clarity of the dream - a wave of power that upset his concentration, and hurled his mind into darkness once more. Shock, more than anything filled the dream - and a stab of indignation - birthing rage.

It had been a spell - and a powerful one at that.

He had been unprepared for it -

It could not have been Keylyn's doing. And that left only the thought of another magus that was aiding him.

- A magus had rescued him from Delphanas.

A magus.

The surge within almost shattered his control, and the spell around him. Whoever this magus was, he would find them - he would tear it out of Keylyn's memory.

Power blazed amidst the dream, the power of his blood, but power alone was not enough - the deep magics were an instrument of understanding, and none surpassed his own. He was the Staff-Bearer of the Tribunal. The dream rewove, to combat the warding that lay in the dark beyond - gently and carefully, now, it probed outwards.

The spell reacted to the barest touch, like a flinch of wariness and fear - fear most of all. Against a touch, it would lash out, to force that touch away; but its strength was transitory - was fleeting. Beneath lay uncertainty, lay doubt and pain - and terror. A helplessness like naked skin.

Too easily overcome.

The magics of his dream thrust out, and grasped the spell like a lover's flesh - and held it where it lay. Like he had a woman, only hours before. The spell screamed, and struck out - a feeble blow against an unrelenting will, and as quickly fell away.

His dream held on with fingers made of iron - and twisted. The warding shrieked - and buckled, sweet and pliant. And did not raise its hand again. Like he had with the woman before, he thrust himself inside - the warding passed around him, its own fear now holding it at bay.

For a moment, amidst the darkness of the dream, he smiled.

A resistance yet lingered all around, the warding would not be broken - something he could only see now, deep within. It would hold, and hold, and hold.

Alone, within, he did not have power enough to overcome it - that thought renewed his disdain.

He would break it - it would falter under his control. Inevitably. But not this night.

Beyond the dream, in the waking world, he could feel his magics taxing his body - the dream alone was difficult to cast, and what it had taken to overcome the warding had exhausted what energy remained.

He could not remain amidst the dream for long - a surge of resentment tinged the anger, that he should be so weak. He bit it back.

Keylyn lay beyond - he could feel the magus' mind, as it floated amidst sleep.

He reached out and touched it -

It woke inside the cell - in the cold basement where it had been restrained. Naked and alone. And afraid.

Stone filled the void beneath his feet, and a ceiling glared down from above. On all sides, a wall of shadow strangled the hope beyond, and hid the skitter of footsteps, and the sharp, giggling song of blades.

Alone, under a light as cold as death, and not born from any feature within the tiny room or shadow, Keylyn lay. Chained to hard and colder stone.

Ragmurath glared down on the frail, naked body. Blood covered the frigid whiteness of the magus' skin, and glinted scarlet in the whiter light. Some tautness strangled the body's muscles, and stopped even a whimper from moving from its lips.

Something skittered across the stones, unseen in the shadow all around - a scrape of metal on stone.

The body flinched. A breath drew in, to brace the fear.

Ragmurath's mouth curled.

Though the dream was his to command, to shape and mould at a whim, some part of the man before him had fallen here, amidst this terrified and powerless dark.

Ragmurath could not have been more pleased, though a smile here did not belong.

He strode a step forward, out from beneath the walling shadow.

His footstep echoed sharply along every unseen wall - and stabbed a flinch, a cry, through the naked body at his feet.

Keylyn shuddered, the barest shiver - all that the fear of his muscles would allow.

Ragmurath sneered - the body curled amidst the light. With a wounded leg it tried to hide its nakedness.

It cradled something amidst the iron bindings of its hands.

A mask. A bloodhound's mask - and a face.

Reflected deep within the flawless silver, amidst its perfect mirror finish - lay the face of the man most dear to the magus at his feet.

Staff-Bearer Hadrath.

The man Keylyn had loved - beyond the duty of a son.

Ragmurath's mouth curled in a sneer of disgust. But weakened.

The mask did not hold the face alone - but its expression in perfect clarity.

A disappointed frown - and eyes cold with disapproval. And rejection.

Keylyn's own were locked upon that face. And tears ran down his cheeks.

Ragmurath smirked - this was what the boy deserved.

Though unfortunately, this punishment did not serve his most immediate needs. With a casualness born of disdain he slid his foot between the arms and pried one away from the mask; the grasp slid free without resistance, though the other hand tightened where it remained.

Keylyn's eyes did not leave the face.

Ragmurath stared down at the weakness in the gaze -

And sent a kick into the belly of the body.

Keylyn gasped a scream - and reflex had him turn from the blow, and up to face his tormentor.

The listless gaze, marked red by tears, stared up into the Staff-Bearer's eyes.

Keylyn's face was blank - beyond the redness of his eyes, there was only the emptiness of expression.

Ragmurath glared down, "Where are you Keylyn?"

The body did not speak.

"Where are you?" he repeated.

The blank eyes continued to stare up at him - in silence.

"Where?!"

For a moment, the features beneath quailed - fear moved as a flinch through the emptiness of the gaze, but soon returned to blankness. And a flicker of something else.

A scowl twisted Ragmurath's lips.

- Beyond the dream, his body was weakening. He could feel his hold in this place beginning to slip.

And he had yet to achieve that for which he had come. He would not tolerate failure.

"Where are you Keylyn?" each word ground out with magic like a blade.

The body flinched, as four new cuts opened the pale whiteness of its skin - thick globs of red oozed out from the fragile pinkness of the wounds.

A whimper or a shriek choked in Keylyn's throat.

But still the boy did not reply.

Ragmurath seethed - in the weakening darkness beyond the dream, the rage he restrained threatened to disrupt the spell; and his will could not hold it in check for long.

He held back a snarl with clenched teeth - and which slowly twisted into a smile.

Keylyn had held onto the mask with such fervour, to the point where his fingers were bleeding. Cuts lined the inside of his fingers and his palms where they had met its edge.

The mask was all he had - chained naked in this cell.

Ragmurath bent down, slowly. He lowered himself beside the body. Keylyn's face followed his, until his eyes drew aside to the reflection in the silver.

Ragmurath laid a hand upon its unguarded side -

Keylyn snarled - with a rage that surpassed his own.

But where that might have sparked a maelstrom of flame in the man and the dream above - Keylyn's was nothing more. The anger amidst the redness of his eyes was all that burned - trapped within, like the taut whiteness of his wrists were trapped in the implacable iron of the shackles.

Keylyn fought with all he had - but his naked hands were bound. They pulled helplessly against the chains affixed to the stone.

But more so, the terrible whiteness of fear and pain held his body against his will - and the inescapable hollowness that bled from the cut on his fingers.

- After a moment, he fell back, with a quiet whimper.

The mask left his fingers, and rose into the air.

Ragmurath lifted it to his face. And held it there.

It covered the sadistic malevolence that defined his countenance.

Keylyn could not look away, although he tried - the fire yet burned behind his gaze. But now it was slowly being quenched by shame. The tears welled again and began to fall.

Beneath the mask of silver, now glaring down amidst the light, Ragmurath smiled.

"Where are you Keylyn?"

The boy's lips quivered, his jaw shook in quiet rage - and pain.

But his mouth opened softly, and answered, "I don't know..." he could not resist the face above; too much shame had filled the emptiness of his gaze, "...I'm sorry."

The words were whimpered - he knew he had no right to them. He stared into the eyes above -

Ragmurath smiled beneath the mask, "I do not forgive you." - the face held in silver said.
Chapter 15

Elle'dred moved beneath the canopy of shadow, towards the light that filled the spaces between the trees. As ever before, this place unnerved him - the quiet stillness, the shadow, the light. Things moved amidst the river of suns between the trees, and amidst the shadow of the leaves above.

The shadows that had attacked him before.

The champion's blade glimmered softly in the golden light - sparks flared off the myriad indentations that cascaded down the centre of the blade.

He did not know why he was here - as ever, the madness of his life continued to surprise him.

Had it been guilt that prompted this need to risk his life in a place that scared him more than death? Or was it just the fear - that the commands he gave as the Champion of the White Wolf, and the leader of the resistance, were as ill-conceived as this?

Blundering through a place he did not understand - in some vain, uncertain hope.

He might have laughed if not for the weight of truth that yet hung upon his shoulders.

The doubt had been hidden under years of training, under two minor wars he had fought before - under the resolve he had formed in dead mountains, so many years away it seemed.

He clung to that resolve - as he did to the hilt of his sword.

It seemed like he had been walking for an eternity - the forest sprawled without end. Perhaps days had passed in the world outside, he could not tell here amidst the light.

He continued on.

The light retreated amidst the trees, but remained alive upon the horizon; the shadows flickered across roots and branches, cast by the infrequent bursts of glare. The air remained undisturbed, save by his breath.

Quiet, still. And silent.

There was a flare of light in the distance behind - a momentary glow that shifted the shadows on the trees around him.

His heartbeat quickened, and his hand tightened around the hilt - the flares before had brought the shadows.

He threw a glance over his shoulder -

Nothing but the distant wall of golden light, amidst the trees, held place there.

He turned back to the trees ahead -

A voice.

A quiet voice whispered something amidst the air. Its words were lost amidst the stillness, phrases Elle'dred could scarcely hear. But that seemed somehow familiar.

This forest kills only those whose destiny is not their own.

The voice was his - no -

It was Llrsyring's.

He had not heard it in what seemed an eternity; an eternity where he had forgotten.

A pang filled him for a moment - but he dismissed it with a thought. He had faced that hurt before.

The voice continued on, but what it said he could not fully hear -

He was not in a forest anymore.

- The cobbled streets of a city stretched before him. And buildings rose on either side. High, sculpted structures made of brick and mortar, beneath the looming mass of a city wall.

The all surrounding light, and trees, had turned to starlit dark. Night shone down from overhead, a pale glimmer of a thousand stars, amidst the deepest blue.

The blue fell from above, and met the edge of the wall - but where it should have transitioned sharply into black, instead it was speared apart by a line of trees. A wall of silhouettes that grew atop the city's wall.

Dwener'dier. Of that Elle'dred had no doubt.

The forest had parted around this place, like it had the clearing where he had found Darrodane, and where he had found two statues. If he had brought himself here, he did not know how. Or why.

- Like everything else in his life.

The smirk did not rise fully to his lips.

Under the new darkness and the starlight, he moved ahead into the quiet air of the newly formed city. The air here was free, clear and crisp and cold. His senses were not unnerved by a world that lay beyond his comprehension, or even hints that that was where he remained.

There was movement from the street ahead - the resonant thud of myriad boots striking stone.

Who or what they were Elle'dred did not know, though instinct suggested guardsmen.

The same reflex had him step to the side, into the waiting alcove of the closest doorway, and hide amidst its falling shadows.

The thrum ahead continued. Was joined by some muttered voices. And passed.

Elle'dred waited; no part of him wanted to be discovered by a patrol, although it occurred that he had done nothing to provoke arrest - or worse. And the thought followed, that he did not even know if this place was real - or the guardsmen ahead.

Something, whether fear or caution, did not doubt that their blades were as real as need be.

The boots had faded into silence, and the silence lingered for some time as he pressed himself flat against the door. Hidden amidst the shadows.

- Voices.

From further into the alley behind him.

Whispered voices. Above the quiet pad of feet. And they were approaching.

"...that was them..."

"We're too late..."

The first had been a woman's voice, the other a man's.

Against the door, amidst the shadows, Elle'dred held his breath and waited.

Two cloaks, and the people they concealed, swept past. Neither cowl glanced aside, at the Champion of the White Wolf, barely concealed amidst the side door of the building.

They were running -

Yet they came to a stop a few paces short of the alley mouth. One ventured a careful glance around the corner of the building, into the street beyond.

"Four guards and a birth-reader." the man muttered to the other cloak.

"Have they already entered the house?"

The man's cowl nodded.

Silence fell across the street, and lingered. The quiet stretched into long minutes, amidst the darkness. Neither cloak moved from the concealing shadows of the walls.

They only waited and watched.

- The cry of an infant broke the naked air of the night.

And was followed by the heavy trudge of boots.

Somewhere, beyond the intervening thickness of stone and mortar, the wail of a woman could be heard - the infant's mother. The guards were taking the new born away.

Elle'dred heard the word 'oracle' muttered by one of them.

In the gap afforded by the walls of the surrounding buildings, two of guards, one carrying the new born wrapped in swaddling clothes, moved across the street. For a brief moment, Elle'dred caught sight of the tabard spread across one of their chests - they were city guards of Armanas.

The men moved beyond the edge of view, and faded into the city which lay beyond. Neither of the cloaks had been seen, nor had they themselves moved from their own concealing shadows.

Silence slowly returned to the alley.

One of the cloaks turned, back the way they had come. The figure moved towards the depths of the alley, and Elle'dred.

The second cloaked followed a few paces after.

The woman muttered, quietly, "We can't even save those in our home." - there was anger in her voice.

The man uttered a soft breath in agreement.

The two cloaks swept past the doorway which yet covered Elle'dred, and continued into the alley.

They are given the death they are born to.

Llrsyring's words echoed amidst the silence of the stone walls.

A moment of sickness churned in his stomach.

He let it settle, as he waited for the two cloaks to achieve some distance from the doorway, before stepping out and assuming a quiet pace in pursuit.

The two took a winding path through the backstreets of several districts, avoiding the main roads wherever they could. Elle'dred was forced to close the gap more than he appreciated, to remain within sight of the cloaks that shrouded necromancers.

Of that he was certain.

Two necromancers within the city of Armanas, in the highlands of Ygoth.

The pace of the two cloaks slowed, as they approached the rear of a building, amidst the narrowness of its back alley. The two came to a stop. One knocked gently on the wood of what must have been a door, although amidst the near black gloom lightened only by the stars overhead, Elle'dred could not be certain.

Some moments passed, and a wan light grew from the crack beneath the door. The muffled creak of a bar being slid against the wood from the inside followed, and a moment after the door was opened birthing the yellow glow of a lantern.

An old woman held the light just out of the door frame, and glanced up into the faces of the two cowls before her. Although her features had been lighter at first, flickering amidst the lantern light on the edge of a smile, now the creases of her face shifted into a heavy dismay.

The man removed a glove hand from the folds of his cloak and pulled down his cowl - dark eyes gazed out from amidst simple features, aged and weathered.

"We were too late." he muttered, in a flat but gentle tone.

The old woman shook her head, as her eyes fell to the floor. She stepped aside, removing all but a shaft of the lantern's light from the alley.

The second cloak also removed her cowl, as the man stepped into the building, obscuring the shaft for a moment. The woman however paused, and for a moment stared into the inn.

Before glancing aside down the stretch of back alley that concealed Elle'dred.

For a moment, the blue glint of her eyes met the hazel gaze concealed amidst the shadows. And for a moment Elle'dred thought he recognised something in those eyes.

Something he knew too well - though he had tried to forget.

The blue eyes rested amidst a rounded, plain face, upon features marked by lines not caused by age.

Eyes too alike those he had not seen once within the strange emptiness of a helm.

"Are you alright?" the older woman asked; concerned by the pause that had kept the younger in the alley, "Maryssa?"

The woman in the cloak glanced back to the doorway, to the face of the older woman inside, and nodded. She moved into the shaft of light and vanished.

Elle'dred stared after her, as the old woman shut the door, and the light retreated from the crack beneath.

Elle'dred stood in the darkness of the alley, amidst the faint glow of the starlight.

Too many thoughts aligned and sharpened in the silence and the gloom.

For a moment, he smirked to himself - too many questions had been answered and still he was overwhelmed by uncertainty.

The rustle of leaves, swaying amidst the impenetrable canopy of shadow that held them, moved over the silence of the alley. The gloom swept away by the light of a river of suns that moved through the implacable pillars ever on the horizon.

Elle'dred glanced over his shoulder, into the light-filled depths of the forsaken glade - where once an alleyway had stretched. The forest lay where had the main road, along the inn's façade.

Uncertainty, and an innate fear of the otherworldly forest yet clung, but his resolve overcame the pang.

He drew his sword, turned and moved seamlessly from the cobbled street towards the alien embrace of the trees.

He passed the front of the inn - and glanced up.

Amidst the golden light of the forest of Dwener'dier, he read the name of the inn clearly, before he stepped back into the trees.

The thought lingered - one whose destiny is not their own.

* * *

Faldorn wiped the blood from Lyrien's nose. The thin trickle resumed some moments after the towel had been withdrawn. The towel was stained enough. The water too.

The archivist did not pay any heed.

His hands had acquired some red as well, though diluted by the volume of water into which he continually dipped them.

Having finished wiping the last errant drops of blood from the oracle's face, Faldorn pulled the blanket over her and her cot. There was still some of what she had said that he had not recorded - the last words she had forced from her lips, before succumbing to unconsciousness.

The thought did not linger long - whether the words were scrawled carelessly on parchment did not overly matter. She would no doubt repeat them, when she woke.

Faldorn left her tent.

Night had fallen outside. The fathomless blue above was pricked by the sharp light of stars.

Faldorn moved away. Towards one of the supply tents.

The sounds of the knights, having retired from their daily training, talking, joking - laughing, around the fires, filled the camp. There was excitement seemingly in the air - anticipation. They would be moving soon, to establish the real resistance.

- He had been part of the resistance - he, and Lyrien, and Phio -

The thought provoked a stab of bitterness - and anger. And pain.

Faldorn fought back the pang with a half-choked snarl.

Because of the damned magus.

The supply tent arrived on him, and he reached out to move aside the entry flap.

The first sight from within had him stop - and glare. The pang was rekindled with burning ferocity.

- The magus. The bastard stood in the tent - staring at him.

The magus.

For a moment, Faldorn was caught off guard. The tightness in his chest stopped all thought. A fist clenched unwittingly.

The magus looked away; he did not otherwise move.

Faldorn obstructed the only exit to the tent.

In the dim light of the lantern that yet lit the enclosure, the bruise Faldorn had dealt the magus showed up as a black shadow across his otherwise white features. The bastard held a wineskin in his hand.

The thought passed - he should hit him again.

Faldorn ground his teeth. He moved forward into the tent. Towards the magus. The bastard limped a step aside - but could not move further. He was cornered. There was a flinch, as he stared at the crates beside him.

The tightness in Faldorn's chest burned painfully for a moment. It flared down his arm into the fist at his side.

- He passed the magus. The bastard.

He found a wineskin, and turned back the way he had come. He moved past the magus and out of the tent.

He heard the end of a relieved breath echo behind him.

- He should have hit him -

He uncorked the wineskin and drained a mouthful - the ease of the alcohol dulled the tightness in his chest. For a moment. And filled it with empty warmth.

The anger would be there in the morning.

* * *

Syla stood beside her chestnut mare, which had born her to the edge of Dwener'dier at dawn. Now, the southern sun rose slowly beneath the hoary veil of the sky at her back. The clouds kept the morning grey, despite the growing light, and the day ahead was like to remain that way.

As had the day before. The memory of the storm yet lingered in the east.

Elle'dred had been absent for two days. She had left the watch at the edge of the forest to two other knights the day before, and returned herself to the camp. She had made a round of the encampment, performed the duties that were expected of her. As a leader of the resistance.

What Elle'dred needed of her.

Now, she waited for him to return.

- Something moved amidst the shadows between the trees.

Next to his own mount, Athan had seen it also.

The shape moved closer, into the grey light of the morning which trespassed the initial ranks of the trees. Elle'dred stumbled out at a half run.

And collapsed through a rolling sprawl across the grass just short of the forest edge.

- An arrow protruded from his leg. And another from his back, beneath the shoulder.

For a moment, all Syla could do was stare -

Blood covered the Champion's face, from a gash atop his head. Blood soaked his leg and back. He was barely breathing. He sputtered some words, and lost consciousness.

Syla moved to his side. Athan a pace behind. Together, they lifted him off the grass and carried him to Athan's horse. The knight placed Elle'dred onto its back, and mounted a moment later behind him.

The two took off at a gallop into the east.

In the silence that fell after, amidst the fading hoof-beats, Syla stared long at the knights and the mount.

The same pang that had stayed with her for too long manifested once more, and this time she did not have the energy to fully repress it. As she moved to the side of the chestnut, grazing quietly some paces away, she could not hold it back. A tear.

It rolled silently down the gaunt, pale skin of her cheek. Warm, wet, slow.

One tear, alone.

* * *

Staff-Bearer Ragmurath stood in the council chamber, at the head of the azure mosaic inlaid into the black marble of the floor. Alight on each of the pillars that encircled the raised centre of the room, torches flickered quietly, casting and silencing the shadows of the last of the Tribunal members to enter.

The outer doors to the chamber were closed by the two vermillion guards beyond.

Silence fell amidst the soft crackle of the flames.

High Magus Eranath and High Magus Salynath stood on either side of him, while the High Magus Sansurath and Gerdanath took their places on the far side of the circle. The two he had dispatched to Armanas had returned this morning. The rioting in the city had finally been quelled.

It had taken far longer than he appreciated.

Much of the bloodhound force that accompanied the High Magus remained in the city, to make certain the peace continued to be preserved. And that any instigators of further unrest were dealt with, quickly and resoundingly.

The fact that such was necessary bespoke the failure of the two High Magus.

Ragmurath did not try to restrain the disdain that warped his countenance.

"This session of the Magus Tribunal will come to order," he began, "We convene to discuss the state of the war, and the next move that must be taken to secure Ammandorn's defence." he paused, "High Magus Salynath."

The young woman to his left met the eyes of the others, "The goblins have been encountered in the east bank. Raiding parties have attacked towns along the coast, and have been reported as far east as Ethedrach and Nenauden, in the Highlands. The armies' efforts at containing the threat within Thgad have failed."

A small silence fell amidst the chamber.

Sansurath broke the quiet flicker of the torches, "Have any war bands been seen east of the marshes?"

"Not as of yet." Salynath replied, "At last report, one was seen west of the Nel'maya - the thought is that they were drowned when the river broke its banks."

Gerdanath interjected, "The forces thus far encountered east of the marshes must only be a vanguard. Forward scouts sent to harry our defences."

Ragmurath eyed the older woman coldly; disdain sharpened each of his words, "Are you certain of that, magus?" the omission of her proper title served to draw her gaze to his - though hers remained unperturbed and flat; Ragmurath repressed a sneer, "It was your responsibility to oversee the casting of the spell that called the storms. A spell that was supposed to - where not destroy our enemies - trap them in the battlefield upon which we had chosen to fight. That spell has had less than its anticipated effect."

Something flickered behind the flatness of Gerdanath's eyes, but whatever it was it was restrained, "My apologies, Staff-Bearer."

Her response caught him off-guard; his sneer twisted behind the refrain of his expression, "The casting of the spell, however, is not in dispute. At least five war bands were drowned by the flooding, as many more have been reported scattered, destroyed by our armies, or by themselves."

The Staff-Bearer returned the attention to the younger woman at his side.

"The storms have caused widespread flooding throughout the northern marshes and the flatlands, the Than'maya and Nel'maya rivers have both burst their banks - washing away one of the five crossings beyond the Fore-guard mountains. The fifteenth army was lost at Naruden when the town was swept away. Near a thousand dead." the High Magus paused, "For the moment, the flooding restricts the goblins' movements. Any force attempting to head east will be forced south, around the floods. But, while the floods restrict the enemy's movements into the east of the land, they also restrict our reinforcements from moving west. The reserve armies dispatched from Ygoth will require twice as long to reach Thgad." Salynath paused, again, "In that time the goblins may have overwhelmed our western-most defences."

The statement elicited the sharp attention of the other High Magus.

"A large force is gathering at the Dagger Slopes - unlike anything we have seen before. Scouts from Magrestus have put their numbers at ten thousand, if not more."

A shocked silence pervaded the chamber.

Sansurath broke the quiet, "Do we have force enough in the north of Thgad to repel such a host?"

"Three armies have been ordered to Magrestus, to reinforce its garrison and meet the goblins." Salynath stated.

"Three armies will not be enough." Gerdanath stated.

"Enough to draw the goblins to the keep, if it was not their intended destination before." Ragmurath pronounced, "And there we will funnel the power of the Tribunal through the warding line to destroy them."

Gerdanath moved, for a moment, visibly to object - a flare of anger, concern and fear played in her eyes - yet she managed to hold her silence. The outburst faded into the same level calm.

Ragmurath met her gaze; the accusation she had levelled at him before echoed silently - we lack the understanding. Evidently, now, she had learned otherwise; contempt swelled in the back of his throat.

"The warding line has long been the shield that protected Ammandorn from its enemies," he continued, "Yet since its founding we have lacked a sword to strike out at them. I intend to reshape the warding into just such a weapon."

"And the warding might break utterly." Gerdanath said quietly, flatly.

"It will not." Ragmurath returned; he mirrored the strange restraint his inferior now showed, "I, unlike some, do not lack the skill to preserve its defence while wielding its power. Nor should any High Magus of the Tribunal."

In the silence that followed, Gerdanath did not meet his eyes.

Sansurath motioned to be heard.

Ragmurath acknowledged him.

"With what spell shall we manage to overcome such a force as this new goblin host?"

The Staff-Bearer allowed a sneer, "We will open the very earth beneath their feet."

* * *

The light stung his eyes, and turned the throbbing of his head into a blinding stab of pain. A reflex had him swallow, but that only served to move the ache momentarily into his throat.

It hurt to swallow. His mouth was dry, and the foul taste that resided there nearly had him retch.

Thankfully, his body seemed incapable.

Faldorn rolled over, turning his face away from the lance of sunlight that split the clouds.

A hand moved from his side to rub the sharp ache underneath his brow. His head continued to throb, though only sharply when he moved.

The wineskin lay on the grass next to him. Obscured by the bleariness of his eyes.

He did not remember where he was, or how he had come to be here.

And it hurt too much to sit up.

He did not care -

He lay face down in the grass for some stretch of time, trying to rub the soreness from his skull. He may have slipped into a doze more than once, but was pulled out of it by the throbbing. He swallowed again - and once more nearly retched.

He had forgotten the acrid taste that was his mouth.

The wine had washed away all thought - as it had each night for days. The wine washed away the memory, but left its own each morning. He did not care. He preferred this. Though he knew the thoughts would surface again.

For the moment, he was in too much pain to care.

- he wanted -

The pang had him pull himself up with a moan. And cradle his head with his hands. The throbbing drowned the pang.

- For the damned magus.

Slowly, painfully, Faldorn pulled himself up from the grass. He did not bother to retrieve the empty wineskin. It took what little focus he had to keep from toppling back to the ground.

After some moments spent swaying unsteadily on his feet, he managed to raise his head to the horizon.

The same lance of sunlight that had pulled him from drunken slumber caught his gaze again; he jerked his head away, and tottered a step to his right.

The sun was some distance above the horizon. It was some hours after dawn.

Without thought, he began a slow walk towards the tent.

Lyrien would need his help.

If she was awake. Rather than unconscious and bleeding from a vision.

She had seen something. Something she had to tell Elle'dred about.

Elle'dred had returned two days ago.

The Champion had been badly wounded. Celsye had said he was not awake enough to hear them. To return -

He had been supposed to help Lyrien to the medical tent this morning.

The thought rang more sharply than the throbbing in his head.

He quickened his pace -

And came to an abrupt stop a few steps ahead.

Lyrien moved through the throng of the camp centre, in the direction of the medical tent and the Champion. The oracle's stride was laboured, exhaustion clearly clung to her frame, though she managed it as best she could - and she did not have to support herself alone.

Syla walked beside her.

The female magus held the oracle's arm, and let the older woman place some weight on her.

Together, the two moved gradually through the camp centre, and disappeared behind one of the larger shelters.

Lyrien -

And the magus.

Faldorn could not breathe. For a moment, all he could do was stare. Shame welled beneath the shock, guilt burned in his chest - but was immediately replaced by anger.

The rage swelled in his throat.

For the damned magus.

His fist clenched. He wanted to scream.

He could not breathe. Fire burned, above the hollowness of his gut.

For the damned magus.

- the damned magus.

End of Part 1

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Other works by D W Gladstone -

The Wyvern Kings Redemption Series

Book One

The Land of All Things Fallen - Part I

The Land of All Things Fallen - Part II

The Land of All Things Fallen - Part III

The Land of All Things Fallen - Combined Edition

Book Two

The Forest of a Thousand Suns - Part I
