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Bartholomus awoke to the sunlight streaming through the small window of Naima's wagon, he dragged himself from the cot, forced to hunch his frame in the small space — how Naima and Rashid shared this was beyond him, but he imagined love solved a great many things. The wagon was still, parked. He heard the sounds of conversation outside — surely they were not already so far from the battle that they could let their guard down so? Confused, the big man pushed himself out of the cart, careful to not knock over or break any of Naima's various effects.

Confusion only mounted as he dropped to the ground, a brief glance at himself saw him wearing not the borrowed clothes from Rashid he'd fallen asleep in, but his favorite set of trousers, soft half-boots, and sleeveless tunic from when he worked on the millstones with his father, he shifted his waist — even the thick bracing girdle he wore to lift the heavy sacks of grain... why would he wear this to bed? The big man's eyes flicked to and fro across the landscape, and it struck him with further dissonance — the sun shone bright and clean, with no signs of smoke or haze from the burning city they'd fled. There were no guards either — where were the cavaliers they'd ridden out with? Alert, the big man turned the corner and very nearly stepped directly on Lidia.

"Ah, there ye are! I was wunnderin' if ye'd sleep all day, dinnae hit ye head too did ye?" she asked, chipper and smiling... and his brain immediately rebelled at the sight. She wore a simple homespun gown, and her hair was done back in a simple braid... but it had not been that long before. He stepped back a few paces as she reached up her hand to touch his bare arms.

"Oh, what's the matter Bartholomus?" she asked, her touch was solicitous, inviting and made his skin tingle with the softness of her hands... but his brain denied it, latched on to one fact in all of the assaulting haze of would-be perfection:

"What did you call me?" he asked in a cold tone, Lidia looked up at him, wide-eyed, freckled face innocent if not a bit... coy, she bit her lower lip in a way that was appealing to...certain parts of him.

"Bartholomus? Its ye name, ye oaf." she said and leaned closer; "Or would ye prefer I said it a bit... different-like?" Bart reeled back at that, pulling his arm from her grasp, his mind suddenly totally, fully alert. This was incorrect, and he held her to arm's length, the veins standing out on his bicep as he pushed her away with considerable force.

"Lidia would never call me that." He said, his tone ice and nails, eyes narrowing over his crooked nose, hard and unyielding as steel. Lidia's eyes widened and she tried to push closer to him again, only to be greeted instead by Bart's unyielding hand — the meaty paw snapped up and caught her by the throat, causing her to give a strangled cry.

"She also did not have soft hands, nor would she try to lay them on me as such. Whatever you are, you are not Lidia." he snarled, the venom in his voice echoed by a tightening grip on the Not-Lidia's throat, causing her to whimper piteously and claw at his wrist — the sight of such an incongruous expression on Lidia's features filled him with rancor, and he hurled her away from him off the side of the road, sending her tumbling into the grassy ditch. Heedless he thundered forward, all subtly gone, neck tight with tension and readied violence, fingers flexing into fists again.

"RASHID! NAZIR! NAIMA! SALIM!" He bellowed, getting no response, he pushed around the end of the stilled wagon, to a circular clearing at the side of the road, where his friends sat around a smoldering cookfire... and there was a hazy incongruous patch of air behind them, something... that hurt his mind to try to look at, tears brimmed in his eyes as he tried to focus on the empty air.

"Bartholomus! What is the meaning of this?" Naima's voice hissed at him in a motherly tone, overflowing with concern and throbbing care: full of winnowing, wheedling promises. He shoved her aside. Naima would never speak to him as thus, even in their moments of closeness she was ever a woman of steel and stone, a trait he respected and daresay — loved about her.

"Get back from me, creature." He barked, Rashid's doppelganger did not even react as he threw his would-be wife to the dirt, and Nazir seemed amused by it, and at that point Bart put all pretense to rest, reaching down a hand to grasp a stout length of firewood as a cudgel — that section of empty air still seemed to be demanding he not pay it mind, pain lanced through his eyes as he focused on it. Tears streaming down his face, he swung the length of cordage at the campfire, sweeping the sparks and ashes at the stretch of emptiness with a roar.

"SHOW YOURSELF, DOG!"

The sparks scattered, and the simulacra that stood in place of his friends were stock still as the air seemed to ripple like a disturbed curtain. He gritted his teeth against the pain, ears ringing with phantom sound as he forced himself to stare at it. His vision blurred, and reality itself seemed to come apart, brutishly he dashed his knuckles across his eyes, scuffing the tears from them, willing himself to stare at the... the thing beyond the rippling span of space.

Then, it... unraveled. The air itself separated as a long-fingered limb seemingly dragged itself up as if between two close-set curtains, peeling them apart... and revealing a yawning, empty chasm of nothingness beyond. Then there was one glint of light, and another, dozens then... he realized at once they were reflections, a gleam of something wet. His brain howled in denial and screaming madness as he realized what they were all at once. Not motes of light, not bits of metal.

Teeth. They were all, hundreds, thousands of sets of gleaming white teeth.

YOU ARE AWAKE. YOU SHOULD NOT BE.

Bart physically recoiled from the... sound? Sensation? The words struck his mind like a tuning fork held to his teeth. He howled in agony, an animal noise of primal, unknowable pain. The big man staggered back, snapping his gaze back to the split in the air, to its black tapestry of gnashing teeth, he felt warmth running from his eyes and ears... his hands came back red as he dragged in a breath, the air itself felt as if it were solid, forcing him down with a presence so massive that it defied understanding, he cried out again, forcing himself standing — body bent under the invisible weight. The light around him dimmed, the doll-like creatures pretending to be his friends stared at him with dead, empty eyes void of life or warmth.

"H-how..." he sputtered, bile rose in his throat and gushed in a heavy retch through his lips, mixing with blood and mucus as he gritted his teeth; "HOW DARE YOU PRETEND TO BE THEM!"

The presence seemed to... acknowledge him then, and he cried out again in wordless anguish, like being locked in the coldest reaches of the Arctic and blasted by an all-consuming sandstorm of sound and hatred, he felt as if it were flensing him alive, peeling him like overripe fruit. Yet — he stood.

THEY ARE INCONSEQUENTIAL. YOU MUST SLEEP. DREAM.

"NO!" He roared in defiance, staggering to one knee as it felt like someone struck him with a siege engine, his bones vibrated with agony through his flesh, veins stood out on every single bare stretch of flesh as he resisted the oppressive force. "They MATTER, they MATTER TO ME. Wh-why else would yo-you dare impersonate them!"

THIS DAMAGES YOU. WHY DO YOU PERSIST. SLEEP. DREAM. LET. ME. IN.

"You can come in when my body is dead and cold!" he roared, finding the strength to rise back to both feet, screaming so loudly that he felt blood mist against the back of his teeth as he forced himself against the impossible force to stand tall, back straight he screamed in its face; "I DENY YOU, ANIMAL. I DENY YOU, BEAST. I DENY YOU TO THE GRAVE AND BEYOND!"

YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE MORTAL. UNFORTUNATE. BUT ACCEPTABLE.

To call what he felt pain would be to attempt to call a sunrise a speck of light, a wildfire a candle's flame. His world ceased to be, his mind rending apart under the unseen assault, he gibbered madly, clutching at his scalp, tearing at his hair and face as he writhed and gyrated, seemingly trying to escape the poison that very reality had become.

A DURABLE ESSENCE. ADAMANT. IT WILL BE MADE TO SERVE.

He screamed, at least his body tried. Sound had since stopped being something his shredded throat could make, forcing his eyes open, Bart staggered forward. The simulacra of his friends stared at him with empty white eyes, every word the presence spoke was like being struck with a white-hot forge hammer.

"If you plan to-to kill me... y-you will have... to... try harder." he spat, moving towards the open curtain in reality, towards the jeering teeth and infinite blackness, he reached for the fire, producing a smoldering club — man's oldest weapon against the cold dark. Flame burned at its end, its heat licked his bare arm but he couldn't bring himself to care.

DEATH IS NOT ESCAPE.

"O Lady... O God... Grant T-this S-servant..." he babbled, thrusting the burning brand before him, his vision failing him, the figures of his not-friends flickering, moving, faces flashing moment to moment between expressions of concern, jeering laughter and gnashing, hateful grimaces.

SPEAK NOT THAT NAME.

"Lady... I love... thee... as I am... bade to..." he gasped and lunged, swinging that burning cudgel as if it were the First Paladin's holy blade, and as it struck the liminal barrier between it, the roar of agony was not his, not alone. Oh yes, he screamed — part in anger, part in agony but he held the brand to it, shoving the fire deeper.

"I... am... per-perhaps no-not worthy but... I would love thee... as... I wish to...." he said, and it was like a chime went off. Had he ever acknowledged that openly? His mind sprawled back to his lessons, the many images of the Lady in White, her legend... he never really felt the same awe, it was... enthrallment. He found her legend, visage even as a simple block-and-ink print alluring and enticing. Her illuminations quickened his pulse and warmed his heart, he imagined the feel of her mane, to see those eyes meet his... shame filled him, but also desire. He was commanded to love her and love her he did... but did he instead, love her as a man did a woman rather than a servant did its master?

INVOKE HER NOT.

He felt that imperceptible barrier give way, the fire itself seeming to burn away the veiled illusion — was it real? Was any of this real? Was he dead? Was he dreaming? It had commanded him to sleep, if he was not truly sleeping then where was he, why could this presence not bear her thoughts on his mind? He snarled and swept the flaming brand through the curtain-like cut in the darkness, and the world burst messily into flame, a rush of air and impossible, intangible pressure thrust him to the ground, irresistible as gravity and merciless as a butcher's blade. He reached his hand to his throat, and he found his holy symbol there — a simple-carved lidless eye over a twist of golden horn, a peasant's symbol. A symbol of the common man. Here, laid bare in the depths of madness he bore no armor, no shining sword or gleaming axe, he wore simple homespun cloth and carried a rough-hewn symbol of devotion — yet as he writhed beneath the massive force of will, he raised the symbol above him. Fire and Love, the things that lifted man above the beasts, the elemental forces of the human experiment.

And then... it abated... his mind seemed to be a wad of cotton — blood and tears streamed down his face, he felt like a single, massive bruise as he rolled to his belly, vomiting messily and coughing... could he be sick in a dream? Could he experience pain in the depths of his mind?

"Lo, ye have rent asunder the veils and auspice of mine weaving. Thou art persistent, wretch." The voice was Naima's... and it was not all at once, looking up with hollow eyes, he clenched his teeth against a familiar horror.

A skull loomed over him, a great, massive deer-like structure of bone and tarry-black sinew. Antlers reached to the sky, terminating at their ends to clenching, skeletal fingers that writhed with invisible agonies. The slithery tendons snaked down into a body both too massive and too impossibly thin, two rib cages breathed slightly out of time, and a quartet of too-long limbs rested in an obscene parody of prayer and obedience. It dripped a constant stream of ichor made of such dark, horrific fluid it reflected no light, gathering around it like liquid shadow, forming a literal cloak of sticky, clinging darkness. Naima's blank-faced form spoke again, the creature's motions following its stolen voice:

"Thou shalt prevail not, for I have marked thee, and thou art mine for all but the bleeding," it said, raising one of its primary arms, a great too-long thing with too many digits, a nine-fingered hand pointing at his heart as if it were a spear.

"Thou hast tasted mine fury, used it. Reveled in its might. Thine own will erodes and thy cling overmuch to the False Idol for illusions of strength." it continued with Naima's hollow voice. Bart dragged himself to a sitting position, staring at this thing... he knew what it was now, he had a face for the name,

"Wendigo." he breathed, and the monstrosity bowed its skull-like head, spreading its primary arms in a low, mocking bow.

"Just so, and thine's mind and body wrack at the truth of thine's master, Her Voice nigh undid thee in thy petty disobedience," it spoke as he spat to the side, still unsure how much of this was real — but the bile in his throat tasted real enough.

"She? Then that... that was."

"Thy true Mother. The Matriarch of Lost Children, thy shall never know love as true as thy hast felt today, yet as thine realize — thy true Mother is a strict teacher, and her ire sharp." it said, folding its many hands and raising its skeletal visage in prayer; "She is merciful, and in her haste did thy much hurt — out of impatience for thy stubborn refusal of her gifts."

"Let us call it that for now... why am I so gods-cursed important? I am nothing. A man. No more." Bart demanded of the monster, pushing himself half to his feet, the Wendigo's shape looming above him. The surrounding area had seemed to... fade, smudge like too-wet paint, only the area around them truly real, firm. It raised one finger.

"Not what thy art, but what thy can become." it said, this time not with Naima's hijacked voice, but Rashid's rolling bass; "Thou art a potential, a wedge formed by happenstance. Thou art the cruel dice of the universe." Bart couldn't help but laugh at that, laughing ugly and long.

"So I am not special, not in any way marked by fate or magic? I am just lucky?" he said, falling flat on his back, cackling as his frayed mind dipped back into madness, screaming against the impossibilities and only coming out as gibbering chuckles of pure insanity.

"Thou art the pebble in the stream, thou can be washed away — or thou can divert it all to one path or yet another." it said, Nazir's soft voice stolen this time, the dandy's hands raising along with the beasts as it entreated him; "Thou art persistent, thy wretched devotion a stain on thou's nature. Thou shalt be a king in Darkness and Blood. Thou art worthy of mine gifts... thy hath tasted them once before."

Bart came back from the brink at that, remembering through his racing, gibbering thoughts the familiar black, ugly anger — the strength he'd stolen to defeat Dagan-Baal, to power through pain and hopelessness... what had wrenched him back from the brink, Nazir's face smiled and the monster beckoned him closer.

"Indeed. Thine tasted Death... and I wrested thee from oblivion, thou wouldst have been mine, had the False Idol not interfered, tainted thy blood with its fetid radiance," it said, its voice behind him now — Lidia's voice.

"Thy can live free of pain or fear, thy can sup upon the fruits of this land... join with me, make of thee mine own strength and grow fat from the meat and bone of those who deny thee..." it cooed with Lidia's voice, and the dissonance woke him like a splash of cold water.

"No. You may have some curse upon me, some black stain on my soul — but I will bear it alone. You will drink not of anything but I — and be assured, I will fight you for every single drop." he hissed, forcing himself to his feet.

"I may lose this fight, you goddamned abomination. But it will not be for lack of trying. I will keep you close, here in my heart." he said, laying the holy symbol across his chest — the creature visibly recoiling from the simple graven image. "So you can squirm beneath its radiance like a pale worm in sunlight."

"So be it, wretch." the creature said, recoiling further, its back up and head down in a primal posture of aggression; "Thy shall have thy contest, and I will break thee as I broke kings and saints. Thy blood is sweet, thy soul will be the sweeter," it said and waved its hand in a dismissive gesture that felt as if it carried the weight of the world.

~ ~ ~

Bart woke with a start and a hacking scream, his throat felt hoarse and he thrashed about. His hands balled into fists to lash out against invisible terrors.

"Hey, HEY! Calm down hayseed, ye're about tae fookin' kick the shite out o' me!" Lidia's voice came to him, and he froze, eyes snapping open. She sounded... correct. Hands pressed at his shoulders and brow; calloused hands with the scars of a hard life. He relaxed, sinking back into the cot, chest heaving with exertion.

"Where are we?" he asked hoarsely,

"A day an' a bit o' change down the road, ye fell into a fit o' sleep and we could nae wake ye." she said, worry in her voice, she wiped his brow with a damp cloth; "Naima an' I have taken turns watchin' ye as soon as Rashid was on his feet. Ye screamed and thrashed as if ye were possessed."

"Close enough, I say." he groused and sat up, Lidia meeting him with a small wooden cup.

"Here, just water. Ye haven't drank or ate since." Bart sipped greedily, taking a moment to drain the cup and three more she provided before wiping his face, feeling two days of beard scratch at his palms.

"Thank you, Lidia. That... is better than you can understand." Bart said, falling silent as the too-vivid memories of the dream struck him. At once he opened his mouth, eager to empty himself out to Lidia's concerned ears, to weep and cry and pour himself dry of the horror he saw — but his tongue ran dry, and all that could come out was a quiet rasp: "More water, please."

Bart drank and listened as Lidia gave him the shorthand of the last day of travel, he'd apparently lost consciousness shortly after they'd left the gates. The outrider cavalry had ridden with them until that morning, screening them against a handful of harriers that had pursued them, she noted with some pride she'd fought in the skirmishes. There was a new straightness in her back when she recounted the battle that made Bart smile.

"They went back 'round another road, plannin' to circle back and meet up with th' Commander's people down near Fairhabour," she concluded, Bart turning the battle plans over in his mind, it made sense to muster outside of the city rather than risk losses fighting their way back to Viconia's bastion in the city, which was no doubt overrun in the wake of their punch-through assault. Bart sat a while longer, listening to Lidia fill him in on the minutiae of what he'd missed in his stricken coma, odds and ends — Rashid's recovery had gone well, the burly man was watching over them all — and more than that, in his time unconscious, young Salim had taken up the blade and began training with the Akali during his morning exercises. The news brought a warmth to Bart's heart; Salim's face would be seared into Bart's memory for the rest of his life, the sight of the young man in tears over his brother's lifeless body. Bart swallowed.

"An' I've been keepin' busy. Naima has lots of learnin' layin' about. She's a good teacher." the little cutpurse said, and Bart's eyebrows went up over the rim of his cup, the girl blushed, stammering a little. "Ah... jus' want to be better prepared. No way we're done with those monsters, right? She had an answer for er'ry single damn one o' 'em. And she took care o' ye and meself so well..." she said, peeling back the wrists of her gloves to the now-healed cuts on her wrists — the last memory of their first, unfriendly meeting. Bart looked down at her hands, frowning a little.

"Lidia... I'm sorry for that... I wasn't totally myself, I was..." Bart started to explain and found himself choking on the words again, the phantom of the Wendigo appearing in his mind, strangling the words in his throat. Thankfully, the little sidheborn gave him a playful shove that rocked the cart lightly.

"Oh shut up, ye were angry. I was lucky ye were the kind o' man ye were. I'd earned more than a wee cut-up wrist and some scuffed elbows from ye by then." she said, frowning a little and wincing. "Ye... think the poof is still mad at me?" she asked. Bart, furrowing his brow before he realized she meant Nazir, winced too, teeth showing as their gazes met.

"You did step directly on his face. He seems a bit protective of it." Bart observed and she grimaced and slapped her knees, sitting up straight.

"Right then, Ah should go give him a talkin' to then, not right tae 'ave bad blood wit' travelin' companions." she said, smiling back up at him, the cart rocking back and forth gently as the road carried on beneath them; "Ye take it slow... an' I'm glad ye're back wit' us," she said, leaning up and giving him a brief, sisterly kiss on the forehead. "Ye tell anyone ah' did this an' I'll slap ye nuts up 'twixt ye ears," she said quietly and then bounced nimbly from the cart — its movement failing to even slow her down.

Bart peered out the window, it was past midday and they were moving at a decent pace. He tried to draw up his mental map of where they were, between Lachheim and Fort Ivory there was not much to speak of, small nameless burgs and hamlets, farm folk mostly. Nothing so large as Fairharbour nor so established as any city. He resigned himself to advise pressing on with all due haste, the smaller settlements would have seen the fires and know what they meant by now, it was the men at Fort Ivory and the Lady who mattered.

The Lady... Bart's mind drifted back to the dream and he felt himself color despite himself, what an admission to have in the throes of madness — but it struck a chord inside him even awake and aware. He curled his hands closed, feeling them shake unnaturally with remaining weakness, and found his bag. With his clothes, shaving kit, and armor stood his copy of the Oath of Gold. Made for travel with a durable girdle-binding, a leather sleeve that covered the book and cinched around a belt, or well — a girdle, thus the name. Undoing the clasp from the humble-looking book, the inside was anything but. The pages were hand-inked, illuminated in color and gilt — one of the gifts given to Pilgrims on their leaving the abbey, only Paladins of the Radiant order or those on pilgrimage to become them had a book like this, he turned the pages, the brilliant text speaking the truth of their histories, struggles and their creed in fine verse. Shame touched his heart, he knew that it had been but a few days — but it felt as if he had not touched this holy tome in ages, even when his body and mind ached with doubt and the invasions of dark things... he'd seemed to pointedly avoid the libram. The cart rattled beneath him as he turned the pages in silence, finally stopping as he turned to a beautiful engraving of gilt and ink.

It was a full page to itself, a dedicated illustration rendered with divine care. It was the Lady in her aspect, standing in perfect statuesque defiance, a pale dawn cresting geometric mountains behind her — a golden star blazing at the tip of her horn — itself and her eyes gilt in gold leaf. He'd seen it before, in lesser tomes and readings. He knew it well, it drew the breath from him as it always did. The opposite page was tight, heavy-block text — and in it, or so they said, were her own words:

To thou, I swear an Oath of Gold. Absolute and unalloyed. To each of thee I will look upon, to each of thee I will make whole and sure. For thee are my most beloved souls, my consorts of heart, and my guardians of spirit. I entreat thee to embrace mine love, my succor and take it to thy breast in place and time with thy own heart — to pour that succor out like wine for the needy. To give thy love utterly and without hesitation. For I give thus unto thee, without hesitation in totality. I love each of thee as mine children, mine lover, mine eternal guardians. Be thou valorous, be thou true, be thou all that thy can — carry mine light to the dark places, carry mine love to those with hardened hearts, carry my succor to those in pain. Thy art beloved as thou art — thy art mine, and I art thine. Give unto thy charges the last fiber of thy self — be just and fear not, for thou art courageous. I shall see it so.

I entreat thee, thou that hear these words — carry thyself before mine eyes. Walk the Earth. Speaketh earnestly to thy neighbors near and far. Tread the path of struggle, tread the path of turmoil. Embark in thy spring of life upon thy journey unto me — and show of me thy works, great and terrible both. Look upon mine eyes, mine heart so that I might look upon thine in return. Know me and know thyself — and return within thee a Golden Blessing to give unto thy kin — for in this do thy make brothers and sisters of all Man, and put thyself in service to thy greater host. Make of thyself a blade, a shield, and an open hand — and I will grant thee a boon everlasting.

To thou, I swear this Oath of Gold.

Bart found tears in his eyes, dashing them with shaking, palsied fingers — daring not to stain the image of the Lady with his weeping. His heart thrummed with remembered feelings, he hadn't truly understood them before... and now he felt childish. Touching the engraving, running his fingers along the outline of the beautiful mane... he'd had dreams of such his entire life. Ever since he'd been given a copy of the Oath as a novice, he'd been enthralled by her — by her promise. Even now, in the aftermath of such nightmares real and imagined, he felt the love in those words as if she'd spoken them directly in his ear.

"Who am I to claim such love?" he asked the rocking cart, only getting the creak of boards as answer; "Who am I indeed... surely it is untoward... surely she meant it in the pure, abstract sense... " he said, but his mind was drawn to the dreams... the touch of her silky mane in his fingers, to look into her golden eyes... did she have eyes like Sikha had? Would he feel the same sense of beauty? He had not felt the tug at his heart looking upon that beautiful creature as he did this mere, mortal engraving of the Lady. He closed the book with a shuddering breath as his pulse had quickened and his body rose eagerly to the idea of such intimate closeness — he denied himself such thoughts, resting his brow against the leather spine, eyes screwed tightly shut.

"Am I wrong to wish it so... to wish to be with her forever... just from words in a book?" he asked no one. He received no answer. No answer was to be given, not yet.

~ ~ ~

Bart's recovery turned out to be more protracted than he expected. The time on the road was quiet, dragging at his mind with uneasiness, seeing monsters at the edge of his vision, ghuls in every shadow. Anxiety was a quiet companion, any time he began to doubt the rationality of the fear, he needed merely look to the south — to the black, sooty columns of smoke that still rose days later.

"Again, come now Brother Bart." Rashid's voice rumbled, before him stood naked steel, held ready at hand, carried with the ease with which a snake might poise its fangs. Bart stood in full harness, sweaty and holding his axe steady. They'd been sparring on and off all day, but it all felt... off to Bart's senses, he'd never gotten so much as close to the older warrior, which itself wasn't a problem — Rashid's swordsmanship was immaculate, he felt even Master Bowen would find him a match, no... it was the fundamentals.

The charge he gave was sudden, digging his heels into the turf once more; thundering towards Rashid with all the ferocity he could muster, axe sweeping in a half-moon arc before slamming down at the burly Akali's midsection in a savage angled chop that would break a man's stance and open him up for a killing stroke, it played through his mind with textbook precision...

His body had other plans.

His feet stumbled as a jolt of weakness and pain shot through his chest and spine, he faltered mid-swing, the axe's haft twisting in his hands, falling short of the mark — and Rashid's answering cuts rang off his helmet — the burly fighter's swings so precise that he struck him to either side of his helmet with the flat of his wicked curved blade in a whip-quick motion that left Bart dazed as his axe slipped from his grasp, and he fell to his knees in a clatter of plates.

"DAMNATION!" Bart spat, slamming his fist into the soft loam, the hand shaky and unsure as his body wracked with the spell of weakness, Rashid knelt beside him suddenly, concern on his stony visage.

"It is fine my friend, we all stumble-" Rashid said softly, Bart slammed another fist into the ground, cutting him off with a hiss of frustrated rancor.

"I do NOT get to stumble! Not I!" he snarled at the elder warrior, still shaking under the suddenly immense weight of his armor; "Not I! Not now!" he spat the words like venom, aimed at everyone — but no one more than himself.

"Brother Bart..." Rashid began slowly, his hand on Bart's shoulder, the Knight-Brother stiffened and pushed it away, the trembling fit slowly passing as he dragged himself up from the mud.

"Spare me, Rashid. You mean well, but I have no time for platitudes. Again." he said, taking up his axe in shaking hands.

"I do not think-"

"AGAIN!" Bart roared, smashing his gauntlet-clad hand into his armored chest; "Stand up and face me, or GET OUT OF MY FACE!" he snapped in a sudden outburst of fury that set Rashid back on his heels. Their eyes met for a long moment, and Rashid nodded, standing with his blade in hand, he reached out, beckoning Bart forward.

"Once more."

Bart hurled himself forward, the images of the dead assaulting him, Naima's sweet face streaked with tears, Salim's agonized cries over the death of his brother, all of it drove him on. He didn't realize he was screaming at first, a roar of defiance as he ran through the stances and motions, his mind willing his body to action along the well-trod lines of practice, his axe sang like a choir of vengeful angels.

Then it flew from his fingers.

End over end it tumbled as his legs gave up the ghost, a fit of shaking stealing the strength from them, pitching him forward at full tilt. His helmet-clad face dug a furrow into the turf as he hit the ground in a heap, rolling and clattering to a still tangle of limbs on his side — cold fear clenching his insides as the faltering loss of strength robbed him of his might, his fingers unable to close. He tried to drag himself upright and failed, the weight of his armor too great, pinning him on his side like some steel turtle in the sun. He gritted his teeth. Tears stung his eyes.

"No... no... no..." he slammed his fist into the dirt, but his palsy-stricken body could muster only an ineffectual slap at the soft ground before giving up entirely, a sob escaping his lips.

"I cannot... I cannot be... be weak..." he gasped to no one. "Not now... please, O God not now..."

Rashid's strong hands rested on his shoulders, and he tried to push the burly man away — robbed of even the strength to deny that, he was wrested to a sitting position, the older man's face grave with concern.

"You cannot push yourself like this Brother, you will destroy yourself." He rumbled, his gaze flicking to the distance near the stopped wagon and cookfire, where Lidia and Naima sat over a tome, Nazir nearby — alert and aware. Bart's sob turned to a snarl;

"Then let me be destroyed, better to be done with it than be... this!" he spat bitterly, raising shaking hands before himself; "I am unmade, Rashid... I am a soldier, there is nothing else I have ever been — I can be nothing else!"

The Akali took the vehemence in stride, his face its usual subtle mask of emotion. He squeezed the offered hand. Rashid did not wear armor as he did, his breastplate and mailcoat were light in comparison, yet his presence was just as solid and immovable as if he were wrapped in steel, his hands strong and hard — the grip stopped the trembling.

"My friend, my brother... you are what you make yourself. Perhaps you are right, perhaps you are no longer a soldier — but your heart is still that of a warrior, it is still beating for justice. There is a path forward — you just have to find it." he said, drawing Bart up by main strength, the big knight staggering to his feet — shame on his face. He left the visor down.

"I am not so blessed with such luxuries Rashid... I have a mission, It is a mission for a warrior, not a cripple." he breathed, voice barely above a whisper. He looked over where his axe landed, buried to the eye in the soft turf, his hands began to shake uncontrollably. He turned away, leaving it behind as he left the field in defeat.

~ ~ ~

So it went, days on the road. Bart lost track as he struggled along, some days in the wagon trembling as his body shook with uncontrollable palsy, other times atop his horse, the wind in his hair and his mind troubled, his heart heavy. His beard began to grow out in earnest, thick and full as he abandoned shaving after slashing his face during a fit. Despite Naima's offer to shave him, the blade was put away and forgotten. The columns of smoke grew longer at their back, spreading wider. The whole city put to the torch, the surrounding fields and hamlets as well. Bart could only hope the poor common folk had escaped the monstrous press.

His body grew stronger, he felt familiar power in his arms but recoiled from it in uncertainty. The fits had no rhyme or reason, driving cold spikes of indecision into him as he went through everyday tasks, from shaving to feeding himself, every interaction he had was given pause. He felt himself grow distant from his companions, felt the darkness within him grow — the Wendigo perched just out of sight, just beyond the edge of his vision like a vulture. His armor soon joined his razor and axe; pushed away out of sight. He feared what may happen if he wore them, what he may do with a weapon too close at hand.

The Scripture was his only comfort, the girdle-bound tome never leaving his side as they journeyed, often in silence save for Salim and his worker's quiet, musical chatter, or Naima's continued efforts to teach Lidia, not the deep secrets of the sciences — but simple letters, the peasant-tuned-thief illiterate beyond a few key words and phrases for her survival.

"You cannot read?" had been the conversation, some days after Bart had collapsed during training. Rashid had chosen not to speak of it, yet Bart felt that his friends knew.

"Nah, why would I? Readin' was for Kull and his penny-pinchers. I had more practical skills tae work on." she'd said, her gleaming green eyes otherwise occupied, her hands twisting and clicking through a large, heavy padlock she'd found among Nazir's effects. One he'd agreed to let her practice her picking on after some protests — and a lecture about personal space.

"Remarkable," Naima said tersely, producing a sheaf of parchment. "Put that away, we'll start with your name. I refuse to teach someone willfully ignorant."

Lidia would have made an effort to protest, but the steel in Naima's eyes silenced anything. They'd early on made a pact that when Naima spoke, she would listen. It was not an easy pact, and they often went from quiet discussion to strident invective, Naima's adamant tone ever clinical and calm, and always the winner. Rashid's expressions were always the gauge of how any one argument would go.

"Little one is learning." the big man murmured to Bart as they rode at the head of the small caravan, Bart grinned through his rough growth of beard.

"She is quick on her feet, quicker with her tongue — but Naima always beats her brain off the line." Bart agreed, getting a chuckle from the burly Akali as they rode. He had the Oath open in his lap again, studying the pages, the words... but he always found his way back to the Lady's Pledge, losing himself in the lovingly illustrated image. Rashid's black horse reigned up close to his, the big man oddly out of place on the southern-bred animal, a hot-blooded, fleet-footed beast.

"Your Lady?" he inquired of the illumination on the page, and Bart was stricken with a sudden pang of guilt and shame, a desire to put it away... unnatural, he swallowed it. Glaring inwardly at the monster just beyond his sight — yet another way it tried to tempt and entrap him.

"Yes, the Lady's Pledge. Scholars say she demanded of us parchment and pen and dictated this — her own words for historical consideration," he said, turning the book for Rashid's eyes, the big man's solemn gaze softening a grade as he looked upon it.

"Her beauty even translates to the page. Truly, all of the Holy Ones are a step beyond," he said calmly, and a burning curiosity struck Bart.

"You met the Couatl yes? The Beast of Wisdom?" he asked, and Rashid grinned ruefully.

"Met would be an understatement my brother, I have crossed harsh words with her and been firmly rebuffed and stridently scolded many a time," he said, and Bart's jaw fell open.

"You argued with the Holy Beast?" he asked incredulously, and Rashid laughed softly.

"Of course! How does one learn if one asks no questions? If one never questions his teacher, how is he sure of the facts? I learned the sword from other Akali but I learned of myself from her teachings. She schooled all of us, in philosophy and meditation." he said, a fondness in his voice that put a rare, almost child-like gleam in his stony eyes.

"What is that like?" Bart asked wistfully.

"Challenging. Intimidating. Terrifying if I am truthful." Rashid said in a placid tone, lost in his memories for a moment, the rapid flick of his eyes on distant scenes, distant places, and distant people. "She is enormous, not just in size but presence. To speak with her is to be filled every nook and cranny with her," he said, reverence in his voice... but a sort of comfortable kind. Bart's eyes stole to the image, his heart quickening at the thought of being so casual with such a creature.

"She is beautiful, I often lie awake at night thinking of her golden eyes meeting mine. Even when I challenged her proclamation, her demand I marry Naima — I could not get her from my mind." Bart almost dropped the book, twisting in his saddle to look Rashid in the face.

"She arranged your marriage?!" Rashid laughed at him as he said it, shaking his head.

"You northerners always react so. Yes, Akali and alchemists are all wed. We are raised cradle to grave by the Learned One, and she guides us together, knowing our hearts as well as any tome in her library. I fought her, Naima was a willful, stubborn... and honestly, at the time? Ugly little brat of a woman." Bart couldn't believe that, looking sharply back at the darkly beautiful, iron-skinned woman copying down sentences with Lidia at the head of the wagon. Rashid grinned at him.

"You jest with me," Bart said, Rashid shook his head.

"Buck teeth, huge nose. Hair like a rat's nest. Blotchy skin too. She was a tiny little gremlin of a girl, too willful, argued with the Learned One, and anyone else who got in her way. Our first meeting as children, she made fun of me for my belly." he said, slapping the now thick, barrel-like mound of muscle that lay beneath his armor — Bart's shoulders slumped with true sympathy, touching his own bear-like midsection.

"I know the feeling." the big knight-brother murmured, Rashid nodded.

"Yet, the Learned One knew. We fought for it, I shouted at her; I — this knock-kneed, doughy warrior trainee still wet behind the ears shouted at one of the Divine Triune, raised my hands and voice. Can you believe it?" Rashid laughed at the end, and Bart could only shake his head, eyes cast down as the man continued.

"I fought her for years, coming of age Naima and I were worst enemies, at one another's throats, constantly out-doing each other for the Learned One's attention... I found her ravishing," he said, pausing as Bart seemed confused. "The Learned One, I mean. I was completely enthralled with her."

Bart found himself caught out, staring open-mouthed and red to the ears, Rashid's gaze was knowing, and a bit smug. "Is... isn't she a gigantic serpent?" he asked, and Rashid laughed, reaching into his electric blue sash, producing a tome of his own, inlaid with gold and horn. Deftly the big man turned it in his hands — Bart was always stunned by how fluidly the massive southerner moved, down to the smallest motions, it made him feel clumsy and oafish.

"She is a being of spun gold and ivory, love and knowledge... I knew her touch, her presence. I wanted so dearly to be hers and only hers." he said and turned the book to Bart's eyes; the page was not unlike his own, an illumination on one page, text on the other — text he could not read, written in the native tongue of the Al-Rezan people, but the image...

She was wound in a perfect helix around a spear of glittering gold. Her body was rendered in such minute details that individual scales and scutes glimmered with silver and gold gilt. Her form was a geometric perfection as best as the artist could muster, a perfect serpentine body, rising along a crest of feathers that framed her face — all three of them. Her neck split into a trio of wise, angular skulls, and they were still those of a serpent, but it carried with it... more, an impossible beauty, a blistering intellect — it was like Sikha in the same way a candleflame is like the sun. Even rendered to standards of mere human hands it carried with it the saidsame human quality of expression that drew at the mind, that told you quietly in the depths of your heart 'Be not afraid, I bring glad tidings'. She was crested by six wings of increasing size and complexity, her tail tipped by a fan of gilt feathers, and above her heads, each rode a crown of glimmering radiance that limned her whole form like crackling lightning. Even looking upon it without understanding the words, he felt the grace that it represented. It touched his heart.

"She haunted my dreams, the touch of her scales like finest silk for I'd felt them, the whisper of her voice in my ears for I had heard it. I would lie awake, my body's base urges coloring her stare with lust and her touches with solicitous intent," he said, shame briefly showing on his face... Bart looked away.

"Do you... have those thoughts yet still?"

"Every time I think of her," Rashid admitted, Bart's eyes going wide. He turned and looked at the man, who was gazing down at the illumination with open, unabashed desire. Then he took a breath and looked back at Naima.

"No, I did not settle. I did not consider duty. The Learned One knew my heart better than I did. Love I carry for her yes, a yearning borne out of desire... yet, desire is not one-sided. It can be for many things, many people — you decide who you give it to. Naima and I fought like rats and snakes, but as we did we shared things. Doubts, hopes, fears, hurts. She put me back together a hundred times before I knew I loved her more than anything." he said, closing the tome, placing it back into his sash, near his heart.

"The years passed, and the desire for the Learned One burned no less hot — but it gained a twinned flame in my heart, Naima, my beloved and I grew into ourselves. My body changed, my heart with it — so did she." He lifted his hand, scars and callouses showing bright and clear in the sun. "In the end, we grew together like trees planted side by side. Wound so close we didn't so much fall into love, as realize it had been there all along. I apologized to the Learned One on our wedding day, confessed my feelings and desires for her."

"What did she say to such a thing?" Bart breathed, his heart hammering in his chest at the fearful possibilities.

"She knew. Of course she did, she knew my heart better than I, did I not say as much?" He said, smiling softly, eyes turning towards the horizon, hand over his heart. "She said she felt my desire as well — a surprise for sure you can imagine." he said, a faint chuckle escaping him; "Yet her duty meant she knew I had another who needed me more. She told me that she loved my heart so that it would kill her to take it from another, I remember her words precisely," he said, taking a breath. Closing his eyes.

"I saw your heart as a child and knew that in you — I could find a consort and companion. Yearning is not something I am free of, my dear friend. We all on this earth yearn for the touch of another in the dark places of the night. I knew you would provide that to someone... and I knew it could not be I, not as you were meant to be." he said, his voice feeling stilted a moment as he recited a cadence not his own, words not his own. He was silent for a long moment, Bart also looked down at his saddle-bow, heart troubled.

"She told me she loved me and was proud of me. I never once regretted my choice. Naima is the most perfect woman I could ever have imagined, and the Learned One knew, the gift of Sight is hers and hers alone... and she knew." he said, and then furrowed his brow.

"What is it?" Bart asked, reading the man's normal stony visage as easily as their own texts, the burly man stroked his beard.

"She told me something else that day. That Naima and I's love would shepherd one heart to another, one day, a heart she held dearer than all, one long lonesome and longing — and for that, she would give anything," he said, stroking his beard again and looking at Bart, a quiet expression of contemplation on his face.

"I am sure her meaning will be clear, one day soon," he said, smiling at the knight-brother, folding his hands on his reins and slowly dropping back towards the wagon. Bart watched him go in silence, the big man's horse pulling up near the wagon, where the burly warrior reached up to Naima, taking her hand in his with a smile that he saw only rarely, so full of life and love it transformed the stony warrior's entire being. Naima blushed like a schoolgirl as Rashid pressed her palm to his lips. Bart looked away, feeling oddly voyeuristic.

"A heart to another, eh?" he asked the air, looking down at the book. Then at his hands, a fit gave them a tremor that threatened to drag him from the saddle. He screwed his eyes closed, clenching his trembling fingers as he focused on the words of The Lady.

Thy art beloved as thou art — thy art mine, and I art thine

He breathed in sharply, and with an effort of will... the trembling slowed and then after a long minute of focus, it abated entirely. Falling slack, he felt his body sag beneath its own weight, exhausted from the episode. He touched the tome again and closed his eyes.

"Thank you." whether those words were for Rashid... or a higher power, even Bart did not know.

~ ~ ~

The day's travel was not without note, as they pushed past the surrounding farmlands of Lachheim into the Free Territories or 'Middlelands' of the Heartlands, the scars of an older world became apparent. The Verdant Crusades were named because of the touch of the Holy Beasts, where they walked — life flourished. They say flowers bloomed beneath the Lady's hooves, and wherever the Great Beast of Might walked, the embers of his passing fertilized the soil blighted by the Empty Queen's draining influence, and the Learned One's wings spread clean air free of the choking miasma of war. They had trod this path he and his friends now walked, the First Paladin at their side.

As they crested a hill, around their modest caravan rose massive, jagged monoliths of stone, bedrock, and ancient slab — bones of the earth, ripped up and torn asunder in the great clash of the queen's forces in Northsea. Bart couldn't imagine the forces at play, the raw power of Creation being fought with on both sides, the energies that tore up the bones of the earth to cast into the teeth of enemies too great and terrible to fall any other way. Far into the distance, the jagged landmarks traveled, like a field of discarded swords, fallen talons, and spurned teeth — sharp-edged and raw still, ancient rock not meant to see the light of the sun, and yet — it had been reclaimed. The growth had been rampant in the wake of the holy march, the spires dotted with a carpet of life, grassy knolls rolling up their sides. Well-healed scars, still bright with the wound but on the mend.

"I ne'er seen nothin' like this," Lidia said, eyes wide as they passed beneath one. Bart looked back at her from his horse, feeling strong that day again and pressing his luck on a ride. She looked back. "Dad and I ne'er came this far northwest. We cut wood tae the eastward reaches," she said, turning her gaze back to the far distance. Bart's eyes went with her.

"Neither have I. It's amazing... do you know the tales?" he asked, and she shook her head. Bart smiled and reigned back, joining her and Naima near the wagon; "Well, it starts with the Queen's Forces pushing far into Northsea, before the Kingdoms had united, before some of them existed. Divided, they'd fallen one by one..." he began, and the story carried forward. The Black March was well-known history for military types like himself: the Queen's conquest of Northsea was a field of great study both martial and academic, piecing together her campaign north of the bay was the life's work of many a scholar.

He told them of her breakthrough at Mistport, eyes turning back to see looming in the clear distance beyond, the Ossuary of Man standing up, proceeding past sight into the clouds. The structure's massive profile perfectly situated over the burning Lachheim, the columns of smoke framing it like smoldering sconces. He spoke of The Black March; how her armies fanned out across the continent like locusts, pushing and occupying key points, erecting terrible altars to her bathed in blood and bone, how they herded the populace like cattle, using them as fodder for dark rituals to bring forth more and more of their forces. Her continued march north was harried at every step by the forces of Men, scattered and disorganized they could only fight delaying actions as the Queen's forces advanced, and as they advanced — they brought their world with them.

"So... that's what they're doin' in Lachheim, in th' underground?" Lidia asked as Bart stopped to take a breath, closing his eyes as he fought down another minor fit of tremors.

"I don't know, I know what the history books told me. It's a good assumption, it's probably why it was so dark, even with a blazing lantern. They say the Empty Queen's lands are outside of time, outside of the natural order. Light touches nothing wholly in her domain, you can see the shadow of the Balelands even from the sea if you are daring enough to sail the Sea of Glass." he said, taking a drink from his waterskin, then shrugging; "Or so I read."

"This all 'appened only Two-hunnerd years ago?" She asked, and he shook his head.

"The Crusades date back two hundred years, and lasted a hundred recorded years of battle — and even as late as the last few decades, we still fight incursions on the southern fronts... but that's just how we, outside of them reckon time. They say where the Empty Queen walks, nothing dies and nothing grows. Time flows... wrong. She is too... heavy, for the world and it weighs down even the passage of the days." he said, shaking his head; "It's all very much beyond me."

"She is a creature of stagnation, and in her presence and the presence of her greatest powers, even time withers and fails to carry on." Naima said, eyes on the road still, though she turned them to Bart to raise an eyebrow, he blinked and she smiled; "You are doing well, please continue." she said, and Bart caught Rashid's grin as he completed a circuit of the caravan, mouthing 'Alchemists' at Bart as he passed.

"Well, carrying on. The Crusades were a century of recorded fighting, but those emerging from the battlefields recorded far, far longer. Cities were built, destroyed, and rebuilt in what seemed like days to those beyond but were years to those within. Fortifications laid in what seemed like a blink of an eye gone just as fast. A century of fighting yes, but they fought in time frozen like a winter pond. It became a numbers game, none who fell within her grasp could truly die... but they could not stand and fight either." Bart explained, Lidia rapt with attention. It seemed the cutpurse loved a good story.

"So when did the Holy Beasts come? Haven't they always been here?" Lidia asked and this time, Naima took the question.

"Yes and No, they existed as part of the world as mere spirits before. Ideals. Gigas as the Might of Muscle and Bone, Manasa as the curiosity of life, and The Lady as the ember of fecundity and fertility in all places and things."

"Gigas? Manasa?" Bart asked, raising an eyebrow and Naima smiled.

"The other Beasts, Gigas the Beast of Might, and Manasa the Learned One." she said archly, seemingly enjoying teaching him as he taught her; "They have proper names, though... only your Order knows The Lady's name, she is very reclusive." Bart nodded gravely, turning the new information over in his mind;

"Indeed... it's a grave dishonor to speak her name to one who hasn't heard it from her lips among my fellows. I have never heard it, and I won't until she greets me at the Grove."

"Quite," Naima said, looking over at Lidia. "We do not use the Learned One's name too casually out of respect, but Gigas — that one does not care." Lidia raised her eyebrow.

"Kind o' an arsehole, is he?" she challenged, and Naima laughed.

"Oh, quite if the Learned One's tales are accurate. He is concerned only with his duty, and he is designed as a rival to Man's ambition, the raw, focused animal cunning of the natural world. He hates the Empty Queen, and has never once in all his time stopped fighting her — even now if you head to the southernmost front, you will find his Hecatomb of Stone — a veritable city of fortresses, each one built ahead of the other as he and his Marked Men gain and lose ground in eternal conflict with the Queen's fell monsters." she explained, Bart nodding and Lidia's eyes going wide.

"That's... fookin' exceptional tae hear it like that," Lidia said, clearly amazed.

"If the stories are true, The Marked Men take advantage of the Queen crushing and breaking apart the passage of days to build great bulwarks — and also become functionally immortal. They cannot leave her influence, each of them more metal and stitches than man now. When they grow too damaged to put themselves back together in her baleful immortality, they journey north to die peacefully, with honor." she said, touching her heart. "It's one of my caste's duties as Alchemists, we minister and embalm the Marked Men when they return to us to die." Lidia visibly shuddered at that.

"That's... hideous, but... inspirin'"

"Reality is often that way," Naima said blithely. "As I was saying, they have only been here, in the world of mortals since the crusades some centuries past," she said and Bart took up the tale with a cough.

"Yes, the Queen's forces ran roughshod over the disconnected and scattered armies of Man. There were holdouts, but it became a waiting game as they pushed the armies further and further back, all the way to the lands of the Sidhe." Lidia's eyes flared at that, and she looked down.

"Ah know this part o' the tale. Sidhe are jealous, they don't like outsiders. They halted the Queen's forces, cut 'em to bloody ribbons an' made examples o' anything tae touch their territory." she said, and Bart tilted his head, reigning his horse closer as he continued.

"Yes. The Sidhe Courts routed the Queen's monsters, their own powers rivaling hers — but they bore no desire for conquest, and merely held their bastions and waited. In the end, the Queen's armies pressed the last forces of men to the Sidhelands of the North, the Erlking's holdings. He wanted no part of their war, and any who crossed the line, Man or Monster was ridden down like animals. It was there the First Paladin fought a losing battle, a veteran of the very first breakthrough, and was the last man standing as they forced him, wounded and dying to flee. He knelt there waiting to die in the Erlking's wood, and he prayed to God to save not him, but his people and his men." he said, Lidia's eyes sparkling.

"An' this is where the Lady comes in?" she said, the woman practically a little girl again as Bart told the story, he smiled.

"So they say, this part is muddy. She appeared to him out of the prayers and made an accord with the Erlking for his fealty, and brought the First Paladin back from the brink of death out of pure love for Man. He was the first to wield the Ember of Creation as fire and flame against the dark. He journeyed there, praying as he and the Lady retook ground, driving back the darkness. Each of his prayers summoned down yet another Holy Beast — who claimed for themselves a territory and a purpose, and marched at his side in the first Verdant Crusade." Bart finished, coughing a little and drinking long from his skin, he grunted in minor pain — a fit overtaking him, causing him to double over in the saddle, Lidia looked on with concern before the big man waved her off — breathing raggedly as he fought back the pain and shaking. Her eyes worried, Naima picked up the thread:

"The Learned One appealed to the Sidhe of Seelie much as the Lady had those of Unseelie, and as such claimed Al-Reza as her own. Gigas claimed nothing and no one, and demanded the First Paladin to prove himself in the only way he respected: battle."

Lidia grinned a little; "He fought the Beast then?" she prompted, and Naima nodded.

"Fought — and won, it was a battle they fought for seven days and seven nights, but in the end after they had rent the earth and sky itself with their contest, the First Paladin laid Gigas low, and bid he yield. In history, no other man has ever done so — but many have tried."

"What 'appens to the losers?" Lidia asked.

"Where do you think the Marked Men come from? To lose to him is to undertake the same Oath of Iron he gave the First Paladin, to serve forever as the teeth, claws, and blade of God. You would be surprised how many still attempt it, to win would be to be a living war god — but to lose is to be among the most titanic of warriors still. It has great appeal to some." Naima concluded with a little click of her tongue,

"Aye, crazed people," Lidia said with a little shiver.

"Duty... is often its own reward." Bart rasped, having fought back the episode, face drawn and haggard but he managed a tired smile, the two women returned it — though Lidia's was more thoughtful than it had been before.

A shadow passed over each of them as they marched beneath one of the great spires that scarred the land, above them a herd of wild goats chewed their grassy meals, watching the caravan pass by beneath the overgrown earthen spear. The companions fell into a personable silence as the sun stretched long over the arching, rolling peaks and valleys of the war-torn land — now green, vibrant and so full of life.

~ ~ ~

It was in that forest of stony teeth, that the call of alarm went up from one of the workmen — smoke, and not of the burning city beyond. Salim's sharp eyes had picked the thin white line of vapor and ash out against the hazy sky, the ribbon of wood smoke leading to one of the tall spires of fang-like stone.

"Looks tae be another shepherd," Lidia said, squinting off into the distance from Bart's side, the day's passage had seen no worsening of his condition — and no betterment either. The stern-eyed Alchemist and her would-be apprentice had seen fit to keep him close at hand, and so again he rode close to the cart.

"I'll handle this one." Bart volunteered with perhaps a bit too much eagerness, reigning his horse to the side, Lidia's eyes flashed with worry, looking unconsciously to Naima before Bart broke away. "It's just another shepherd, they'll find the surcoat a comfort," he said, spreading his free arm to display the Eye-and-Horn Device across his breast; his armor remained a strain but he refused to travel without the trappings of his order after a fashion. He felt naked without the sigil over his heart, now more than ever. Naima simply nodded, same as the others as Bart spurred ahead to the distant plume. Only Rashid noted him with a raise of his hand as he went, marking his passage as a good sentry should.

The quiet was sudden and stark, this far into the Heartlands the hush of nature was almost a woolen blanket of silence beyond the immediate rattle and hum of the caravan. This far north of Lachheim itself was practically an alien landscape to the warrior-monk. As he wound around the great spire of stone to find its leeward, overgrown base — he then truly realized how sheltered he had been. First the thieves in Lachheim, truly a sight unseen, and now here, in the shadows of a great upheaval done in centuries past. He felt small, humble in a way that had nothing to do with his current lameness of body. Turning the corner away from the road, the great expanse northwards spread before him as the edge of the spire fell away. Bart's eyes widened, and his breath left him in a gasp.

The green hills rolled and undulated, the jagged tors and crags of stone spread out in a scattershot pattern shrouded in a soft blanket of green, softening still-crisp edges and bringing a great, verdant sense of growth to the land. In the dips and valleys, trees huddled and blossomed in thick walls of oak, yew, and ash. He could see settlements beyond, nested in those valleys and boughs — little villages of the hardy, earthy folk of the Heartlands — people unlike his home far to the south. Here, deep in the core of the country they were far from the sheltering arms of the Abbey and the easy reach of Lachheim's patrols. They were a hardier, cagier sort. The land reflected that, its people and their place in it. It was beautiful, it was dangerous. It dared one to try.

"Marvelous." he breathed. For a moment, the darkness swirled from his mind — wonder took its place, bright and hopeful.

The jagged spire rose above him as he turned his horse up its shallow overgrown grade, the thick loam softening its hoofbeats to a gentle rustle as the steely destrier made no complaints of the incline. The smoke was wafting from the top of it, where its overhanging tip formed a long, lazy shadow across the midday valley. The smell of cooking meat stirred the senses, wafting down on the breeze to Bart and causing his stomach to pang gently. Hunger twisted in him, and he blinked away an intrusive memory of the Wendigo's hideous feast — a constant presence since the fell thing revealed itself to him. He had seen it now and again, flitting at the edges of his vision. Hovering over others, and leering its skull-faced emptiness at him over meals and in the reflection of water. Only a moment's glimpse each time, a scant flickering impression that even now — he questioned if it was the creature's true presence or the lingering madness of his feverish recovery.

"Ho, the campfire!" Bart called as he approached — better to be polite than not in the wilds. A rustle came from the grassy knoll, atop it was perched a lonely stand of scrubby trees, defiantly clinging to the blanket of soil atop the jagged tor. Over the edge of the green horizon poked a head, a young face peered down at him from beneath a hood. Dark eyes and bare features seemed to widen with recognition as the figure pulled back its hood to reveal a scarred, pale visage that Bart remembered from before.

"Pappy, it's the Ser from the road!"

Another figure rose to look as well as Bart continued to approach, dark armor and severe features overshadowed the tiny female figure, and another hood drew back from sharp cheekbones and piercing gray eyes.

"Ah, Bartholomus! I had feared the worst!"

Parias.

Bart's mount slowed its canter to a walk as he came upon their campsite, the two having put together a fire in a clearly common site for the surrounding locals, the grass long-retreated from the packed, sandy circle of stones beneath the stand of trees. Their cookfire burned mildly, small and contained — over it a leg of some sort hung on a spit of sticks, crisping and crackling but otherwise unrecognizable as any particular animal. The smell struck Bart anew, his mouth watering a bit as he reigned his mount aside the sellsword and his ward.

"Hail, Parias," Bart said in a somewhat stiff tone, the brawny mercenary raising his eyebrows as he propped his hands on his hips.

"Some greeting, I had given you up for dead with the rest of the defenders," he replied, his voice that gravel-filled baritone, and yet there was a distinct note of relief in it as he looked to the southern horizon, pulling Bart's gaze along reflexively with it — the massive columns of smoke that marked the burning city impossible to miss by any means from the spire's elevation.

"It was a near thing, but I and the Order Redoubt remain standing," Bart confirmed, hesitation creeping up in him as the little girl bounced.

"Come, sit! Pappy was just preparing supper!" she coaxed him, her dark hair and eyes still a sharp contrast to her milk-white skin, but her tone was mellifluous and youthful — it urged him to stay. His gut twisted in an audible gurgle, which got her sellsword guardian to raise an eyebrow.

"Your gut seems to agree. Come, we've got room by the fire, and meat to spare in exchange for news." he offered in a mild, friendly tone. "We were gone from the city well before the first fires were visible."

Bart hesitated again, an unsure feeling warring with the desire for a simple chance to sit somewhere that wasn't a saddle. Unarmored, he felt vulnerable. His axe hung from his saddle — but Parias was similarly bereft of his weapons, the Knight-Brother seeing the wicked curved blade in its scabbard against a far tree along with packs and supplies.

"I can spare some time, I did come bearing warnings." Bart agreed after a heavy consideration, swinging down from his saddle, landing some paces away from the mercenary and his ward.

"Well, if you came to warn us Lachheim is burning, I fear you're stating the obvious." the gray-eyed man said with a deadpan sort of smile, Bart and he eye to eye as they stood — the Church Knight realizing he had not truly stood adjacent to the man before. Even without his armor, Bart was a big man, and rare was the instance he met someone able to both look him in the eyes and match him in bulk — yet Parias did so, the two men standing off a moment as the gray eyes flicked over him, an eyebrow raising in question. "You wear the colors, but not armor boy?"

"I was… injured, in the fighting. I am in recovery still," he said, rolling his shoulders some for effect, warding off the stiffness of the long ride. "The armor tasks my wounds yet." Parias' eyes narrowed a bit, flicking back towards the road.

"Dangerous for you to be alone as such, is it not?"

"My faith protects me."

Parias nodded his head with a silent 'ah', gesturing to the campfire as Ishtar took his horse's reigns, tying it up to the nearby tree over a grassy area, where the brawny beast began to idly graze for tender shoots. Bart sat across from them as Parias set back to turning the shank of meat across the fire, the fat and flesh sizzled and crisped with small leaps and cracks of the coals beneath it as drippings fell onto it. Bart swallowed heavily but cleared his throat nonetheless.

"Lachheim does burn, clearly — yet the reason why remains a danger." he began, lacing his fingers and leaning onto his up-tucked knees. "The Empty Queen has returned to Northsea. She assaults the Heartlands, Lachheim is likely already fallen — God help those good souls."

Parias' eyebrows went up, and Ishtar covered her mouth with her hands, shock on her doll-like features.

"Oh Ser Knight that's horrible, all those families, the children…" the girl gasped, drawing Bart's attention as her guardian stayed silent, sprinkling some mixture of spices upon the meat as he turned it. The girl he realized — was much, much older than he'd first guessed. Rather than barely being out of the rosy blush of childhood, in better light and lighter clothing, he realized the tiny, thin girl was easily closer to Lidia's age. Her body was lean as a yew sapling, and she practically had no breasts nor hips to speak of, but her eyes and face showed as she spoke that she was far more mature than her ravaged body let on. She wore a riding cloak, but the gloves and heavier clothes he'd first seen her in were gone, instead she wore a sort of long, thin dress belted at the waist and open at the neck, her hands similarly to her mouth were covered in scars — the familiar cuts of blades, wounds suffered in defense… or in battle. Bart had many such himself.

"Such is the cost of war," Parias said grimly, his own eyes level. Stoic. Bart knew little of the man, but the turn of his lips and deadpan set of his gaze were now familiar to the Church Knight: he saw them in the mirror more often than not.

"Yes, it is what I was here to warn you of. We presumed this fire to be one of the shepherds here in the middlelands, we've been passing word of the Queen's ravening forces as we travel." Bart said, meeting Ishtar's gaze again, "They are unlikely to be content with just Lachheim, and the northern reaches between here and Fort Ivory are largely isolated, undefended."

"Do you think they'll make it this far north?" she asked, fear glimmering in her nearly-black eyes. Bart drew in a breath, his mustache bristling over his lips as they pressed together in a neat line.

"It is all but certain — and these 'Ghuls' of hers move with animalistic speed beneath the bowls of the earth."

The girl's teeth caught her lower lip, and she turned to Parias who had adopted a similarly grave expression, eyes distant — locked firmly on the burning city, but he raised a hand and gently patted her leg while still turning the spit. There was something… off about the whole thing to Bart, the way she scooted close to him, the way he stared at the fires. The gleam in his eyes was intense, yet the accompanying expression was unreadable. Bart felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise, and his lack of armor suddenly felt quite like being naked.

"It's good you escaped, Bartholomus. You would do nobody any good dead too early." Parias spoke suddenly in that droning, distant voice of someone deep in thought. Bart jutted up a single eyebrow at that.

"Too early?" he challenged, Ishtar looked up suddenly and then she smiled wide,

"Too early for your pilgrimage, you are still off to meet the Lady of White, yes?" she explained, Bart's eyes tearing slowly from Parias' stolid stare.

"The Lady in White, but yes. I make as much haste to her as I can, my wounds have slowed us greatly," he explained, unconsciously touching his chest.

"You seem whole, perhaps it was your mettle that was cracked more than bones." Parias said roughly, his eyes finally turning, that cold gleam in them; "The gentle, passing kiss of the grave unmakes many doughty warriors. The limits of mortality."

"Their strength sharp, straight… but brittle, like glass." Bart recited absently, and there seemed to be a twitch of recognition in Parias' face, a subtle tilt of his chin as Bart continued; "An adage of ours, for warriors who never know loss — until it breaks them… no, I don't fear death. It is something else." Bart said, and Ishtar leaned forward, pressing.

"You said your armor taxes you, Ser Knight, but you are still so large and burly — big as Pappy!" she said, concern in her voice; "Did they… take something, from you in the hurts?" she asked, eyes flicking over him as if to seek out a missing limb or member. She wrung her scarred fingers together — and before he could object, she reached across the middle distance, and seized his bare hand. Bart felt a tingling twist in his guts, a primal urge to tear his hand away from those tiny, scarred fingers. Her eyes met his and Bart felt… oddly compelled to speak to her. Those dark eyes questing in his gaze for something. He couldn't look away from her as that prickling sensation started again, a chill ran through him as it had when he'd glimpsed the yawning skull lunging at him from the darkness of the grave.

"I… I was dead, actually." Bart admitted suddenly, coming out of him in a gush of words and a shudder, his free hand curled into a fist over the scar in his breast, wrinkling the Eye-and-Horn on his chest. He told her then, feeling as if the words were being pulled from him like a knotted rope, pouring and coming out in fits and starts — yanked free from him by the too-cold grip of her fingers. They were strangely strong, uncomfortably tenacious. Cold sweat formed on his brow as he recounted the fight with Humbaba, and the impaling wound that had felled him — and the crippling weakness that had tasked him. He told it all.

"I came back… wrong." He said, holding up a hand, the faintest of the tremors he'd struggled with since then shaking it as the stress mounted. "Something inside me, something clawing at me. I cannot trust my strength, it simply… leaves me." He said, avoiding the taint of the Wendigo… he had already spoken too much, his eyes searching the air before him with rapid flicking… he had said so much, unbidden. His head felt foggy as Ishtar's fingers tightened and she slid closer to him.

"Do you remember what it was like, on the other side?" she asked. Eyes too intense, her tongue moistened her lips in a quick swipe of pink on pink. "Was it cold? Was it dark?"

Bart leaned away from her, the intensity and intimacy of the question setting a kink in his guts, Parias' hand raised and grasped her about the arm pulling her back to him. Her hands slid away from Bart's, and a breath left him he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Now, Ishtar. That's an uncomfortable question to ask a man," Parias chided her, meeting Bart's eyes again. The encounter had taken a decidedly uneasy turn as Parias took a thick-bladed knife from his hip, prodding the turning meat. "Few are the warriors that haven't come close to the grave, at least once, truly the best among us ride that edge as close as they dare."

Bart nodded, raising a hand to his head. He was dazed, foggy, and felt the oncoming flutter in his chest that often heralded a fit, Parias turned that steely gaze on him, having sliced a piece of meat from the shank to test its flavor.

"I know the thing you saw in the dark," he stated plainly. Bart blinked through the fog, focusing on the dark-armored sellsword like a bloodhound.

"How?" he asked — nay, demanded. Parias raised an eyebrow.

"I have fought in many places, many battlegrounds. Reikstand isn't the only place that calls out for soldiers of free birth. The battleground draws many… dark, things to it. Little understood, ancient beings. Older than our petty little sandcastles we call cities and civilization. It's no surprise, considering what else you described." he raised that gobbet of meat to his teeth, tearing it free from the knife. Bart felt his mouth water again, pairing grossly with the queasy swirl of his guts. Parias' gaze was level, sober.

"It's called Wendigo."

Like someone tolling a bell — Bart felt his entire view of reality shift, the fog in his head became a dull roar, and he wavered slightly, forced to catch himself as Parias looked into him. The light around him flickered, though neither of the others reacted to it, the older man carving another hunk of meat off and passing it to Ishtar — who ferociously tucked into it, gnawing and worrying at the dripping meat despite its steaming heat. The sound of her eating was loud in his ears, chewing. Chomping. Feasting.

"It's very old, some kind of pagan entity. Something that's been with us as long as hunting, killing, fighting, or fucking has. It's a powerful creature — beyond that of any of our petty rulers or their pawns." he said, curling his lips in a thoughtful frown full of disgust — whether it was directed at the Wendigo or the 'petty rulers' was impossible to say.

"How do you know this?" Bart asked, dazed and weak — he struggled to hold off the seizure that was trying to claim him. Parias raised his knife, watching the oils and grease running down the blade like blood.

"I've seen it," he said, running his thumb along the blade, before slowly, carefully sucking the juices free, those thin lips wrapping almost sensually around his thumb as he did. "Once, a very long time ago. Here in these lands, back in the Gray Plagues."

"You fought in the Purges?" Bart rasped, surprise warring with effort as he felt something press in around him. His hackles rose again as Parias nodded. Ishtar tore at her meat savagely.

"As you said — these lands are vastly undefended, and there were more than a few sellswords alongside your doughty Order. There were as many conventional battles as there were contests of men of power," he said, and Bart felt the pressure mounting, almost painful — like the air itself grew too heavy. His head began to pulse, and his eyes widened… as the air behind Parias split.

"I saw it here, over the battlefield as the Radiant Order cut into the heart of one of the cultist sects, it rose up over them like a specter." He described, Bart's face going pale as a great shadow rose up over the man, covering the campsite, daring to strangle even the light of the sun in its lengthening darkness.

"It was a thing of beyond, my mind could not truly grasp what I saw… but I remember the darkness in its eyes. A skull like a deer turned predator." he continued, cutting at the meat again, and that sweeping curtain of reality once again was drawn aside, and out of it loomed that impossible skull. Black flesh and tarry ichor pulsed and poured down it as it leaned out of that slash in midair like an actor might the curtain of a stage.

"It wore the darkness above it like a cloak, and within it swirled teeth, so many teeth." the sellsword continued in a haunted tone, and as he did it, the white flecks within the rent torn in reality blinked into existence, the atrocity drawing that slit in reality around it like a mantle, a stole of rule — and within it were a million gnashing teeth. Human. Animal. Other… things, he could not recognize. Nothing but teeth. Ishtar's tiny mouth tore hungrily at her meal. Chomping. Biting. Worrying.

"It swept its hand over the Church Knights, and it was like night had fallen over the area, and out from its long shadow… monsters came clawing out, hungry, slavering things — these 'Ghuls' as you called them," he said, and looked back up to Bart, and blinked multiple times as he saw the Knight-Brother's ashen pale face and horrified expression. Beyond him, the Wendigo tilted its head at him, raising one of those four, horrible, many-jointed limbs to its impossible skeletal maw. It shushed him silently — and Bart found no words could exit his throat.

"Boy, are you well?" he asked, and the darkness extended over him, its ichor dripped and sloughed over him — and yet the sellsword reacted not one iota. The gory slick of fluid dripped across them, onto the meat as Ishtar wolfed down her final portion, seemingly unknowingly sucking the rot and filth from her fingers as it stood above them. They couldn't see it. They had no idea. Bart clenched his teeth, his heart hammered at his sternum and he felt the same piercing, impossible pain fill his head as its voice echoed there like the ringing of a cracked, corroded bell.

COME BARTHOLOMUS — KNOW ME. KNOW MINE WORKS. I AM WITHIN THEE, I AM WITHIN ALL.

Bart flinched back from the sensation as it raised its hands over the two, the strange, hungry looks in their eyes seemed to intensify, both eyeing the meat on the spit a moment before turning their concerned gazes on the Knight-Brother as he pushed away from the fire. its smaller, skeletal fingers caressed each of the two, and Bart wanted to shout for it to unhand them, its gory black touch leaving streaks across Ishtar's doll-like face — but he had no voice, no strength.

"BOY!" Parias shouted… and just like that, it was gone. So was the darkness, the black, tarry stain. All of it. Simply gone. Bart found his breath in a gasp, and fell backward onto the grass — puffing like a bellows, shaking in the wake of a fit, a seizure… it hadn't been a dream, it hadn't been mere loss of blood or flesh. It was real. It was here. It followed him.

"You well, boy?" Parias asked, Bart blinked up from the ground, the grizzled mercenary was crouched over him, Ishtar on the other side of him, her dark eyes wide and unreadable. Bart felt the cold chill leaving him, and his fingers clenched in the grass, digging little furrows as he nodded curtly, dragging himself back upright.

"A fit… I am well. They are getting easier to endure, but it is still taxing." he gasped, leaning heavily on his upthrust knee, shaking his head to clear it. There was no sign of the monster, but he could feel it — like eyes on his back. It was here, in some way. Watching him.

A little, scarred hand caught his again. Bart's heart froze.

"Would you like something to eat, Ser Knight?" came Ishtar's reedy voice. There was a raggedness to its tones as she spoke that suggested her throat may be as ravaged as her scar-laced lips, turning her sweet tone sour like curdling milk. A primal need seized him on that guttural phrase, Bart's meals of late plagued by an incessant hunger that he could not sate — hunger, that now rose in him as Parias settled back by the haunch of meat. His bag of seasoning hand again. The smell drew Bart's attention, mysterious, sweet, and gamey.

"That isn't pork, is it," Bart stated in a dull voice, Ishtar's hand pulling him closer to the fire as Parias snorted a laugh through his nose, his teeth gleaming over the fire.

"How quaint, you remembered. Nay a haunch of lamb from the shepherds you presumed us to be." he stated, shaking the bag — its contents had a spicy, syrupy smell to them that whetted Bart's palate anew, "Spices are a personal touch though, one does spend one's pay on the finer things."

"Come, you need your strength, Ser Knight." Ishtar's voice wheedled, and she pulled him forward, Bart finding his seat by the fire again. That touch lingered past friendly and bordered on solicitous as she drew her hands up his arm, Bart felt famished — but more than anything, he was averse to the continued contact — the way her fingers seemed to feel at his pulse was suddenly hideous, causing his skin to crawl as the chill violation of the Wendigo's presence lingered, tainting any kind of comfort with an aftertaste of rot. Pulling his arm away, he found his feet in a light stumble, raising a hand to clear his head.

"More than enough for three, even with Ishtar's ravenous appetite." Parias offered, and the sizzling cut of meat drew Bart's attention again — yet his stomach curdled at the thought. The delicious scent suddenly nauseating as he remembered the rotten black resin drooling across it, fetid and viscous. Remembered it flowing out like poison between Ishtar's teeth as she had unknowingly devoured it. The crisping haunch tugged at his empty belly but his instincts screamed that he should not touch that meat. It was wrong somehow, tainted. Forbidden. He could not bring himself to voice his concerns, they were the flop-sweat madness of a cornered animal, an illusion by this monster doubtlessly called by his infested soul and mention of its name. Names had power, even those we gave to others. Parias wasn't someone he particularly liked but he felt responsible to draw this fell thing away from the pair nevertheless — personal qualms were a poor reason to visit misfortune upon another.

"N-no, I should report back to my comrades, Naima will want to know of the fit and I am likely to take an earful for such an exertion in any case," he said, steadying himself and standing up straight. Parias' eyebrows raised in acknowledgment as he sawed into the haunch again.

"Northwest of here." he said as Bart stood; his eyes moving a moment to catch the Knight-Brother's gaze before focusing again on its butchery; "There's a settlement, same one I bedded down in during the purges. If you want to know more of Old Rawhead, ask there," he said, sucking air between his teeth.

"These were his lands, during the Black March. They know him here."

Those words froze Bart in his tracks as the pair dug back into the meal, and beyond them, he saw that skull-faced form looming in the shadow of the trees, its bare, bleached face simply gliding forward from a patch of darkness like a face emerging from a deep hood. It spoke not, but the bony grin seemed to mock him as it faded back into the inky darkness. The toothy, inhuman smile was the last to fade.

"I'll… bear that in mind. Take care, Parias." Bart said stiffly, remounting his horse. "The Queen's forces don't wage war as men do," he said, settling himself into the saddle and patting the black stallion's neck. The animal was nonplussed, only lending credence to the idea the fearful display had been only in Bart's mind.

"It's another day for me, boy. I'll see you up ahead," he said with an inscrutable half-smile, tearing into his cut of meat again as Bart turned down the path towards the road, perhaps at a bit more of a hurried canter than he had been at before.

The shadows lengthened, and they no longer felt empty.

~ ~ ~

Bart, you're pale as milk!" Naima's voice was the first to sound as the tall man rejoined the caravan some ways past the overgrown spire, the campfire's trailing smoke well behind them, Bart smiled in spite of his clearly haggard appearance.

“I had a mild fit, made me a bit breathless in the saddle is all," he said dismissively, the small woman nonetheless beckoning him over to feel his clammy cheek with the back of her hand as she handed the carthorse's reigns off to a wild-eyed Lidia, busying the little thief with guiding the vehicle rather than meddling.

“Chilled like the grave, a mild fit indeed," she said, turning him to pluck at his white surcoat — where it was not-so-white anymore with scuffs of green. Grass stains. She really did not miss very much at all.

“… I may have fallen, a little. I'm fine, really!" he said in earnest as Naima clicked her tongue at him disapprovingly. The caravan passed beneath one of the tall spires adjacent to the one he'd met Parias upon, its broken-off tip casting a stark shadow over the fork the fallen end had put in the road. In that briefest moment of darkness, Bart saw peering up from him in the crux of the crossroads stone that naked, grinning skull — leering down at him from the darkness of the overhang, like peering between two floorboards. He blinked momentarily, and it was gone. Naima's brow furrowed further. There was a pause, almost as if a foul smell had passed her by, before she turned those concerned amber eyes on him once more, her tone quiet but emphatic:

“Bart, you are still mending body and soul, we don't have much in the way of knowledge on those returned from the edge of death like you. It is… not a practice we oft find ourselves in need of," she said, her lower lip tucking gently, a quiet sadness to the iron-blooded woman's face.

“I know, I know. Neither you nor Lidia will allow me to forget!" Bart grated at her wryly, but he smiled as he did so, leaning heavily on his saddlebow as Naima touched her knuckles to his brow again clinically.

“I wish you wouldn't be so cavalier about it. It is no small thing to return from the dead, Bart."

“It is sort of my entire job to be cavalier about that sort of thing, Naima."

The healer sighed, her eyes rolling skyward a moment before she playfully shoved his face away from her, earning an earnest little grin from the haggard Knight-Brother and taking the reins back from Lidia.

“If you are to be so brash about it then understand the weight of the thing that has happened to you," she said, and there was a hint of that instructive tone about her as when she gave Lidia her lessons in letters and penmanship. Bart sighed, but the little thief perked up. Lidia loved a good story.

“I think I can grasp the weight of being dead. It happened to me." Bart answered laconically getting a sigh in return, Naima's hands wringing on the reins a bit — clearly, she needed something to occupy her hands.

“I appreciate your valiant heart, Bart, genuinely — but what I did to you is something of a taboo. It is a boundary not to be violated easily, why do you think it cost me so?" she asked, that slight undercurrent of sorrow touching her words again.

“I am supposed to preserve life, not undo death. Such a thing cannot be borne lightly, people must die. People must become comfortable with dying, in as much as they can. To break that cycle is to risk unraveling it all to nothing. As a healer, the fact I know how to do such is taught as a remedy to mine own efforts seeking it out in panic or worse — grief."

Bart nodded absently, his thoughts drifting to his… death. To how it had felt comfortable, welcoming. Until… until the Wendigo appeared.

“Why engage in such a taboo for my sake?" Bart asked — the inevitable question, Naima nodded with expectation and gave him a smile that took much of the sadness from her eyes.

“I cannot properly explain it — long have I been in service of The Learned One, and her way of seeing things is instilled into you at such proximity. You learn to see the patterns of patterns, a triage of sorts," she said and looked at Bart and gave a very simple, almost dismissive shrug.

“You were not supposed to die yet. Of that I was — and am still — certain. At that moment I knew I had to give whatever I had to save you, there was simply no way that someone who had willfully, joyously even, given as much as you had that night would not do greater things with more time." she said, and her eyes grew hard.

“Bart, I have seen many bright young men die beneath my hands and instruments, I am not some bright-eyed young chirurgeon out to prove herself. I am seasoned, I am aware of my place in the world. Such certainty does not come to me easily or lightly."

The Knight-Brother closed his mouth at that, taking his eyes away from her, lips pressed into a hard line as he considered that. Shame filled him, no…. Shame was just the mask it wore. Doubt had come calling once again. Doubt of his strength, doubt of his convictions. Doubt even now of his sanity, Parias' words came to his mind as he saw another pale flicker in a passing shadow. Had it been the Wendigo taunting him yet again, or a simple ripple of light and shade? Naima's mouth turned into a smile — a soft, motherly one, drawing his eyes back.

“That… is what I will tell the College of Alchemists when I am held to account for the taboo I violated." she continued, and reached a hand over to touch Bart's cheek again — this time her touch was not clinical or seeking, but reassuring. He did not rankle at it as he had Ishtar's unsolicited grasp.

“I can see it in your eyes, Bart. You are not so hard to read, you wear your heart over your armor. You ask: 'Why me?' you ask 'What did I do to deserve such sacrifice'." she stated, and Bart blinked, his eyes a bit haunted.

“Yes… I was mired in worries of worth." Bart admitted, and she smiled at him, a rueful edge to it as she stroked his cheek.

“I know. You have the same face as many survivors, it is normal. Even in your extraordinary circumstances, there is a symmetry to it. A comfort to see it on the faces of the valiant and the humble alike."

“I knew I was simple but I held out hope I was at least a trifle original." Bart groused and the healer laughed, pulling him closer and leaning over the edge of the cart to kiss the top of his head.

“None of us are, Bart. Not in that way. Besides, it leads me to my very real, selfish, and basic reason I gave up ten years of my life for you." she said, and turned his head forwards with hers, to the end of the caravan, where Nazir headed their line — telling an exuberant story to Salim and his fellows.

“You protected my brother, saved him even no less than twice with no thought to your own welfare. He is half of me, my ever-present shadow, and I am his. For that alone, ten years, a hundred and ten years — I would give it all for the man who saved him." she said and smiled; “A fair trade."

“Ever the merchant." Bart sighed at her, and she smiled and kissed the top of his head again.

“I knew you'd understand." she chuckled, leaning back into the cart, gathering the reins as they both watched Nazir's charismatic performance from afar.

“He's too good for this world, I couldn't bear to be responsible for his death," Bart said plainly, Naima's smile was warm and familiar.

“He is a bright spot in my often grim life, yours now as well." Naima agreed, “He is an interlocking series of imperfections and traits that drive me mad but for my love for him, but he has a heart that is stainless." she said.

“Does he often thrust himself into adventure like this?" “Always. Wherever I go, there he is turning over rocks for gallantry and tales."

Bart smiled at that, his eyes caught Lidia's and she was beaming along with him. He saw the winsome ache in her eyes as well. The pain of being an only child. Naima sighed, her edge gone as they all seemed to relax in the shared warmth.

“That irritating popinjay is my best friend in the world and you saved him, for that he made you family," she said to Bart, leaning forward with her face in her palms, the reins tucked under her chin. “That he sees you as a brother is reason enough for me to as well," she said, a curious tone of finality to her words.

Bart didn't have anything to say to that which his smile in response couldn't add. The chill had ebbed from him, but not left. No, even now he was tasked with the knowledge. The presence. Lidia's eyes gleamed from the cart.

“Oy, Hayseed. Who was it up on the rock?" she asked curiously, Bart's head coming up with wide eyes. His mind briefly vomited violent, intrusive images of the bone-faced monstrosity, the gushing black rot, and the winnowing of reality. An instant of madness that drew a surprised blink from him as it did.

“Fellow travelers, going eastwards now," he lied glibly, Parias… did not sit well with him, but he did not wish to entangle the man further with his life. Better to simply put him from his mind, and away from others.

“Ye warned 'em o' the ravenin' beasties then?" Lidia asked and Bart nodded, jerking his chin forwards.

“Yes, they mentioned a settlement to the northeast here past the fork," Bart said, deducing the only road out towards where Parias had pointed atop the crag; “They are undefended and exposed, having been made aware — my Lady would chastise me for leaving them unwarned, even for her sake," he said and furrowed his brow. “There was mention that this place was once in the grasp of The Wendigo, and they were well-acquainted with such monsters of the Queen."

Naima's eyes lit up at that, turning her head to him with a renewed intensity: “Whatever would bring such a topic to mind?" she said, her wits ever sharper than his. Bart made a face.

“Mention of the queen brought up the Purges," he said, shrugging his shoulders. “A first-hand account of the Wendigo manifesting, they described many of the creatures we've seen and the way it corrupts men with its hungers," he said — hiding his discomfort for the falsehood in the discomfort of the memories. Naima nodded, her eyes narrowing at a distant point.

“It tracks well enough to my knowledge of the creature, it and its fellow nightmares are as to the Empty Queen as our Triune is to The White God." Naima said in a considering tone, “It makes sense it would control territory and build a Throne as they did." Lidia's frame perked up at that as they veered towards the far fork, leaning over to the pair.

“Ye mentioned 'em in passin' before, but what do ye mean same as the Holy Ones?" she asked, Naima's eyes switching between the two.

“Yes I suppose you have not spent as much in the theology of things at yet in your training," she said to Bart, who shook his head humbly.

“No, we reserve the debates of higher philosophy for after we meet with the Lady." Bart said, turning his eyes to meet Lidia's questioning gaze; “Even if we are not chosen, she treats with all who earn the right to seek her blessing in the first place. It changes them all, you can see it in a man's eyes when he has conversed with the Lady." Bart explained, remembering the eternal warmth that always seemed to permeate those who had met her.

“The presence of The Divine," Rashid's deep bass rumbled, his patrol had brought him back closer to the group as they closed on the fork — one side carrying on as they had been, the other going eastward, beckoning Bart into the shady mysteries of the valley. The Akali's eyes gleamed with a knowing Bart recognized — that inner warmth.

“To be in it changes you. It changes how you see time. Space. Life." the big man rumbled with a nod, turning his gaze from Bart to Lidia; “Even those who do not bear a mantle seen a realignment of ideals after time in the presence of the True Divine."

“Truly, it affirms you in many unexpected ways," Naima spoke, also with that saidsame inner fire — both southerners had basked in the presence of their culture's central figure, The Learned One — and both spoke with the intractable authority of experience.

“ 'Parently so," Lidia remarked dryly, folding her arms over the edge of the cart and catching a ghost of a grin from Rashid as he continued on past in his circuit, moving to the head of the two-cart convoy where Nazir's story carried on to laughter and jest.

“It's a fair reason to delay discussing the higher mysteries." Naima agreed, Lidia snorted, tossing a sidelong glance at her friend and mentor.

“Also explains why ye both seem twenty summers too old."

Bart chuckled quietly as Naima gave the young thief a narrow look before continuing on, “Nevertheless, the Empty Queen's champions number three — the forces our own Triune arose to counteract. We know their names and titles, but only one of them chooses to embody itself in flesh willingly."

“Guessin' it isn't this beastie else we'd be seein' a lot o' it," Lidia said, leaning over the back of the bench seat lazily, her body almost a liquid when she found a place she was comfortable, like a cat she was.

“No, the Wendigo and the Bird of Madness to all our knowledge remain agents of the Astral, like my Sikha is here." she said, fondly jingling the bracelet on her left wrist, “Riding a willing host or token as a foothold."

Riding them. Bart shuddered at the description, and he did not need to turn his head to feel the specter of the skull-faced, slavering monster looming over him from a nearby shadow. Be it only for his eyes or not, being ridden was an apt descriptor for this creeping presence. His resolve hardened as Naima continued.

“Leviathan, however, has a flesh-vessel like our Holy Ones do. It is Gigas' eternal opponent. It is a creature of base, atavistic violence. The cold, hungry predation of the abyssal ocean. It is in every way Gigas' opposite — where he is savage and true, it is mindless and hateful." she said — a chill in her voice. A chill Bart recognized very intimately now.

“You speak as if you have seen it," he said, his voice quiet, reining his horse closer to her by the cart. Naima's face was distant, but she shook her head.

“No… not like I have The Learned One, not as you will The Lady. No. I saw it, as one does a nightmare. Distant and hazy." she said, and there was a cold in the air as if the creature's name had invoked its presence. Bart knew now that to be possible.

“Some nights in Khorrit, when the skies are clear and the Sea of Glass is calm, you can see the great reflection of the Twin Maiden Moons across its vast surface — it's how it got its name after all," she said with a little smile at humanity's love of literal names.

“The elder sister's reflection was visible from my room as a girl, and once on one of those clear nights, I looked out across the sea towards the Ossuary of Man… and I saw something break that glimmering reflection." she all but whispered. Her eyes grew wide, pupils dilating and her voice drew in a note of panic.

“It was too large to be real, the wake seeming illusory and dreamlike at such a distance — like watching a boat in the bay, yet this was leagues upon leagues away, so massive, so impossibly, inescapably huge." she said, and her voice was that of a child, “It cruised through the moonlight so far away that it cut across the horizon's edge in that glowing reflection, and the whole time I could not look away — it was as if the sight and shape of it pulled the breath from me, drew the warmth from my limbs. The crushing depths of the ocean, the coldness of void, it pulled at me, and for a moment — I saw it crest the surface a veritable march's distance away, yet so big as to be almost ponderous in its movement through the air." she said and her pupils dilated once more as she was simply there, seeing the shape again — fresh and unfaded, burned into her memory.

“I remember teeth and little else. It had a scaled, serpentine tail and carapace-clad thorax of impossible size — almost crablike — but I remember even far away from it… it had so many teeth." she hugged herself with a shudder. Closing her eyes she took a breath before continuing.

“I only saw it a moment, from a distance so far as to be as nothing to it, a speck… but in that moment. It saw me. That feeling of cold, The crushing weight — a moment's attention from this monster before it vanished down beneath the sea." she said, and silence reigned in the conclusion of her story. Bart understood that, and much the same understood more of his own situation.

“So you think there any credence to it then? The Wendigo come calling back to its old territory?" Bart pressed, Naima, shaking herself from the vivid memories. Bart knew how that felt now, the sight he'd had of the Wendigo in his dream, and again above on the rise — they had yet to fade in clarity nor freshness, written indelibly on his mind. It seemed memories of the Astral were theirs to keep, in both wonder and horror equally.

“It tracks, as I said." she reasserted with a shudder, meeting Bart's gaze with a raised eyebrow, “If you intend to make a play for the lands — why not send their old oppressor?" she asked, and Bart grunted his agreement. It was pragmatic enough, and the leering presence in his wake confirmed it.

“It has likely been here — or upon the back of a ridden host — since the first fires of this invasion."

That sentence hit Bart like a thunderstroke, and the darkness around him seemed to cackle dryly as he put the idea through its paces. Had he done this? Had he been the stormcrow of all this suffering? Ridden, as she had said, unknowing and heedless of the corruption he sowed in his wake? The thought twisted him around inside — and in his saddle, looking back at the columns of smoke behind them. He stared at that dark plume, and the misty shadow of the Ossuary behind it, framed in horrible poetry by the flames of civilization as it burned. Had he burned this city with his naive heroism? The shadows offered him naught but that mocking sense of smugness.

“Bart?" Lidia asked, Naima's brow furrowing in concern as he turned back, scrubbing a hand across his face.

“It is nothing, just… the thought of someone carrying such a thing upon themselves, like a plague leeching into the others… it drew my mind back," he said, closing his eyes pointedly. Naima nodded and Lidia reached out a hand, he felt her tiny fingers on his shoulder and he sighed.

“If this creature is out and about I would take the traveler's heed, and venture to the villages to the west. I would seek out what there is to know of this 'Old Rawhead' and its habits, perhaps there is a secret to the creature's undoing to be had."

Naima and Lidia nodded — the latter perking up visible in fact; “A stopover for stories ye say?" she inquired, and Bart nodded, gathering his reins a bit.

“A stopover for stories — forewarned is forearmed," Bart said and spurred his horse ahead towards where Nazir and the others led the convoy, guiding them towards the western fork coming up upon them in the road.

The left-hand path beckoned them quietly.

~ ~ ~

Bart and Nazir lead the party down into the shadowy valley. The lush, green ravine was comfortably cool, ensconced in between a multitude of the stony spears that jutted so sternly from the ground. They were even more overgrown here in the depths of the cool grassy hills, vines, and trees climbing their shale-like surfaces. Fires puffed smoke into the distance, the greasy black of homestead fireplaces. From the cart, Lidia's head peeked up as she watched the shadow of one of the spires cross her face where she lay, reclining across the roof as Naima drove it on.

“Oy, Hayseed," she said, getting Bart's attention as he looked back at her, “Ye ne'er got around tae tellin' me about these big fook-off rocky spikes," she said, and Bart made a face of consternation,

“You're right, we got sidetracked by other topics. Truth be told, none in my studies really know how they got here," he said, Nazir raising a brow as he fell back midway between the dandy's white palfrey and the cart.

“Surely they cannae jus' 'ave sprung up out o' the ether," she said, rolling over to hang cat-like over the edge of the cart as it rocked, Naima turned her gaze up to Bart again — clearly intent to grade his knowledge once more. No pressure.

“No, no," Bart said, shaking his head. “They are the remains of the tip of Crownspeak." He said, pointing across the horizon — even here in the dipping elevation of the cool, misty valleys they could see the jagged, tiara-like expanse of the massive mountain at the center of the northern range — dead in the middle of the Sidhewood.

“Oh, nae wonder there's so many of them." the little thief said somewhat dumbly, and Bart laughed.

“Yes, turns out there's a great deal of stone in a mountain. However reports of the earliest days of the Verdant Crusades are apocryphal at best, pure legend at worst — none can really decide what precisely caused it, but it was a great expenditure of power."

“Some say God himself tore the tip free of the mountain, and in a fit of pique, hurled it onto the Queen's forces here in the Middlelands — like a great, big handful of stones!" Nazir added, his expression intense as he as well, dropped back to Naima's cart.

“God, was it?" the Alchemist gently chided her brother, who grinned wider.

“Stories are my specialty, but as Brother Bart said — much of it has fallen to legend. I like to think that it was God, though." he mused, stroking his well-manicured mustache; “There's a comfort in the idea of him leveling the field for us."

“He did, dear brother." Naima said sweetly, “He sent the Lady and her siblings to us, and gave us his power directly." she said, stroking the golden bracelet on her left wrist absently.

“True, true — but that's hardly as dramatic as a divine handful of sand in the queen's eye, isn't it?"

Naima merely chuckled, Bart picking up the thread for Lidia as they passed under another spire — its shadows mercifully empty, the Wendigo's presence deciding to leave him be for the time, “We do know that they fell upon the forces of Queen and Man alike as if it were stony rain, the prevailing theory I was taught was that the Queen herself, reach long in the wake of the Black March — clashed with the nascent Lady in White, and their dueling powers tore the very land around them asunder."

“A theory I was taught as well." Naima said approvingly, turning her gaze back towards Lidia's supine form; “The Triune was much stronger during the Crusades, their powers untapped and raw. The strength of the Lady on the day of her birth was like unto a True Goddess itself — it very well may have happened as such."

“What happened tae that power?" she asked, and Nazir piped up, spreading his arms around him.

“They give it to us! To the land, the trees, the animals, and the soul of all things born under the golden sun and twin maiden moons!" he crowed, grinning, turning in his saddle to her; “They pour their might, wisdom, and love into the earth to save it from the Empty Queen's hunger."

“What he means, is that the Queen sups from the very heart of Tor-Laraan, of our world." Naima clarified for her brother's pomp; “She would drink it dry, were it not for what the Triune pours back into the lands of their own power. It costs them much, limits their strength — but it staves off the Queen, pushes back her influence."

“So th' Lady and the Learned One the Big Beast ain't as mighty as they once was?" Lidia asked, frowning a little, and Bart shook his head.

“No, they spent much of themselves breaking the Queen's hold on Northsea, and much more still through their blessings." Bart spread his hand to her; “We, are their power now."

“Bartholomus Mueller, The Fist of God!" Nazir agreed with a grinning show of white teeth.

“Something like that." Bart chuckled humbly, the dandy laughing it off as they continued down further into the misty, cool expanse of woods — the shadows of the centuries-old conflict seeming less dark than they had before.

Further down the road in pleasant quiet, Nazir fished into his effects within the far cart — and produced a strange instrument. Bart furrowed his brow at it as the lithe man settled it into his lap, sitting sidesaddle as his palfrey trotted sedately along — by all accounts it resembled a lute, but both the body and neck were narrow and deep like the keel of a boat, and its pegs were artfully crafted of silver and deep-stained wood, the belly of the instrument round like a gourd and covered with a brilliantly tattooed hide where the strings ended. Grinning, he set it across his lap and set to strumming — immediately it carried far and wide, like echoes in an empty room.

The sound wasn't the dulcet, sweet strains he'd expected of a harp or the like, but oddly flat notes with a cool clarity that echoed smartly across the quiet valley air with a precise yet soothing drone. Nazir's delicate fingers flew across the strings in rapid staccato notes that bridged across scales and tones so precisely that one could hear every pluck and pull of a string clearly, and yet they carried together into a cohesive, echoing tune that echoed the land that made it — an oasis of focused calm, each rapid vibrato-filled motion of his hands brought a swaying back and forth rhythm to the music, like the patter of rain and the sway of trees in the break of late spring showers on the scorching sands. It was a generous instrument, much like the people who made it — why use one note when you could offer two? Why two when there was a bounty of six? The spilling, trilling sound rattled and skipped across the air with a growing warmth to balance the cool, crisp notes. The strings spun a tale of distant shores, distant sands, and the rhythm of a life of vigor and purpose.

Bart found the music enthralling, and his eyes drifted half shut as he let the rapid notes wash over him. Nazir's capable hands altered the tone, bringing it to the green lands around them and adding their sighing breeze and swaying trees to the landscape of sound.

Off from the distance, however — a counterpoint played. A curious, almost tentative strum of similar, tinny, plucked notes rang out. The party raised their heads to the far end of the path they walked, flanked by spires and in between thick with ash and oak, Nazir raised his hands again — and played another little fritter of notes back.

As if in answer, the mysterious player returned with its tinny chorus of strings. Nazir grinned wide.

He led the unseen player into a fairly simple tune of tight notes and got a return note that almost seemed inquisitive as it ended. The lean southerner looked over the Bart and winked.

“I think we've met the local flavor," he said, and launched into another, merry sort of tune — a rambling, woodsy sort of folk song that one would expect from this region — a bit off for the strange southern instrument's curious tones, but it gamely met the challenge with a touch of exotic flair. The little ditty ended on a similarly inquiring note, having slowly laid out a scale of tones in careful measure. The returning ringing of the song was game and robust, full of a youthful exuberance that drew a laugh out of Nazir as he joined in — the two stringed instruments enmeshing into a cheery, chaotic duet that set the southerner laughing.

The white palfrey trotted ahead of the group, Nazir's playing gaining a playful, coaxing trill as he looked to the trees — strumming out a rapid, questioning little couplet and waiting — and from the trees came an eager response, and from them walked a thin figure.

He was lean, perhaps fourteen or twelve summers old — but strong of limb and hard of eye, his body and build clearly conditioned from long hours walking and running. Blue eyes peered at them from behind messy chin-length auburn hair and pale skin made ruddy across the nose by long hours under the sun. He had a slender, crude instrument slung into his fingers — looking much more familiar to Bart with its long, slender neck and fat, gourd-like belly. A massive wolfhound trotted warily beside him, and a small crook was tucked into his belt. A shepherd boy. He smiled a bit, and played a little bit on the simple but well-made little instrument — Bart knew it as a Midland Bania — a cheery little strum of its four fretless strings in harmony as a bit of a greeting. Nazir cackled and bowed in his saddle, hopping down.

“Well met my young friend, it is rare to find so keen an ear for music so far from home!" the dandy crowed, clapping for the young lad — a trend that spread through the group, even Lidia giving him a lazy little clap with a crooked little grin, though Bart had noticed she'd pulled her ever-present red hood down over her face a bit. The young man blushed and gave an awkward bow, resting his arms across his slung instrument. He was friendly — but still a wary distance away, and could very easily vanish into the trees once more if he needed. Canny.

“Oh aye, tis' nothin' o' note. Gets lonely up on the hills, an' the flock likes a little ditty now and then." the lad agreed in a mild, friendly tone. Bart raised an eyebrow as a variation of Lidia's own accent echoed back to him. He turned an eye to her and she only smirked at him a bit, nodding.

“Music soothes all, man beast, and soul!" Nazir agreed readily, looking around; “Oh in our joy I have forgotten all my manners, I am Nazir!" he said, sweeping another bow, and plucking a few strings on his own playfully. “May I have your name, good lad?"

“Callum, but ye can call me Cal. S'what all o' the elders call me." He said, nodding and smiling. “Ye're a bit off o' the Kingsroad ain't ye Mister Nazir, sir?" he inquired cautiously, and his hound's eyes locked onto Nazir with a fierce focus, the big, shaggy animal clearly smarter than the average mutt.

“That's my doing, neighbor." Bart cut in, gently guiding his own horse up and spreading his arm to show the Eye-and-Horn device on his chest, the youth's eyes widening in recognition at the sigil.

“Ye're a Church Knight!" He gushed, Bart nodded, looking back to the south.

“I come bearing news."

“Aye, the fires ye?"

Bart nodded, and the boy did so in return, his excitement tamped down with a sudden serious face;

“Ye're gonna wanna talk tae th' Chief, Ser," he said, and Bart felt a little surge of respect for the earnestness of the young lad. Barely more than a boy, but he carried himself with a sureness of food and a straightness of spine that inspired a good degree of confidence. Little wonder he was out here alone, even so young.

“Wonderful, would you show us the way, my young friend?" Nazir said, still keeping his distance a bit from the young man — the hound's keen eyes were still fixated on the brightly dressed dandy warily — and the young man nodded, a brightness returning to his eyes.

“Aye, iffin' ye show me more o' that strange fat-bottomed bania o' yours," he said, peering at Nazir's instrument. The Southerner laughed.

“It is called a rabab, and I would be well-pleased to do so!"

They set out at a walk, the long-legged lad not as quick as a horse but his prudent distance ahead of the party even as he and Nazir exchanged pleasantries spoke volumes about the kind of people he and his kin were — even with the assurance of Bart's colors flying true and the friendliness of Nazir and company, the young man was wary and alert. The people of the Middlelands had suffered long, and in the press of the Black March had been forced far into the wilds by both the Empty Queen's deadly march, and the crush of refugees that boiled out ahead of it. They were a taciturn people, and it was no wonder they chose to stick with clan and claimed soil far out into the rolling hills and grassy downs between Lachheim and the Northern Sidhewood.

Nazir once again surprised Bart, as the leisurely walk continued at a sedate pace, he simply chose to drop down from his mount — and boldly proceed to the boy's side under the alert stare of the massive, shaggy gray hound.

“I hope your fine animal will pardon my boldness, but I've never been all too fond of talking down at people." Nazir said with a cheerful smile, looking back at his horse as she snorted and casually followed the lead cart; “Literally or figuratively."

Cal looked at him warily, and the massive dog's brush-like tail swayed warily and seemed to look to its young master for an answer. Nazir once more pressed: “Does she have a name?"

“Thistle," Cal said in a quiet tone, and Nazir grinned even wider.

“An appropriate name for such a fine animal, pretty and yet — beware!" he said, and strummed a little dramatic trill on his Rabab. Cal seemed to immediately relax, and the two fell into conversation about the animal, the instrument, and everything in between.

“He collects friends the way you do scars," Naima said in a wistful tone, Bart turning his head to see the alchemist watching her brother and the young Midlander going back and forth, music sounding anew as Nazir handed the ornate rabab off to the boy, showing him the frets — the dutiful hound's tail wagging now as it followed the two. Bart smiled.

“He's what God had in mind when he made the word 'friend'." Bart agreed, leaning forward on his saddlebow, Naima's smile was soft, but full of heartfelt emotion.

“He's never left my side you know." she said, Bart reigning his horse closer to hear her soft voice, “Father told him when we were children, 'Son, your sister is your other half. Protect her like you do your right hand.'" her voice took on a deep, wise tone — her impression of their father, no doubt.

“He did just that." She continued, wrapping her fingers around her ever-present braid, toying it between the small, strong hands Bart now associated with the gentle touch of a healer by instinct, “He's been my shadow, my helping hand, and my shoulder to cry on my whole life." She said, shaking her head with a rueful smile; “He even helped me see Rashid for the man he was."

“Truly? To hear Rashid tell it, it was he who came around first." Bart asked her, and she turned an arched eyebrow at her husband as he rode nearby — one he simply responded to with a wide, toothy grin. The dark-skinned woman chuffed out a little laugh and sighed.

“True enough, but we both had need to come around to the idea. It was Nazir's patient heart that let me vent and rant and swing my nails in anger at this, big, overbearing lummox that I simply could not get out of my mind." she said, shaking her head ruefully, “Brilliant as I am, I was blind yet at such a young age. My dear brother has always seen to the heart of things."

“He is sharp of eye and mind." Rashid agreed, still grinning as Bart turned his gaze back to the pair before them, the music echoing anew as the youth found his feet with the exotic strings and frets.

A chill suffused him, and he felt the shaking tremors of a fit trying to gnaw up his spine. Clenching his teeth he flicked his eyes to and fro wildly, before he spied it — the skull visage loomed out in the woods ahead of the lad and his new southern friend — seeming as natural and horrible as an earth-mired corpse peeking through the roots of a dead tree. Its hideous black flesh and bleached white bone faded into the shadows of the yew and ash, so perfectly still it swayed with the trees that shadowed it. Bart swallowed and set his gaze back against it even as a cold sweat began to form on his brow, The creature loomed over Nazir and Callum spreading its hideous arms as they walked heedless and sightless towards the waiting monstrosity's grasp.

“Not them, not while I draw breath." He snarled quietly, his shaking hands grasping the bow of his saddle and with a jerk, he hurdled the animal, swinging his legs free and hitting the ground hard, his joints protests but his bloody-minded focus ignored it as he increased his pace, striding forwards towards the bleached, laughing skull of the monster.

It twisted its fleshless face at him, curious and inviting and Bart's lips peeled back from his teeth in a brief snarl as he closed the distance — an expression that met Nazir's eyes as the dandy turned to meet him, eyes going wide before Bart found control of his expression in a casual sort of smile, wincing a bit as he came to a stop.

“Something the matter, brother Bart?" Nazir said as the towering knight came to a rolling stop, eyes fixed beyond them on the stand of shade and stones just beyond the treeline, where the looming presence had been.

Now there was naught there but the gleaming, sleek form of a raven. Its neck slashed with a stripe of white that vaguely gave it the look of wet, exposed bone as it jerkily twitched its head at him. Bart blinked, the animal turning its head at him pointedly, inquisitively before giving an almost mocking caw and fluttering away into the deeper brush — the looming apparition nowhere to be found.

“No." Bart said after a beat, making a show of rolling his shoulders as the young boy and dandy both eyed him in mild alarm; “I've been in the saddle a moment, and feel Nazir had the right of it." he said with a nod to the man, who seemed content to accept that with a renewed smile.

“Oh, quite. A stretch of the legs is good for the soul on a long road." Nazir chimed in, gesturing to the young lad, “I was just telling Cal here of your recent exploits, he was somewhat skeptical of your bonefides!"

“Ain't like that, Ser. Jus' ne'er seen a proper Paladin, so it's true then?"

“If Nazir said it, so it is — within some reasonable artistic license," Bart said, eyes scanning the woods one more time… his back stiffening as he realized he'd been had by the creature. All he had done was prove to the abomination that it could provoke him to action, that it could influence him all the same. Bart swallowed a jolt of shame as he realized he'd come running bare-handed and unarmed, what good could he have done in any circumstance?

As it had kings and saints, indeed. He looked back down at Cal with a smile.

“My sworn brother is a born storyteller, he cannot help but… polish the memory a bit."

Cal gave a derisive little snort, the boy's eyes hard and seasoned by the frontier life it was accustomed to; “Sounds like Ol' Man Whitt, always tellin' stories a mite bit tall." he said, and Bart raised a brow.

“This Whitt, does he know much of the local lore?"

“Oh aye!" Callum asserted, the odd approach forgotten as Bart engaged the young man in an activity irresistible to young boys the world over —talking about their hometown, “Old Whitt's been 'round since 'fore th' Gray Plagues, an' his sire and grandsire reckon on back tae the Black Times." he said, meeting Bart's eyes with glee; “Iffin' anyone knows first thing o' anything here, it's Ol' Man Whitt."

“Well, I do love to meet a fellow bard, I trust we're in the presence of the foremost authority on the location of note?" Nazir chimed in, and Cal grinned wider.

“Yup! Iffin' ye need tae find anyone in the three valleys, I'm ye man!" he crowed earnestly, the hound's jaws lolling as if to laugh at her owner's bravado; “Been runnin' 'round these hills since 'fore I could run!"

“Marvelous." Bart murmured, the young man looking up at him suddenly; “Did ye really fight an ogre th' size o' me house?"

“I had help," Bart confirmed modestly, The boy stared at him critically before he added; “I mostly just pushed him over after everyone else did their part."

“But it was as big as me house?"

“It was big as someone's, I haven't seen yours."

The boy grinned wider.

~ ~ ~

The journey was filled with idle chatter for the remains of its relatively short trek. The reduction in the pace served to allow everyone a chance to stretch their limbs and walk about — saddle fatigue getting the better of a few of their number ill-used to riding at a stretch, Lidia chief among them.

“Ohhh ye ain't supposed tae be up off tae ground for so long at a stretch, by God," she groaned as she rolled her shoulders and dropped gamely into a bouncing, long stretch of her equally long legs, the slender thief not made for stillness but action. Bart turned his attention to her, Nazir and Cal caught up in another story of exotic adventure, though the youth's keen eyes followed Bart's lead.

“Swear on tae Lady, I was nearin' a single cramp all o'er." she groaned, Cal's young eyes wide as she bent and twisted, her sinuous frame winding and flexing with pops and cracks. Her borrowed attire returned, back to her comfortable, spare style — a brief cropped tunic and low-hanging, tight-fitting trousers leaving much of her lithe torso and arms exposed. The muscle of her frame was unnervingly symmetrical like the rest of her features, and flashes of belly and hips rippled tautly in the dappled shade of the trees.

Nazir grinned as he noticed the boy's attention lapse from his story to the sidhe woman's unwitting display. He set out a low, whistling tune and set about playing a peppy, strumming beat along to it. Lidia seemed to indulge him as she raised her arms up above her head, pointing her fingers and toes with a deep groan and a few more pops of stiffness — and then turned herself into a neat, fluid cartwheel — long limbs and red hood swirling through the air gaily as she tumbled and twisted, rolling across the soft grass and packed earth with negligent ease. She tucked back into a series of fluid handsprings, each coming out faster and more forceful than the last. Laughter echoed from her as she went, a cheerful sound of delight that shook the pall from Bart's mind as he watched her kick off the ground and tuck herself into a neat flip, landing alongside the marching trio and their canine escort with a sound planting of her feet, arms out to either side.

“Ta-da," she said with an understated little tone, her gleaming cat-like eyes full of joy, the glee of motion still evident in the thrill-seeker's heart. In spite of it all, her spirit remained irrepressable. They were all still coping with the events of Lachheim, it seemed.

“Tha' was bloody amazin'," Callum said, eyes wide on her as she righted her hood up around her messy red hair, her smile was a touch bashful — but if there was one group Lidia knew her way around, it was children.

“Oh nae, jus' a day-tae-day level o' agility iffin' ye practice lots." she hedged, Thistle's attention focused on her keenly — far more than she had on anyone else, even Bart and his towering size. Lidia edged further away from the trio, still bouncing along merrily though she caught Bart's eyes with a worried glance from beneath her hood, a look that passed between him and Nazir as well in a quick relay as Bart and Lidia dropped back, and the southerner engaged the boy with another question or two on the cozy glen they were approaching — the scent of woodsmoke clear and inviting now.

“What is the matter?" Bart asked her worriedly as they dropped out of earshot, and the little sidhe set her teeth.

“I dinnae think' about dags," she admitted, looking warily between Bart and Thistle — who had yet to break her level stare with the red-headed girl. Bart furrowed his brow and motioned for her to continue; “I cannae hide from dags, cats dinnae seem tae mind me, but dags can smell th' fae on me." she said, eyes darting this way and that before meeting his. “Fae dinnae have a lot o' love out in these places usual-like. Lots o' children vanishin' in the woods an' whatnot."

Bart nodded, Lidia tugging her hood a bit lower as the hound's attention wavered only a bit, Callum's own gaze flicking back to her with interest as she and Bart spoke.

“I think we can handle one hound for now, just keep me between the two of you," Bart said quietly, to which Lidia frowned but nodded, eyeing the hound with something not so much mistrust as simple anxiety, naked and bold for a moment.

“Aye, I trust ye," she said, raising a hand to pat his bicep fondly before the pair caught back up, the little sidhe taking a deep breath as Bart adjusted his pace to interpose his bulk between the canine and his little friend. Callum immediately returned.

“I 'eard ye voice a bit miss, ye're from around these parts ye?" the boy said — and to Bart's ear their accent was almost indiscernible — both a woodsy Heartlands brogue, but there was more of a twang to Cal's speech, and Lidia's lilted and rolled most softly. She grinned at him from under the hood.

“Oh aye, of a sort. Me dad an' I were further tae th' east. Near the Black Forest and its parts, woodcutting."

“Brave sire ta be doin' cuttin' that close to th' faewoods."

“Aye, he was." Lidia said wistfully, linking her arms behind her by her thumbs, swaying as she walked — as if she could wring the discomfort from her limbs like they were cloth, “Big as a forest bear, an' jus' as strong. Could split a burl the size o' ye head in a single blow." she grinned proudly, swinging her hands down around a phantom axe. Cal grinned wide at that.

“Me Pa's like that too, he's a shepherd jus' like me," he beamed proudly; “Arms like big ol' fenceposts, he can scoop a ram wit' one arm an' shear 'em in three strikes wit' th' other!" the boy crowed and spread his arms, earning involuntary, earnest grins from all in attendance as he adjusted his crook and bania again, eyes fixated on her anew.

“Where didja learn tae do all the flips an' stuff?"

Lidia shrugged and casually rolled forward, so casually Bart started as if to catch her from falling, but she came up — and not on her feet. Walking on her hands in a casual display of dexterity well and truly above anything her fellows could manage on short notice, she grinned at the boy as she casually kept pace with them.

“Oh, 'tis a natural talent. Ye gets lots o' time on the streets tae run an' skip, an' I'm a competitive little scrat so…" She pushed off her hands and turned another cartwheel before coming back to her feet, smoothing her hood and giving the boy a wink. “I made sure I was tae best."

“Wow." was all Cal managed at that, Nazir turning a lovely shade of purple as he continued to stifle his laughter.

“I've assembled some moderately stupendous friends, that's all," Bart added quietly. Nazir blew out a breath and pointed at him.

“See?" he said, looking between Callum and the Knight-Brother; “A company of champions!" he crowed and tsked his tongue at the brawny knight; “And to think you accused me of exaggeration!"

“How many houses tall was Humbaba, again?" Bart asked innocently.

Nazir simply laughed.

~ ~ ~

Perhaps a quarter-hour later they rolled around a bend in one of the many jutting spires, and the scent of smoke and livestock became almost palpable, the well-tamped road turned to ruts and almost by surprise — they turned the corner to a quiet but cozy little village. Nestled in between a series of spires and the natural valley they'd been buried in, a lazy creek wound its way through the hills via the fractures the spires had wrought in the earth. The quiet creak of a waterwheel and the lapping of the stream's quiet flow was a soft blanket that laid over the quiet little niche, clearly more of a touchstone and common ground for the various homesteads than anything like Fairharbour — it centered on a trading post, herbalist, and smithy, the vital essentials of frontier living.

There were a few homes nevertheless, clearly of solid make and as broken-in and moss-ridden as any of the trees. The homes were not run-down as much as simply built in many ways into the earth and trees around them, following the curve of the hill and lay of the land. The wood itself wended and wound into the lay of the buildings — oak, yew, and ash arching up and around the settlement in a great, green canopy that dappled the homes beneath in cool shade. Living trees in many places had grown right into the sides of the older buildings, binding the family and the land in a literal symbiosis, rooted together. Cobbled roads emerged here and there like walkways — made of river stones and irregular slate, they had sunk deep and true, roots and lichen fixed to them sure as any proper mortar.

Bart was left with a quiet sense of awe, there was nothing ostentatious about this little hamlet — and yet the age of the place hung in the air like a weight. Like it had been back beneath Lachheim, deep in the earth and stone, a place that truly had persisted through time. Persisted and endured.

Callum took off at a sprint as the caravan regrouped at the edge of town. The road ran straight through and over an old stone bridge near the waterwheel, the latter set into the side of the smithy, no doubt powering the bellows and what-not within. Beyond the road wound deeper into the hills, before butting up against the edge of the Crownspeak range and dipping down south to Reikstand. An isolated community despite its proximity to the Kingsroad, it seemed few came this far down this admittedly narrow track. Fewer still this far north, who else but the fellow communities of shepherds, brewers, and trappers in the woods, and the odd Man-at-Arms or Church Knight on pilgrimage? It may have been a generation since they last saw a Knight-Brother on the march.

As Cal moved through the town, however, it came alive. He and Thistle trotted down at speed, bags jostling and kit rattling, and behind them emerged people, animals. Life. Chickens trotted out ahead of an elderly man with sprightly, cautious eyes and a small pack of hounds ran out in sequence to run alongside the young shepherd as he went. Faces turned up in distant windows, and the quiet hum of the homestead proceeded as if it were merely on pause.

“Chief, Chief — there's a Ser here tae speak with ye!" Callum called out as he went to the central building — the one with the mighty bough of an oak tree welded to its timbers, the aged building having a sort of stately, aged bearing that seemed correct as the home of respect and station. A man emerged of later years and solid if somewhat wiry build, the same kind of too-thin, wiry strength that brought to mind Master Balgus and his lean, iron-like build. He had long hair and a long beard of brown streaked with gray, braided at the chin and temples, back from his face and splitting his beard into pleats. Bart walked to meet him.

“Good Afternoon, Chief, My name is Bartholomus, a Knight-Brother of the Radiant Order of Our Lady in White." Bart offered with an extended hand — one that was met with brief skepticism on the part of the chief, eye flicking down to the young boy as if questioning, before taking Bart's hand in a surprisingly strong grip — even as the Knight-Brother towered head and shoulders over the man.

“Ye're one o' the Lady's things, that's fer sure." he lilted in a mild and soft tone that seemed at odds with his leathery, rugged appearance, his eyes shared that same jaded, hardened gleam that seemed to be the way of things here in the deep valleys. “Well met 'Sides then, Ser," he said, Bart nodding.

“Please, just call me Bart. The station rests ill on me," he said, and the older man grinned at him with a familiar warmth.

“Aye laddie, authority nae oft sits comfortable."

Bart nodded in agreement, the weathered, lean man folding his gnarled arms across his chest.

“Chief Kaden, jus' Kaden or 'Chief' is fine, I don't stand on ceremony unless needs be," he said, the two men seeming to size each other up a moment longer before a florid flicker of color intruded itself into the ordeal.

“I am Nazir. Scion of the Brass-Domed Houses of Khorrit, Jewel of Al-Reza, Land of Dreams!" the dandy introduced himself gaily, overwhelmingly so in fact. The Chief's eyes were wide, and he blinked at him slowly several times.

“Laddie, that's enough name fer th' entire clan." he drawled directly, and Nazir grinned wide.

“My life has borne many blessings, and I am generous with the fortune it provides in all ways, including my greetings" he chimed back, offering his hand, and the Chief grinned in spite of himself taking his hand.

“Let's just go with Nazir, eh?"

“Sits fine with me, Laddie." the Chief agreed, looking back over his shoulder. “Colorful company ye keep, Ser Knight."

“They are a motley crew, but truer friends I could not dream of," Bart said without a moment of hesitation, drawing another smile from the cinnamon-skinned southerner before sobriety set in on their features as Bart turned towards the smoke.

“We bring news."

Bart and Nazir delivered the grim tale, and as they did more and more of the town seemed to fade in from the fringes. Calls and murmurs went out until there, at the step of the Chief's abode, their town hall of sorts — Bart and Company were the center of the whole community, as they finished the story, a dozen or more pairs of those same, hard-bitten, bright eyes of every age were upon them. Young, old, long-lived, and newly-wed. A thin slice of this side of the world, this community was the Middlelands writ large. One small knot of freedom at a time.

“… And so we don't know how far and wide these tunnels may reach, nor the ranging forces may spread, so if there is shelter you may seek, I bid that you take it until you see riders under the Eye-and-Horn." Bart finished before the stern-faced mob.

“Where would ye 'ave us go, Laddie?" called a nameless man from the crowd.

“This is our home!"

“We dinnae 'ave anywhere else!"

“Ne'er here fer good tidings, are ye Church Hounds…" The tone of the villages shifted dourly, and the cool shade no longer felt friendly, the hard eyes felt like nails pressed outwards in warning, and the decidedly firm feeling of being the other in a place settled around Bart with a bracing chill, Bart stammered with an explanation before a deep, woodsy voice won out over the muttering crowd.

“Now ye git wit' that talk, ye know th' Lady's creatures are good men," Chief Kaden had stood just a bit taller, and in that moment seemed to top ten feet as his voice rang out not with force, but authority. Every man woman and child looked to him, his arms folded across his lean, wiry chest. Arms that bore the scars of a life hard-lived, an eclectic mix of marks from blade, tool, and tooth.

“The Ser came this way out o' the kindness o' his heart and his duty, nae one o' Lachheim's Spears gonna come this far into tae hills so ye keep your bellyaching at th' bad news tae yerselves," he concluded, and a new murmur set through the assembled kinfolk.

“Stormcrow." one faceless voice murmured, and Kaden's face twisted in a frown.

“Strong words, Jules. Ye willin' tae back that up tae his face?" the Chief challenged one grizzled man, a handsome fellow of strong arms and sinewy upper body that brought to mind the archers of the Abbey's Men-At-Arms. The man wore the leathers and kit of a hunter and had the eyes of a killer. Bart had seen those plenty often in the past days.

“Aye." The swarthy man said, dark-haired and dark-eyed, his stubbled, cleft chin stood out fiercely beneath a pair of dangling mustaches, “I seen 'em. Crows and Ravens both on th' heather and in the wood. Ol' Rawhead's stirrin', his creatures are on th' prowl." the man named Jules asserted and stood right up to Bart, not quite of a size with the burly Knight-Brother but of a shape.

“Stormcrow, aye I'll say it tae ye face. Th' ol' monster like as not followed ye gaudy little caravan down the valley tae come callin'." the man said with confidence born not from bravado, but the fruits of having been tested oft and hard at that, “Ye lookin' awful soft and comfortable fer a Ser o' the Line, nae speck o' harness nor steel,"

“Oh, ye wanna see 'is SCARS ye fookin' shiteass sheep-buggerer?!" Lidia's voice lit out, the little rogue having practically morphed wholly out of nowhere between Bart and the Hunter, this 'Jules'. To his credit, he did not back down from the fierce, green-eyed demon of a woman in a red hood as she pushed herself snarling into his face, “We'll compare! I'll give ye' a few new ones tae match any ye're lackin' in kind!" she snarled and Bart found himself growing agitated, that familiar tremor of thick black anger quavering in his belly. Jules looked down at her, and his dark eyes widened a moment and he curled his lip.

“Cute lil' eyes on this one, too." he said, and quite firmly grasped Lidia's hood, before Bart nor she could react, he pulled it free with a snake-like motion of his sinewy arms, yanking it down and exposing Lidia's wide-eyed, stunned face to the crowd. Silence reigned for a heavy moment.

“A ser wit' nae speck o' armor and a sidhe lass in his bedroll come' callin' at th' very moment I come strollin' in tae tell Ol' Man Whitt about the carrion birds what flock hereabouts," Jules said in a dour tone, not so much angry as defiant. He held up the hood and then handed it with… a surprising amount of respect back to Lidia, his eyes and voice for Bart.

“Color me a mite suspicious, Ser."

Fury lit in Bart's belly as Lidia recoiled away close to him, snatching her hood back from the hunter as he kept his shoulders straight and his eyes square with the Knight-Brother, Bart's hands balled into fists — meaty hammers with which to pound the defiance from this man's eyes, a fetid and raw rush of anger following that thought brought the Church Knight up short. Freezing, he slowly turned his gaze as he felt that familiar twinge of wriggling horror in his guts, the animal sensation of being stalked.

There. The grinning, bleached skull of the thing perched just to one side of the nearby dwelling, leaning around the corner like a mere solicitous neighbor, its gaze and influence leeching into Bart like the lance of a biting insect. Bart recoiled from it, and with a blink of his eyes the phantom had vanished once more… and in its place was that white-throated raven from before. Bart took a deep breath.

“I will ask you kindly to not abuse those under my care, neighbor." Bart said in a level exhale, closing his eyes a moment and counting his heartbeats as he continued; “I will not challenge what you say for you are correct in any case. The Wendigo has returned, at least in influence. I have seen it's creatures, I have slain them." Bart stated levelly

“It's true, Jules. Nae, for honest," Callum said, having edged up in the crowd… though his eyes were on Lidia oft as the tall hunter; “Met 'em on the road and they spoke o' the warnin' first and foremost. The southerner 'as tales, word o' God!" he urged enthusiastically, Bart raised his hand over his heart.

“Word of God." Bart agreed, an oath if anything was.

“Nae, forgive me fer needin' more than the word o' outsiders an' children, Ser," Jules said in a hard tone, and a sonorous, aged voice came in answer.

“Will I suffice, lad?"

At the edge of the crowd was a truly, genuinely ancient man. He leaned on a walking stick with a knobbed, formidable, and clearly-dented head, like as not from fighting as anything. His attire was threadbare in a well-loved fashion, his coat a faded navy like a cool summer shadow, and a sun-bleached yellow peasant cap fit comfortably about his head, a heavy tooled buckle held the coat closed, and a faded bone holy symbol hung from his throat — the lidless eye perched in the curve of a shepherd's crook, an ancient symbol from before the Black March. He wore not boots but soft-soled shoes of the same pale yellow as his hat and the whole of his attire was edged with fine, hand-wrought embroidery, the leather tattooed with designs and scrollwork — patterns that found their way to the stout walking stick at hand as well.

His face was kind. Thin to the point that it was naught more than muscle and bone with skin as an afterthought, a dense beard of off-white strands framed his sharp features, and his pale blue eyes had that same jaded solidity to them as any he had seen — yet his were tempered with an ageless warmth. The eyes of a man who had seen wonders.

“Aye, iffin' ye vouch for it I cannae speak 'gainst it, Whitt," Jules said gamely, his back straight as one of his arrows. The elder smiled and walked forward, clearly beyond anyone else in years, he walked with the cane more as an affection than a need, the elderly man surprisingly robust.

“Oh, good. I 'ad thought perhaps we'd gone all modern hereabouts, nae listenin' tae one's learned folk and all." he chortled softly, meeting Jules' eyes for a moment, the swarthy hunter looking a bit rueful for a moment. Whitt ignored it, and seemingly everyone else — walking straight up to Lidia, who all but cowered beneath Bart's towering presence, cat-eyed stare wide and frightened.

“Now, now, summer's on its way lass, cannae have ye head uncovered." He chided her softly and took the hood from her trembling fingers, gently he tucked it over her rumpled hair as she stared at him in stunned confusion, his fingers covered in rings and the callouses of decades — still steady and firm.

“We all remember our sympathies fer th' children o' the forest." He said in a voice that was raised just enough to carry to the crowd, it was not a scolding tone as much as a quiet reminder as he tucked Lidia's hair back. “There, nae harm done lass," he said and looked up to Bart with a comically exaggerated look of alarm.

“Now, I nae remember buildin' a wall here!" he jibed, getting a murmur of laughter from the crowd and from Bart as he patted the big Paladin's arm fondly. “Strong arms, honest work ye've seen, nae just th' blade," he said before folding both his hands over his knobby cane's stout head.

“Ye say ye've seen th' carrion crows on the heather?" he inquired and Jules nodded tightly.

“Aye, Norwest o' here near the flowerin' fields." he said a gleam in his eye, Whitt nodded with a faint 'ah' of understanding.

“Ol' Rawhead's come callin' for sure then, out near the Barrowspire, 'is old home is a bit leaky but still 'is iffin' he comes callin'." the old man confirmed, Bart raised an eyebrow and the ancient man smiled gently. “' Twas its ol' house when it ruled here, its stood empty iffin' a bit haunted since your Lady took arms an' drove out the unclean." An uncomfortable murmur spread into the crowd, as Old Whitt turned to them.

“Be not afraid, kinfolk." He assuaged them with a smile, his eyes bright and his face gentle as he moved with a surety that belied his years to stand before them ahead of the party, “We weathered the Black March wit' ne'er more than scars and bitter memories, Ol' Rawhead can come whistlin' and he'll find naught as he did before." he said, and patted a clearly frightened youngster's hand at the edge of the crowd, gnarled, tattooed fingers gentle.

“Listen tae the good Churchman, Ol' Rawhead don't know these hills as we," he said and got several nods from the older members of the crowd and a bustle of people calling for children and preparations. Whitt turned to face Bart.

“I fear I must be apologizin' for Jules. He means well, its 'is role tae be suspicious an' stern."

“I dinnae need ye to apologize fer me, Ol' Timer, I am perfectly capable o' doin' it meself." Jules cut in with a stern but respectful tone, his eyes full of iron as he met Bart's gaze. That anger flared in him again, but the man extended his hand. “Nae fer nothin', doin' my due — nae hard feelin's, aye?" he offered, and Bart hesitated — his gut full of fire still, Lidia's shocked face burning behind him… but he saw no malice in that man's eyes anymore, just the burning fire of duty. He was familiar with that look as well now. He grasped the man's hand, and they shook firmly.

“Bully." the Hunter said and turned to Lidia, who was still huddled near Bart, eyes wide as dinner plates. “Ah, my apologies are a wee bit thin with ye, wee lass." he said, tipping his pointed woodsman's cap at her, “Cruel means o' me tae use ye as an' example, nae excuses fer it," he said, and Lidia didn't offer him much in way of words, merely a wary gaze and a curl of her lip at him — clearly restraining the sharper edge of her tongue for the party's benefit — Bart met Jules' level gaze.

“She's a bit sensitive about her heritage, neighbor. You may just have to take the loss there."

The hunter nodded plainly, tipping his cap at her all the same, “Would nae be the first time. Ne'er been good wit' people." he said honestly, his gaze still hard at Bart, “Also ne'er been entirely wrong, there's somethin' off 'bout ye and yours, Ser." he said, his jaw set. “Mayhaps nae yer fault or yer doin', but my gut's ne'er wrong."

Bart was given pause there, and as his own guts twisted with concern, Lidia found her tongue, pushing past Bart to stand before the much taller man, the diminutive thief's green eyes wide, now more like a hunting cat on the prowl.

“I dinnae care nary a shite about ye gut, balls, or the brick yer usin' for brains. Iffin' ye wanna see exactly how much a sidhe I am, ye'll keep on about this." she snarled, her nostrils flaring with anger and the sharpened ends of her inhuman canines showing beneath her curled lips as she did. “Nay, no one calls me a man's play-doll, simple as."

Jules once again tipped his hat at her, but his gaze wavered not a bit; “I apologize fer me harsh words, I ain't mean nothin' by them but a bit o' prickin' for the ego," he said, jaw set. “Ye see a lot about a person by th' way they handle their anger."

Lidia's eyes were two perfect pools of intense, inhuman green as she did not break her gaze from his, even Bart was unnerved by her furious, unblinking gaze as she tugged her hood low again. Jules quietly adjusted his hat down over his eyes — perhaps in embarrassment, perhaps not — and simply nodded to her as he pushed past towards the far way. Callum of all things, broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Are ye really a forest girl?" came his voice, the wide-eyed youth's face looking up at her, though he wasn't much the shorter, and clearly would sprout tall as Jules come next spring. Lidia was caught off guard by that, visibly missing a step as she turned to him.

“N-nay, nae like that." she said, hunching her shoulders a bit; “Mum was a forest sprite, Dad loved her with all o' his heart an' soul," she said, wringing her fingers into the well-worn cloth of her hood unconsciously. Callum smiled at her.

“Oh, me mum's gone too," he said, smiling sadly at her. “Pa's the same. He talks to 'er headstone like she's still listenin'."

“She is, son," Bart said softly, recovered from the confrontation as he watched Jules exchange something quietly with Whitt before turning and vanishing into the trees once more as if he wasn't ever there in the first place. The big Knight-Brother smiled at the young man; “She's waiting and in good company." The young boy smiled back at him.

“That's what Ol' Whitt says too, I like tae think it." he said, looking up at Lidia, the thief's face oddly vulnerable; “Can ye see in the dark wit' those?"

The little changeling froze, the sheer innocence of the question striking her across the face as sure as an open palm, and a smile broke out across her features as if the weight of the whole situation had simply sloughed off her.

“Aye, I can see in pitch dark good as I can bright noon," she said, that familiar pride returning to her voice.

“Wow, bully for that! I wish I could see in th' dark, I get lost on way tae th' privy sometimes," he said with gratuitous honesty you only found in fools and children, Lidia laughed a bit and Bart chuckled as the two went off a ways — Callum coaxing both Lidia and Thistle closer together, the latter far more wary than the former, whom simply set about investigating Lidia's boots with her nose cautiously.

“Nae anything as pure as the eyes o' youth." Whitt's aged voice came to Bart, the crowd had dispersed back to their routines, perhaps a bit more earnestness in their efforts now, Bart simply nodded.

“Jules wasn't wrong, was he laddie?" he asked quietly, Bart's blood went cold.

“No, not in so many words. It's complicated."

“Aye, most things o' the divine are, includin' its soldiers," Whitt answered and turned to Bart, eyes kind and patient. “Keep yer secrets, laddie. I will nae press ye for yer pains, but God tells me ye require me aid, an' I am hardly one to argue wit' him."

“Yes!" Nazir's voice came, piping in where he'd come from standing with Naima and Rashid, the latter two had watched the exchange between Jules, Bart, and Lidia with stoic expressions and steady eyes — a simple glance at Rashid proved to Bart with a curt nod that had things turned violent, he would have been at his side in mere moments, “Cal told us you were the person to ask of tales and lore pertaining to this Wendigo creature."

“Aye, Ol' Rawhead is well known tae me." Whitt answered with a bit of a frown; “An' what I dinnae know, I can send ye on tae who does."

“Excellent!" Nazir crowed, clapping his hands together; “Shall we adjourn somewhere comfortable to talk?" the old man laughed a bit and shook his head.

“Oh nay, I am merely passin' through tae the other clanhomes in the valley, ye're welcome tae accompany me iffin' ye please," the old man said, tapping his knobby cane on the turf pointedly; “Nay anythin' quite as fine as a walk wit' good conversation."

“Oh, of course!" Nazir agreed, and Bart rubbed his chin thoughtfully,

“If there are further settlements, I would give them word as well." he agreed and Whitt grinned.

“Well, nae sense in wastin' much o' our time, its' a shade tougher tae get these ol' bones movin' after a full stop," he said, making to move, Bart nodding and gesturing to Rashid, who gave an affirmative motion, barking something at Salim and his workmen, setting everyone back to the road.

“I'll follow a spell too!" Callum said, Thistle, trailing him as he and Lidia joined the caravan, both their fingers and faces sticky with some kind of sweetroll — a token of a goodwife from the village, “Me homestead's 'bout halfway 'tween here and th' next clanship, so I can jus' walk a ways."

“Aye, wouldn't do tae make ye Pa worry, laddie." Whitt said, looking to Bart, “Jules is about, ye may nae see 'em but he'll be prowlin' somewhere nearby. He takes th' safety o' the valley seriously."

“Jules is scarier than any o' the beasties lurkin' in the thicket, so say I!" Cal asserted, the hard-eyed, rude hunter seemed to be a bit of a local folk hero of sorts. Bart considered that and did his best to re-assess the man's stolid demeanor through that lens. It added more credence to his tenacity.

The group set out after leaving that ancient stone bridge into a veritable tunnel of trees and thicket, arcing and intertwining over the road between the hills and their jutting spires. Nazir and Bart stayed on foot, walking alongside Old Whitt, Cal and Lidia had hopped up to her spot on the cart, Thistle warily letting the slim changeling pet her.

“Ol' Rawhead is a predictable sort o' monster." Whitt said, Bart feeling the eyes of the monster practically on his back as he tipped his head to bid the elder to continue; “He's a primitive thing, a bit sad iffin' ye consider it."

“Sad?" Nazir asked, the young southerner's eyes alight, his mind focused on the task at hand, a trait of his Bart found admirable.

“Oh aye, he's an elemental thing, bound up an' twisted by what he is." the thin old man explained, the shadows seemed to vibrate with anger to Bart's gaze as he listened, Whitt's eyes gleamed — almost like he could see it as well, “He's bound up, jus' like your Lady and your Learned One, all o' 'em are bound by the rules o' what they are. They cannae be nothin' else but what they are, an' the old monster is a base, primal thing o' hungers an' wants." he concluded, and the shadows felt as if they would shatter like glass.

“You sound like you have pity for this monster," Bart breathed, and Whitt nodded.

“I do. It's a sad thing, evil tae the very teeth — but sad. Imagine, ne'er bein' able tae be anything but greedy, hungry an' empty, always cravin', never full."

“A misery, for sure," Nazir agreed, his amber eyes narrowing; “If it is like the Learned One, then it has a domain of sorts then, as she does the higher learning and science, wisdom, knowledge, yes?"

“Oh aye, its realm is that o' rot and decay, it is th' very avatar o' rot — body, mind, an' soul."

“That explains the way its minions debase themselves so readily!" Nazir said, nodding enthusiastically; “That rot isn't just physical, it's existential, degrading them down to the base, essential forms of man."

“Aye, yes!" Whitt said with a smile, grinning with yellowed teeth and a gleam in his eye; “Ye're a sharp one, I like that." he said with warm approval that put a blush in Nazir's cheeks; “Ye're dead-on — Ol' Rawhead craves the ol' world as it once was, th' Age o' Fire and Stone, it hates this modern world, ne'er able to grasp too-firmly tae anyone wit' the plenty given by the march o' progress."

“Not as much room for want and hunger in a world of farming and trade." Bart mused, getting a sly tap to the side of the nose from the elder.

“Nae, not one bit. Ol' Rawhead has weaknesses there, soft spots ye can drive at tae push 'em off."

“Do tell, it seems my companion here is destined to meet this beast and its minions in battle, and I would arm him with all I can!" Nazir said with fervor, looking up at Bart with a grin; “I daresay he has the martial side of things well-handled already." Bart felt a sense of shame, as he felt that uncertainty creep into his guts — did he? Was he strong still? He cast a glance back at where his horse walked alongside Naima's wagon, where his axe hung and his armor rested. He had not lifted it since that day with Rashid, and his armor had gone unworn, he could not bear to look at it easily as of yet — the tremors began whenever he did, the Wendigo's influence, or his own fear?

Who was to say? He did not know himself.

“It's nae so simple as a place tae stick a blade or some alchemist's incense to smudge an' purify a place wit', iffin' that's what yer askin'." Whitt said, his kind face growing somber; “Ol' Rawhead's a spirit, a bein' o' th' Astral. It nae has flesh to cut nor senses tae muddle, it is a creature o' wills, an' will is what ye need to defeat it."

“There must be more to it than that." Bart groused suddenly, feeling the darkness between the trees as if it were a living thing, the shadows were not empty; “It has broken kings and saints, surely they were strong of will!"

Whitt looked at him with a steady eye, and Bart realized he had blurted the words the Wendigo itself had spoken to him, he swallowed heavily as the old man seemed to assess him and shook his head.

“Nae, many who 'ave fallen tae it are willful, strong men o' quality — but all tae a one were whittled down, winnowed bit by bit til they were not but onion skin inside, an' then chomp." Whitt clapped his teeth together with sudden, surprising violence and a loud click of enamel that jerked all eyes to him.

“All in one bite."

The shadows cackled, a raw, hacking sound of mockery and twisted pleasure, none seemed to react to it, Bart however felt it keenly. The hot breath of fetid, clammy rot washed over the back of his neck, and the man froze.

KINGS, SAINTS, AND THE WEAK, FORGOTTEN, AND UNWANTED. I HAVE CLAIMED THEM ALL IN MINE KINGDOM.

Its jaws yawed over Bart's shoulder, and he went stiff as a board, tremors starting up his arms as his fingers clenched, his teeth clamped tight around the desire to scream, to rage and whirl — to lay his fists and fury into the monster. He knew he could not though, could not acknowledge it as its overbearing presence stressed his very soul.

THY WORLD IS A POISON, CORRUPTING THE WAY THINGS ART MEANT TO BE. I WILL RETURN IT TO THE ORDER OF THINGS, THE WEAK BOW TO THE STRONG AND ARE EATEN. THY ART STRONG. THY WILL _ FEAST. _

Bart felt its claws rest on his shoulders, the words screamed in his mind and blurred his vision as he struggled to endure the sheer mass of its attention — its weight was incalculable, impossible. A gasp escaped him as he stumbled and fell to one knee, teeth clenched as he fell into the grip of a fit — body shaking and convulsing as his spine slackened and his frame teetered, unable to bear its own weight. A shout went up as that looming presence behind gave a low, hungry exhale. Black slavering ichor drooled down over his line of sight as he struggled to keep from pitching over as weakness flooded his body, the oozing ebony pus running down his arms, across his face as the presence drew a too-long, too-flexible talon along his jawline in an obscene parody of a lover's touch.

THIS IS MINE KINGDOM STILL

Then, it was gone.

“Bart!" Nazir's voice called to him, he heard a scuffle and managed to raise a hand as the dandy came running to his side, the rest of the party having continued forwards as Bart's encounter had lagged him behind.

“It… it's just another… another fit," Bart protested, his chest heaving as the weakness dragged at him, pulling him downwards to the floor as he struggled to remain even at one knee.

“Just a fit! You stubborn Church Knights would undersell death itself!"

“I… got better…" Bart rasped laconically around a ghastly smile as he took a deep breath.

“Oy, somethin' ails ye lad?" Whitt asked as Bart struggled to his feet, Nazir bracing what he could of the larger man's weight — he was a small fellow, but his lean body was whipcord fit, stronger than he looked.

“I… I was very near the grave some days ago. Naima brought me back, with her mantle's power." Bart admitted with clenched teeth. “It has… weakened me."

The elder stared at him with kind eyes, but his face was an impassive mask. Bart realized after a moment he was not staring at him — but rather the place the Wendigo's spectral presence had occupied a moment past. Could the old man see it? Was he aware of its presence?

“Aye… ye got better," he said quietly, Bart drawing himself up as he turned his head slightly, flicking his gaze behind him… and for a moment between two shadowed trees, he saw the glimpse of the animal skull, jaws wide. Grinning at him.

“Y-you were saying there were… weaknesses you could exploit, to fend off this 'Rawhead' as you call him." Bart prompted, Whitt's eyebrows went up into the rim of his skullcap and he nodded.

“Aye, I was sayin' that he is a simple creature and tae struggle against him is a struggle o' wills." the old man said, walking with a purposeful step now, short staff clicking mutely on the hard-packed dirt of the trail.

“Ain't no man born then or yet who can endure him on his lonesome, tae feel his grasp on ye is to feel the grasp o' the very idea of decay, none born cannae endure."

“So is there no hope?" Bart rasped, Nazir's eyebrows furrowing at the fervor in his friend's voice, Whitt shook his head and laughed.

“Oh nae there's always hope, I said nae one man could endure him alone," the elderly man said, tapping his nose once more; “Ol' Rawhead is a limited, sad thing and the one thing he dinnae understand, cannae understand — is faith."

“How can that be?" Nazir challenged as Bart felt the last of the weakness leave him well enough, straightening the big man out, the lean dandy raised his own eyebrows once more; “He's a servant of the Empty Queen, is that not faith in a deity?"

“Nay, that is nae faith that is power." Whitt corrected, reaching a hand to comfortingly grasp the eye and crook symbol about his throat; “Faith is selfless, laddie. It is an act o' pure trust, nae exchange nor contract. Ol' Rawhead cannae bear th' presence o' true faith — it repels him, harries him with the agony o' denial."

“Denial?" Bart asked, and Whitt nodded.

“Tae act o' faith is anathema tae such a simple, sad creature. He only knows what for he can take, nae even tae concept o' giving. He cannae understand it, and that harms him. Like a hot brand tae its flesh."

The idea rang Bart's mind like a gong. Invoke her not it had screamed at him in his dream, the very act of prayer, of supplication to his Lady — merely naming her title before it — had harmed it, driven it back. Faith. Was this why it gnawed at him? Why it chewed and worried at the protections of his soul? To break his faith, to rob him of his only weapon against it? Bart's chest swelled with defiance as he idly laid a hand over his breast — the Eye-and-Horn almost warm beneath his hand. Old Whitt grinned and nodded.

“Aye laddie, every man from the Black Times what resisted an' denied Ol' Rawhead was a faithful man. God an' his blessed name drove tae hunger from their hearts and fired their bellies wit' righteousness." he said, almost as if he had been there. “It gave us hope in tae dark, an' a shinin' example to live up tae."

“God is great." Rashid rumbled from his place ahead of them, Whitt nodded sagely.

Bart focused his eyes ahead. In the shadows, he saw the flicker again, the grinning skull. The waves of malice, he fixed it with a glare.

“Lady's might protect us," he said aloud… and the darkness seemed to quiver. Anger and hatred oozed out… yet it ebbed away like a skulking stray, kicked away from the door.

“Amen."

~ ~ ~

The journey was otherwise fairly quiet, the valleys of the Middlelands seemed to exist in a hush all their own, secluded away from the bustle and crush of civilization — it was a piece of an older, simpler life — and in many ways, Bart envied such an existence. It was as his father and mother sought out, a quiet place to simply be.

Callum left them after a spell, kicking his feet off the wagon and waving at Lidia all eagerness and bright-eyed enthusiasm. The little changeling seemed loathe to let him leave, looking up to Bart at the time and remarking; “Makin's o' a proper Redcap there, he's canny, brave, an' true."

“Makings of a proper Paladin, to my eyes." Bart had countered, and truly — all the slight girl could offer in rejoinder was a smile. Neither was wrong.

Bart was glad to see the boy go, even as he waved and grinned, running off down a well-worn trail towards a house sunk deep into the nestling hills of the valley — not for a dislike of his company, but for the continuing presence of his dark passenger. The Wendigo seemed to take a particular interest in appearing when it was spoken of, the appellation of 'Ol' Rawhead' almost seemed to amuse it. As Whitt spoke of its history it lingered — a glimpse of a skull or its two-chambered chest heaving between the trees, its breath wet and fetid as it leered at Bart from the shadows, always the shadows. He'd begun to become wary of dark places. It seemed unable to truly touch him, affect him — but it made a damn convincing illusion of such, fooling his senses and winnowing at his mind as it had promised. Hours passed, and the stories wended and wound along tall tales and hearsay before coming back around to the hard, bitter truth of things as the sun began to edge towards the far horizon, deepening the shadows and reddening the skies.

“So, this 'House' of this creature you spoke of, what is it exactly?" Nazir asked, always at the forefront of the queries with the elderly man, Whitt turning his eyes towards him appreciatively. Nazir's rapport with the man had grown in the short time they'd followed the same path — the southerner was a natural diplomat, and his successes in life were clearly owed to his gregarious, infectious courtesy.

“Aye, I suppose nae much to call it else but a temple. A place o' worship fer his thralls and supplicants. Ol' Rawhead dinnae keep faithful in th' way our Lord does. He marks ye," he tapped his chest with gnarled fingers, “Makes ye his creature, tae do wit' what he wishes, tae consume or drive tae war it matters nae tae Ol' Rawhead, so long as ye cast away ye humanity and return tae the wild ways."

The talk of marks made Bart's blood run cold, it fit together nicely with the beast's constant, harrying presence. Was it truly near him, upon him in a physical sense… or had he been marked, at some point in his journey — in his battle against evil. Whitt carried on. \

“His house was a place o' worship, center o' his power in th' deepest parts o' the hills — some hour or so ride west o' here, where the mountains and the valleys meet, the wildest, most primeval parts o' the land. 'Tis a confluence."

“A confluence? Like old mysticism, leylines, and the like?" Nazir asked and Whitt nodded.

“Somethin' tae that intent. It's a place o' power, a dark, fetid little moor near a stagnant spring. 'Tis Ol' Rawhead's element writ in stone an' soil."

“Sounds like a miserable place for a miserable creature," Bart growled, feeling the monster's eyes upon him, hearing its fetid, hacking laughter echoing from the trees. He curled his lip in disdain, Whitt only nodded.

“Aye, well we should be hittin' the outskirts o' the clanhome nearin' the old stompin' grounds," Whitt said, gesturing ahead of them, the trail wound and meandered along natural concourses and old dried game trails. In many places the cart and wagon had struggled with uneven ground rife with exposed roots and moss-covered stones — the woods this deep traveled on foot or by steed — far beyond the reach of common traders.

“Iffin' ye want tae know more, Tarja knows th' grounds o' the place tae the stones. Her clanhome 'ave kept eye on the ol' monster's house fer generat-" He trailed off with wide, stunned eyes as they rounded a bend in the trail, the trees opened up and gave way to the outlines of yet another sleepy little hamlet… and a sight of grim horror.

COME. WITNESS MINE OWN SPLENDOR. KNOW ME BY MINE WORKS.

The monster had loomed out of nothingness, crawling up out of Bart's shadow to narrate the horror they witnessed. Its arms had swept wide, and its cavernous, skeletal maw leaned down close to Bart's ear, causing the Knight-Brother's teeth to clench and his gorge to rise. He refused to look, refused to tear his eyes from what he saw to acknowledge the creature. Black tarry ichor oozed from its jaws, pattering across the Eye-And Horn across his chest, staining it with its black words.

YOU WILL KNOW ME BY THE END.

The little township was ravaged. No larger than the mere hamlet they had passed through before, it had been all but flattened — like a massive singular force had simply driven itself through it bodily. Planks and splintered timber lay strewn about, not a single home nor building's door hung intact, ripped and hammered down, the frames themselves bent inwards — like something far too large, too wide had forced its way through with unnatural strength.

“God's Blood," Bart whispered, the Wendigo's laughter echoed in his ears.

The smell of blood hit them all at once, the party struck silent by the sight, Whitt's eyes wide and staring as he walked through the ruins, stopping in the middle to turn around with an expression of loss incalculable on his face.

“… I 'Twas but a day gone…" he breathed, the aged man suddenly looked truly old, his body bent under his own weight as he covered his eyes with a shaking hand, turning away from something casually tossed aside to the ground, something smeared in unidentifiable gore — yet its form was clear as day.

A simple wooden doll.

The sound of drawing steel echoed between the trees, Rashid's grim tulwar coming to hand as he rode into the midst of it, Lidia and Nazir similarly drawing steel. Bart hesitated, his eyes looked to his axe in its loop alongside his saddle, his fingers began to tremor and tremble as he tore his eyes from the hilt — and forced himself to look. To see.

There was nary a sight nor sound but the creak of timber and the whistle of the wind, an errant door swinging in the breeze, clattering against its destroyed frame. The path the invaders had trod was clear as day, the brush and trees trampled and forced aside, and the ground churned up with the clear signs of struggle.

They found the bodies shortly after.

There were not many, and of them, they were all fighting-age men. Scattered hither and yon, perhaps a half-dozen total, each one left where he fell, a weapon of some sort still at hand or nearby, their bodies savaged — hacked and torn, and in some places, their whole heads were simply gone, the stumps of necks and bodies bearing the marks of too-large, gnashing teeth.

“Ghuls," Bart said as he knelt over one such decapitated corpse with a bleak expression — sprawled out before a doorway with a crib visible in the far corner of the home, overturned and empty. Bart's guts clenched like a tangle of snakes, the Wendigo looming above him, having never once left, disappeared, nor faded since they walked into the village, it hung over him like a long shadow, its grating breath and low cackles grinding down on Bart's mind, taxing his sanity. Lidia nodded, her nose curling in distaste.

“Aye, I can smell 'em. That piss an' vinegar stink." she hissed, pulling her hood's scarf-like ends around her nose.

“Aye, ye at least 'ave eyes tae see, Stormcrow." a deep voice echoed from off the path, Bart whirled, unarmed but for his fists he raised them nonetheless to the presence, ready to sell his life in due course. Jules stood there, just beyond the house's eaves. The hunter sat in a half-crouch, a quiver hanging from his hip and a long, heavy bow of Middlelands yew in his clenched fingers.

“There were four o' them, marked tae individual strides and tracks," The tall woodsman said, reaching down to touch the odd, almost dog-like footprints Bart and Lidia both recognized from the undercrofts of Lachheim, “A dozen o' so men as well, nae no one wears boots liken tae these hereabouts." he continued, clearly a master of his craft tapping another print, they were shallow and flat with a series of inset studs but no heel, not like the soft-soled shoes and half-boots that the locals favored. A more primitive, ancient style.

“They went that ways," he continued, turning his head to another trampled-down section of foliage to the west, leading into a darkened tunnel of trees and twisted roots barely wide enough for three men abreast, “We dinnae go tae that place, 'cept the Elders."

“Tarja… aye, Tarja an' I walk th' Ol' Monster's house, keep it free o' anythin' that might carry its fell stones or effects far an' wide. 'Tis a tainted place."

“His old house." Bart breathed, and the Wendigo's fell presence drew a deep breath, letting it out in Bart's ear with a shudder of pleasure leading it.

COME BARTHOLOMUS, I INVITE YE TO MINE ABODE. THE FEAST IS ALREADY NIGH

Bart shuddered, and the palsy trembled up his arm as Jules spat to one side, chewing a long cattail reed anxiously.

“We have to retrieve them!" Nazir said, even the lithe dandy was armed, the stout curved dagger he always carried at hand, its nearly two-span edge wicked and utilitarian — a blade made for fighting, not daily tasks. Nazir's eyes were full of fire, the same blazing purpose he'd seen in them fighting Humbaba.

“Aye, th' tracks are but hours old, th' bodies still warm," Jules confirmed, standing up straight. “I will take ye to th' Ol' Monsters house, iffin' ye have the belly." he said, his jaw lifting defiantly, “If nae, I will go alone."

Bart felt his guts clench, the shaking daring to draw the air from his lungs as the Wendigo pressed down on him with its presence, the black ichor oozing down his arms as its jaws slavered, to his eyes staining his hands with the dark bile — staining his hands with the atrocity done here. They began to quake violently, and his teeth clenched.

“I will go as well!" Nazir answered, getting a flash of concern from Naima and Rashid, but he headed it off with a hard expression; “Mantles or no, the path is not made for horses nor carts, and I have always been able to best you in a footrace, Brother Mine." the little southerner shot back to Rashid, who's eyes widened in surprise at the fervor.

“Nazir, you are not a warrior…" Naima began and he spat, blade in hand.

“I am not, but I am not a simple merchant or some puffed-up dandy either, I am a son of Al-Reza! The charge of God and Heaven lays upon me as much as any born upon its golden sands!" he all but roared, raising that curved blade, “I — we all — carry these for the sake of defending the weak, and the weak are there!" he jabbed a finger towards the ominous shadows and tangled trees; “And they need someone quick of foot and sure of step, and I will not stand idly by as… as…" he turned his head to the interior of the home Bart knelt before, to the overturned and ransacked crib.

“… As mere babes are left to the teeth and claws of horrors."

Bart admired his friend's courage, but Rashid stepped down from his horse, his tulwar swinging readily at the end of his arm.

“Be that as it may — there are true monsters in that wood, and they will not bend to small steel and nimble footwork. They are savage, red in tooth and claw, and must be met as such."

“Bart will handle the monsters, no?" Nazir countered, and Bart looked up, his eyes haunted as the palsy shook him harder, none had noticed the fit as he swallowed his rising gorge, clenching his fists. All eyes turned to him, and a deep well of shame dropped his guts out of his belly — threatening to rob him of all strength and conviction as the Wendigo's leering presence stroked its claws down his back.

COME BARTHOLOMUS, MINE DOOR IS SWUNG WIDE, MINE HEARTH WARM.

Its talons drew down along his sides like a lover might, its breath hot and fetid — the sheer weight of it drove the air from his lungs… he couldn't go, it was waiting for them… waiting for him. He felt the eyes upon him like white-hot needles, and he looked up at his friends. Eyes to eyes he met each gaze in a rapid motion, seeing expectation and confidence in Nazir's gaze, worry in Naima's, duty in Rashid's and… as he came to Lidia, he saw fear. Fear not for herself, but for him — for her eyes were not upon his, but his quaking hands.

“I… fear I may not be able," Bart said in a small voice, drawing himself to his feet, leaning heavily upon the ravaged house's moss-covered frame and raising his hands, showing the shaking palsy that plagued him, his face a hideous mask of misery.

“I am not as I once was," he murmured shamefully, and Jules spat to the dirt again, his face full of unspoken judgment. Whitt, long silent looked to him square.

“Nay, none what live through such horrors are, laddie," he said, and Bart… watched his gaze slip from him, up to the air above him. The Elder stared straight at The Wendigo and its oppressive presence, stared it straight in the eye. Bart felt the monster's claws clench in him, possessive and jealous.

“Ye know what she'd say." was all Whitt said, his eyes dropping down to the bloodied doll again, and silence reigned. Nobody needed to ask who 'she' was.

Bart was stunned into silence… what magic did the old man possess? There was no way he simply looked dead at the creature's empty eyes and hateful face by chance. Bart's mind raced, had he been aware this whole time? Did he give off some kind of tell? A symptom of the beast's interest that the old mystic could see? Doubt clawed at his guts as he turned his head to the yawning, beckoning darkness…

“Bart," it was Nazir's voice, he was close now, the big Church Knight had not noticed the lithe southerner's approach in his turmoil, but he was here now — a surprisingly strong hand grasping his bicep, “Come," he said, and drew him back towards the horses away from the others. The big man could do naught but follow along, bearing the weight of the ravening apparition's own claws as they dug and tore at his flesh with illusory edges and all-too-real cuts upon his soul.

“Bart, brother mine I have watched you wither and buckle beneath this affliction, and my heart aches to see it." he whispered hoarsely as they stood apart, the lean man looking up at Bart and yet, he felt much taller to the churchman as he spoke; “I do not doubt your courage, I have seen it naked and bold in the line of fire. I do not find you to be a brittle man who would shy from danger, and I do not believe that is what holds you back now. Speak to me Bart, tell me how I may draw out whatever poison ails you, for these people." he said looking back at the doll, Whitt kneeling before it solemnly. The words stung but not from spite, but truth.

“I fear my weakness will take me, Nazir," he gasped and the creature dug its nails in further, causing Bart to clench his teeth as he felt the renewed assault on his soul, “Something… broke when I fell, at Lachheim, something vital. I fear only the Lady will put me right."

At that word — the raking talons quivered, the grip trembled. Nazir's eyes shone.

“I fear you may be right, but I have come to know you as a man, Brother mine. The man I know grit his teeth and fought while run through clean, and I do not believe that is what is broken in you, and I know neither do you," he said with a sureness of fact so clear it bordered on devotion. Nay, not bordered — That is what it was. Faith.

Faith in him.

Bart closed his eyes and looked within himself… Nazir was right, the palsy and pain was not of his body. He could see and feel the monster's claws in his heart, digging into that place he went to for strength, tainting it — dimming the light of God that he had cultivated. Anger suddenly boiled in him, black and tarry and full. The Wendigo's influence roiled around in his guts like an eel and smeared its gross ichor across his mind and spirit, dampening it and crushing him down.

Like kings. Like saints.

“Fight for me, Bart. Fight with this wounded heart as you did before, as you did in the streets before that hellish abomination." Nazir hissed, grasping Bart by the shoulders, his fingers clenching in — the tension was grounding. Bart clung to it like a lifeline.

“Rashid must stay here, I cannot bear to lose another innocent to the darkness and I trust him to guard our friends — but I must see this with mine own eyes, Brother mine." there was a fire in that golden gaze, a blaze of passion that stirred Bart's heart as he squeezed tighter, “I must stand up, for these people have twice now been forgotten by the world, left to the monsters. I cannot call myself a man if I continue to stand and let the bigger, safer men do the fighting."

“Nazir… you are not a warrior…" Bart reiterated Rashid's point and the smaller man shook him in anger.

“No! No, I am not!" he snapped and the fervor was crisp, sharp as a blade; “But I am a man of talents, quickness, and daring, and I will stand up and be counted, for the babes and their mothers if not my own damnable conscience!" he hissed, and his words stung with truth.

Bart… found he could not argue with that. The Wendigo's nails shuddered as Bart felt his chest swell with pride for his dear friend. He looked up and took Nazir's hand.

“I would be a poor vessel for The Lady's love if I denied such bravery," Bart said, and gritting his teeth he dug deep into his memory, faith was the wedge that he had been given. Faith was what he used. Squeezing Nazir's hand, the lean man squeezing back — Bart summoned every memory he had of his devotion. His study at the nave, the touch, feel, and smell of the Words of White, the Lady's Oath, and her illuminations. The ghostly touch of ivory mane and divine lips in dreams, the bright, golden glow of Her love filling him as it had in prayer, meditation, and even battle.

The raking talons shuddered, and the beast above him hissed.

“Lady In White, Queen of Love, I beseech thee — grant me strength to match my brother's zeal." he breathed, and in it was the inflection of prayer. Nazir grinned, squeezing his hand back.

“Learned One, Queen of Wisdom, I ask thee to steel my heart and steady my hands, for I have your work yet undone." he echoed, and a warmth seemed to grow between them as the creature hissed and yawned its jaws wide.

THY SHALT COME AND THY SHALT SEE. THY WILL KNOW ME BY THE END.

Yet and still, as defiantly as it bellowed for Bart's ears alone, the smoldering ember of faith in his heart burst into a great, golden conflagration at the monster's recoiling talons, Bart felt his chest swell and his body steady and he turned his head slightly, one blazing blue eye meeting that dead-eyed skull.

“Until the Pale Dawn calls me."

Defiance was the tone as it screamed at him, but it boiled away, recoiling from him as if burned, smote back by that which it could never understand. Faith.

Then, shrieking its rage… it was gone. Gone from his shadow, gone from the shadows around him. He felt it creeping at the barest edges, still lurking in the dark, pitiable parts of his mind — and in his fervor, he spat upon it. Good, let it remain in the darkest parts of his heart with shame. He would bear it like any scar, he had many. His eyes met Nazir's once more, and hollow and haunted as they were — there was steel in his gaze again.

“Hand me my axe. There is work to be done."

~ ~ ~

It took Bart little time to gird himself for battle, even as he found his center again the palsy plagued him — whatever curse the beast had laid upon him, the fires of faith merely dimmed it — he felt again that he would bear this monster's presence in some regard until death or the Lady cleansed it from him. He had faith that she could. Faith was all he had, but it was a mighty blade.

“Here," Lidia's voice came as his shaking hands struggled with his pauldron buckles; “I dinnae forget how this goes."

“Thank you, Lidia," Bart said honestly, letting his shoulders slacken, marshaling his strength as she worked, her nimble fingers threading and snugging the buckles where his still trembling hands struggled.

“I'm goin' wit' ye," she said, and Bart looked up at her.

“No." was all he said, and the word had the weight of a millstone.

“Ye cannae jus' decide that!" she spat in a huff; reaching over to strap the other pauldron tightly, Bart turned his body to aid her, and yet responded once more in kind.

“No."

“Ye're goin' in tae a fight an' ye know it! Let me help! I'm quick an' quiet jus' like the Pouf is!" she groused, and Bart caught her hand.

“And you have the sharpest eyes and keenest nose, and Rashid is here on his own to defend the caravan," he said sternly, meeting her gaze. “No, I need you here in case there are more than the four monsters in that dark place," he said, reaching down to tighten the straps across his brigandine. The little changeling gnashed her teeth but she took a breath.

“… Nae, ye're right. Ye fookin' bastard." she sighed, hugging herself a bit, avoiding his gaze; “An' fook ye for being so damn… logical an' shite." she huffed, turning back to him after the fact.

“Ye dinnae do anythin' stupid, the dandy's bold as brass an' I dinnae trust that fuckin' woodlouse wit' th' bow far as I can toss 'em — so ye need tae be th' sensible one."

“That's me, sensible." Bart agreed laconically, and Lidia rolled her eyes skyward.

“Promise me." she said with a sudden, sharp fervor, “Ye nae promise me an' I'll come followin' the second ye take yer eyes off me," she said — and by her tone that was a promise itself.

Rage boiled up into his guts, and a sudden and alien desire to slap her across the face and demand she does as told nearly leapt from him wholesale to reality, his teeth clenched and he drew in a breath, seeing the palsy and shake of his hand as he did. Clenching it tight he took a breath and then met her gaze once more. The ailment of his soul had been pressed down, but not erased.

“You're a menace, you know that?" he said tiredly, but a smile came to his haggard, unshaven face and he reached out, taking her hand in his, giving it a squeeze, “I promise. No more heroics than the situation dictates."

“Aye." she agreed, and smiled at him, squeezing his hand back as much as her tiny fingers could allow. Doubt still lived in his heart, but its nagging was quieter now. He had work to do. Lidia handed him his helmet.

“Go on then, time's a wastin'."

Bart took it, his gauntlets down in it as well. Tugging both on, he settled the visored barbute about his head, wincing as the straps caught his overgrown beard, but he fit it in place with a firm twist, snapping the visor closed. The steel was heavy, and his body quailed under the weight it had not borne in some many days. He was not cured, and his fear rested heavily upon him as he rose in his armor. Duty drove him on as cold sweat began to gather beneath the steel plate. The boiling fury still simmered inside of him as he lifted his axe, casting the cover from its blade and carrying the steel openly. The weapon felt almost alien now, and even as he rolled his shoulders he felt doubt creep in.

He was afraid. He had not the time for it.

“If we are not back by sunrise, take the cart and leave. Make for Fort Ivory." Bart said, his harness rattling as he fell into step alongside Jules and Nazir — the latter as well, had taken a moment to discard his bright, flowing tunic, wearing naught on his torso but his shirtsleeves and that heavy dagger, rolling the former up his lean, muscled forearms as they went.

“Go with God, my friend," Rashid said, his blade still in hand, the Akali having taken his role as protector of the caravan with his natural grace — it was his job long before they met Bart after all. Naima glared at Nazir, but her ire was clearly concern more than anger.

“Don't take any risks, brother!" she said sharply, stepping forward to briefly grasp her brother by his head, bumping her brow to his; “I've already pulled one man back from the grave, I'll trade ten more years just to box your ears proper."

“Of course, dear sister." He said, pulling away as Jules already had set down the trail, Bart turning along with them as Nazir jogged out… and both of them came up short as they found Whitt standing there, stout cane in hand.

“Ye won't get far wit'out me, 'Tis my people, and there's still as much fight as bits o' wisdom in these bones," he said, hefting that knobby little cudgel with a surprisingly steady arm, those eyes gleaming with that same hard-bitten determination endemic to these lands. Bart did not know what magic there was to the ancient man, but he had a bit of mysticism… perhaps the Old Ways weren't all superstition. God was mysterious, even to his chosen. Bart simply nodded and they all picked up the pace, the spry old man giving good as any, and the three vanished into the darkness.

The blackness was almost total, even as the last rays of the sun filtered down, coloring the woods the hue of fresh-spilled blood, the twisting trees of ash and yew grew gnarled and warped as the four men pounded down the uneven path — Bart stumbled here and there, his harness clanking and clattering while the three lighter men found their steps firmer and more sure.

“Ye announce us like a huntin' horn, Stormcrow." Jules groused as he moved ahead, easily outdistancing the others by virtue of his long legs and preternatural familiarity with the wood — this was his home, and he knew these hills and trunks better than Bart would ever dream. The big knight glowered at him from behind his visor, the gleam of the setting sun reflecting off his battered kit like he was already awash in gore — the Wendigo's laughter, hacking, wet and filled with mockery. His hands threatened to shake with palsy, and the creak of his gauntlets tightening around the haft of his axe was palpable as his growing anger.

“Worry not, these beasts have noses like bloodhounds." Nazir cut in, the lithe southerner ever surprising Bart with his agility as he moved through the encroaching branches and roots, his soft, pointed-toe boots making practically no sound in comparison to Bart's heavy, hobnailed boots, he raised a finger to the wind, at their backs, flowing down the canopied woodland towards the west.

“They will smell us long before Bart's din reaches their ears."

Jules clamped his jaw shut and continued running, the four men lapsing back into silence as the darkness deepened, the red dusk threatening to black out all light — and with it, hope.

It was nary a quarter-glass before the picture of the 'House' as it was called loomed up before them, suddenly out of the trees. Truly, they did not see the structure first — but the massive, earthen spire that pierced it. It was one thing to be told that the great, jagged tors were pieces of Crownspeak, hurled into the earth by God like spears — it was quite another to see the true evidence of it laid bare. The structure itself was a squat, primitive thing of stacked stone blocks carved by equally primitive hands in timeworn sigils and glyphs — ostensibly a ziggurat complete with a rough, blocky causeway of stairs all carved from pitted, dark stone.

At least it had been one day — before the great, towering spire had pierced it from above.

Verily had they seen it from afar as they had the many that stood like a great bed of nails up from the rolling hills of the Middlelands, but this one stood stark against the dark stone, its shale-like strata straight and true — driven down into fully half of the squat, squared-off pyramid — annihilating much of the structure and blasting chunks and whole flagstones free, where they lay still scattered like an errant cup of dice around the ruins of the place — long overgrown with moss, vines and creeping, entangling roots. Indeed much of the whole structure had been almost violently reclaimed by nature, resting beneath a clawing blanket of lichens and twisted, gnarled trees whose roots dug hungrily beneath the stone. Fetid water encircled it like a moat, stagnant and vile with a skin of scum and debris. Insects buzzed and wormed their way into clothes and armor, itching and irritating.

“If I did not know it to be a house of black-hearted evil before, the sight alone would tell me so." Nazir breathed as they all came to a rolling stop before the foreboding structure, the ground had been slowly descending on a shallow grade, and the ruins had sunk into the soft soil and depressed it along with its weight, creating a root-choked bowl that was snarled and obscured from afar by its writhing, spiteful branches. Nature itself trying to scrub this foul place from the face of its scarred, battered world.

A scream split the air, and in unison, each of them drew their weapons to hand, Bart's axe gleamed like a gore-soaked crescent in the falling dusk, Nazir's heavy blade flashing and a heavy broadhead came alive in Jules' fingers. The stairs were intact enough to climb, and the scuffs and smears of blood led up them, wet and fresh on the ancient stone.

“That's Tarja!" Whitt cried, and Bart set his feet, needing no further incentive as he took off at a sprint, axe held high. His vision flooded with red rage as he hit the stairs — the Wendigo's apparitions cackled and jeered at him as he stormed forwards — and at the crest of the stairs, familiar, hideous shapes emerged.

“GHULS!" Nazir shouted, the three men having followed Bart up the debris-riddled path as the four hulking figures barred the way, their semi-bipedal frames and massive razorback hunches standing out in sheer abominable wrongness against the darkening sky. Their hooting, ululating cries came as they came forward in a crush, too-large maws gnashing tusk-like teeth stained with blood and hideous limbs dripping gore, painting up their overlong arms in bright, unholy red.

“I'LL MIND THE BEASTS!" Bart bellowed as he dug deep for the fighting spirit, charging heedlessly into a four-on-one battle — he grasped for the warmth of his faith, his lips split in a battle cry that shook the very stones with its fervor as he closed the distance.

“LADY GRANT ME STRENGTH!"

His heart was like to burst as he felt the familiar surge of zealous might, the Words of White flashed in his mind, the edicts that bound a Knight-Brother to his duty.

“SUFFER NOT THE WICKED!" he roared, driving into the lead monster with a hammer blow of the axe, the weapon chopping into the beast's bony, faceless crown, chipping a gory chunk of the ossified flesh free and whipping the monster's immense skull to the side as all twenty-stone of Bart's weight carried with the weapon's bit. The beast staggered and missed a step, rolling into a heap down the stairs as Bart bulled past it, its second companion leapt upon him during the recovery — the Church Knight set his shoulders.

“STAND STRONG FOR THE WEAK!" he drove his fist upwards, deep into the yawning maw as it clamped down awkwardly on his arm, much of its force deflected as the warrior gagged it with steel, he screamed in pain and rage — but his armor held — and his gauntleted fist clenched around the soft, wet meat of its palate — and he twisted.

“PUNISH THE UNCLEAN!" he recited, nay screamed into the monster's face and the ghul's own terrified cries joined him as he ripped his arm back outwards — bringing a fistful of the monster's still-wriggling tongue with him, black gore spurting as he drove a boot into its chest and heaved — pitching the choking and gagging monster off the stairway into the still, black water below.

“BE UNTO THE WORLD, A BEACON OF LIGHT!" he crowed, taking his axe back in both hands as the three remaining monsters came at him from two sides, two with the advantage of high ground no less. Suddenly, cold shock ran up his arms, the palsy and pain of a fit jetted through him, causing him to stumble and nearly go to his knees, sweat poured down his face, and insects buzzed and flitted through the slit of his visor as the monsters advanced on him, sensing his vulnerability.

“Sacrifice thyself for the common man, for that is the Glory of God." he breathed and met the lethal rush with gritted teeth.

A whistling sound whipped past his ear, and one of the lunging beasts staggered with a gurgling screech, an arrow shaft thick as his thumb and long as his arm buried in its thick-skinned throat, spoiling its lunge as a second and third followed it, thudding wetly into its body and drawing new screams of pain as it evened the odds to a mere two-on-one as it writhed and tugged fruitlessly at the barbed arrows piercing its flesh. Bart jerked his head back to see Jules readying another shot, a stern nod from the dour woodsman was all that was given as Bart gripped his axe, fighting through the shaking and pain with another snarl of defiance.

Down arched the blade, the rearmost ghul lunging up to snap at Bart's legs, aiming to hamstring him instead caught yet another hammering blow from the blade, the weapon wedging firmly into its skull and driving its face painfully down into the stones — it wasn't dead, Bart had fought them enough now to know their skulls were thick and resilient, but the beast's tongue lolled as it was momentarily dazed.

Bart ripped the weapon free in a sheeting arc of gore as he swung it upwards into the second lunging beast's exposed gut, hooking the bill of the blade agonizingly into its ribs, showering him in a new gush of black, brackish blood as he screamed his fury and levered the monster's continuing momentum up, over and down — hammering the monster face-first into the stunned second ghul as it shook off the concussive blow it had just weathered — only to have its mortally wounded companion's skull crash into its own with a resounding crack of bone and a hideous squeal of the dying monster as the weapon opened its guts from groin to collarbone, nearly ripping the haft from Bart's hands as its ribcage blossomed like a hideous flower, shredded organs raining down on its dazed companion as the true steel trumped ancient flesh. Down the blade came again as Bart drove the weapon into the flayed beast's exposed heart, roaring like a steel-shod bear as he tore the weapon free, slinging a grisly wad of pulsing organs and mutilated meat flying through the air — ending the writhing beast's flailing.

The remaining two ghuls shook off their agony, the topmost screaming in anger and pain as it simply bit through the pinning arrows and bellowed that ululating hoot at the archer and the gore-soaked Knight he supported. Bart squared off with the two wounded monsters, his body alight with new pain as the palsy returned anew — Wendigo's influence tearing at him, gnawing the warmth of his soul. He spat through the slat of his visor, blood and spit mingling from a split lip. Jules seemed to hesitate as they surrounded him anew, clearly worried about hitting the Knight-Brother with one of his wicked arrows. Bart's armor might have stood up against a distant shot from a shoddy weapon, but the mighty yew limbs of Jules' longbow would put the arrows through him as cleanly as they had the ghul before.

“Come on then!" Bart roared, and instead of waiting, took the fight to the topmost monster. Skipping ahead of snapping jaws and slashing claws, he ran pell-mell straight into the arrow-studded beast that still held the high ground, driving his shoulder into it as he collided with it in a raucous din of steel plate and ossified flesh — the two rolling up the stairs in sheer momentum, a flurry of gnashing teeth, swiping talons and swinging fists. The ghul, in its element, twisted and rolled atop Bart, Jaw yawning wide as it snapped down at his head — Bart narrowly avoiding suffering the fate of the villager below as he jerked his head to one side, and answered with a bellowing shout — and a fierce strike of his elbow into the monster's temple, the heavy couter of his armor driving its steely point like a hammer.

Arrows sang again, and three more shafts blossomed out of the monster's back, causing it to arch in sudden agony, giving Bart a clear view of the snapped-off shaft buried in its throat. Coiling back one leg, he snarled and drove his heel upwards — slamming the shaft with all of his considerable strength up and through flesh and bone. The half-broken arrow drove up through its neck into its skull, jutting up out of the top of its armored cranium in a hideous burst of brains and bone chips that rained down on the supine Church Knight in a fresh spattering of gore, the monster going immediately slack and tumbling off him, rolling bonelessly over the edge to the dark fen below.

The remaining ghul wasn't a stupid creature as far as the savage intellect went, and its head snapped down to Jules, jaws flaring wide in a hissing, hooting bellow of fury as it slammed its twisting, four-taloned claws into the stones and gathered itself into a brutal charge. This one did not leap as the others had, rather tucked itself low into a scrabbling lupine gate, hurtling itself at the woodsman as he smoothly drew more arrows, nocking and loosing into a smooth rhythm that came but with practice and discipline. Jules was to be commended — yet he had never taken on the forces of the Empty Queen, and with him as its full focus, unbothered by Bart, still pulling himself to his feed — the slavering abomination found it easier to simply dart, duck or tuck its thickly armored head and shoulders to avoid the vicious broadheads. One even quite literally deflected off its knobby, armored skull in a grisly but harmless stripe of exposed flesh and bone as it bore down on the dour huntsman with slavering jaws and murder boiling in its blood.

“Jules!" Bart snarled, dragging himself to his feet — only to have the fit he'd been bulling through take his legs from under him in a shock of pain and weakness. His eyes snapped up to the lunging monster as his armored body crashed to its knees, nearly following the dead savages down the causeway into the mire — desperation lived in that blue gaze as he found himself unable to reach the man as he pitilessly fired more and more arrows at and into the blood-crazed beast. He wouldn't get there in time, the monster would rip the unarmored man apart.

There was a flash of movement, white linen bright in the oncoming dusk and a blade flashed bright as the Lady's Light. A small, wiry shape collided with the monster, and a shriek of protest emitted from the ghul's throat as it bucked, nearly rolling off the stairway to its doom while its new passenger grasped tightly.

Nazir. Bart's eyes widened as he forced himself to his feet, screaming without realizing his jaw was working or his throat forcing air, the pain unreal as he forced, demanding frayed nerves and jellied muscles obey him. The lithe dandy had unwrapped his heavy, tooled leather belt and slung it around the monster's throat in a loop — drawing it tight with his whole body, heels planted in its arched, razorback spine as he strained with a hoarse shout of challenge. The monster whirled and bucked, mad with pain and fury — far too strong for Nazir to simply overpower, he instead simply veered it from its course. That doughty blade — a knife with aspirations to life as a sword — flashed again, black gore spattered its length as he cut not at its neck nor torso, but at the powerful, corded tendons of its legs.

The scream the abominable thing made as the true steel sheared through its hamstrings was unreal, louder than seemed possible as the taut muscles rolled up like a spring gone slack, cutting its legs from beneath it as the daring dandy jerked the improvised reins hard, sending the monster into a crashing roll, Nazir's springy frame bounding free from the tangle of limbs, claws, and arrow shafts like a hart springing over a bluff, rolling heavily on the ground in an artful tumble as the monster's dense weight drove it face, tooth, and tongue into the stairs and their loamy packed soil blanket, digging up a furrow of sod and gore as teeth and limbs broke under the impact, bringing it to a rest just before Whitt and his stout cudgel.

The old man's eyes gave nary a tremor as it drove that knobby staff down square and true at the base of the creature's skull, the crack and crunch of bone louder still in the suddenly still air.

“You're sure there were only four of them, yes?" Nazir said, peeking up over the dead beast's shuddering corpse. Bart couldn't resist the grim smile as he closed the distance, limbs aflame but functional again as he forced himself to the end.

“Nae time fer gloatin'." Whitt said, banging his cudgel clean — the old man's arms were like ironwood branches, lean and hard as rocks as he pushed back the sleeves of his loose coat. Age had simply seemed to compress the man into a dense, sleek ingot of sinew rather than the wizened frailty he seemed to offer a casual glance, “My kin yet suffer!"

Jules blew out a breath as Bart approached, staring at the beast for just a moment before he met the Church Knight's gaze, he gave a terse nod at him and Nazir both, before jogging along up the steps, the other men quickly joining him with Bart once more pushing himself into the lead — his gore-soaked armor gleaming wetly as the Twin-Maiden moons crested the horizon behind them, bathing him in silvery light that made the battered, blood-stained sigil on his chest stand out like a beacon.

They crested the hill to a grand, terrible vision of things. The silver moonlight washed down over the unnaturally black stone, showing every imperfection and grit, grain, and graft across the surface. White lines of chalky wear and tear of ages of elements, animals, and an assault so ancient as to be history yet breathing.

The great spire arched above them at an angle, one of the largest Bart had ever seen, so close as to make the scale of the temple itself seem minute. The great out-thrust of its mass formed a veritable cavern beneath its great shelf of rock, it was here that Bart realized that the uneven, gnarled state of the earth around the ancient house of horrors was not of the Wendigo's doing — but was the terrestrial scars of the sheer depth of impact wrought by the great shard of the mountain's heart hurled into the top. That any of the great masonry stones yet stood atop another — let alone much of the temple itself weathered the impact that rent and roiled the soil beneath it like it was ripples in a pond was a testament to what great, true horror must the Wendigo have been at the height of its power.

The spire was visible clearly for it had torn the full roof off the complex in its impact, and as Bart and his companions crossed the uppermost landing they were struck briefly by the demanding urge to look up in awe — the naked, scarred columns and pillars reaching up to the sky like supplicating, skeletal fingers framing the far-flung peak of the spire. Beyond that, it was laid out as any place of worship might — a central concourse, a place to preach, and a place to worship. All were accounted for in some primitive capacity — chiefly the blasted, cracked dais once central to the affair, now a crushed ruin beneath a heavy piece of the great spire above. That debris itself was toppled and shifted by the attentions of hands and time — a conspicuous void present at the center of the mossy debris. Screams and cries of woe came up from either side of the central aisle, Bart could not immediately tell from where they came — for there were far more immediate problems.

Six figures remained, the dozen or more Jules had counted nowhere to be seen. Each was dressed similar to what Bart had glimpsed in the streets during their escape from Lachheim: long, draping layered robes of rough homespun in dark colors shot with faded bits of brighter thread, all earth tones paired with faded white and red marks. They fit loosely, as if they were a size too large, the strange, wizened men within them shrunken and desiccated — their faces each hidden behind a gauzy veil of black with a stark, white circle painted over it.

There was no parlay. No words, as Bart made the landing the first gave a hoarse cry and snatched a weapon from his waist, an axe — more of a hatchet really — made of blood-soaked, glittering black obsidian. The triangular blade was set into a beaten, carved wooden handle of intricate, alien design and its knapped edge looked as fine as the glass could possibly be. Each of the others drew a similar weapon, ancient axes, daggers, and strange saw-like arrangements of the black glass shards into savage sword-like paddles. There was no hesitation, each ran flat out with an eerie, jerky zeal that gave an almost insectile quality to their motions — practically falling over themselves in eagerness to do violence.

Bart barked a rough noise of alarm as he skidded to a halt, narrowly ducking back from a savage blow of the axe aimed directly at the gap near the neck of his armor, dancing back a few steps as the savage continued the wild strikes twice more before Bart got the haft of his own weapon between them, striking the weapon aside and without hesitation driving a fist into the circle-veiled face, bellowing his defiance in the face of the monster and its acolytes. The impact was practically a physical force in sound alone, the steely clang of his armored knuckles crashing into the apostate's skull reverberated off the ancient, alien stone walls like the blast of a horn — his accompanying roar a veritable wall of noise.

The combat resolved in a brutal affair, the follow-up stroke to the stunned opponent lopped off its upraised arm at the elbow, and then with savage, textbook efficiency — Bart stepped into the cut and brought the axe down with a practiced, measured roll of his shoulders and struck the thing's head from its neck in a single, precise blow. Gore fountained lazily, the blood seemingly too thick, dark like rot, and the body fell with a sudden and unnerving stillness to the ground like a discarded puppet.

Like that, the fight was on, and before the first had fallen, Jules had crested the landing and sent two shafts downrange at the creatures, evening up the five-on-one odds to three in favor as the heavy broadheads had no problems with the gauzy, homespun robes the apostates wore compared to the thick-hided Ghuls, and they crumpled — nearly jerked from their feet by the intense force of the bow's massive yew arms.

Bart advanced with a fresh bellow, drawing more attention to himself with the noise and his sudden charge. He engaged the first in a brutal one-two, the large, jagged obsidian dagger thrusting and cutting at him — before Bart simply turned his double-layered vambraces against it and smashed the wickedly sharp blade to flinders with the back-hammer of his heavily-armored hand, following it with a heavy rolling chop that ended with both hands on the haft his axe and the blade whistling down into the cultist's skull — the gauzy veil and peaked hood going hideously dark and slick as the chisel-like beard of the blade cleaved its skull in twain, depositing its brain and humors into the hood like a sack of butcher's offcuts.

Two more arrows split the air to Bart's left as he kicked past the dead man, catching one of the charging cultists armed with a long javelin of ugly glass mid-lunge, the force of these shots actually knocking the apostate off its feet as they hammered in rapid staccato beat into its chest and then most impressively — its head. The broadhead snapped the cultist's head back with such force Bart was sure its neck was broken as much as its brainpan emptied into a sodden, dark mass in the back of its concealing hood.

Bart closed on the final foe standing, making the first play aggressively as the unhinged apostate brought one of the strange saw-toothed paddles to bear — mercilessly hacking down at the hooded figure's head and shoulders before being beaten back with a surprisingly agile if erratic series of cuts that sacrificed a great deal of safety for ferocity's sake. Bart still found himself ducking and weaving after a few deflections peppered him painfully with shards and flakes of the smaller, more fragmented teeth of the weapon — in a hideous way the saw-like weapon was self-sharpening and the wood back gave it enough heft that it could stave in his skull or be shoved and pressed into joints and worried like teeth. It caught his gambeson where it showed beneath mail on deflections before he caught one sawing strike square with the haft — the dragging motion causing literal sawdust and chips to spit from the divot it dug in the haft before the heavy steel langet stopped it, and he stopped the weapon. Twisting his own armament, he hooked the beard around the wicked paddle and hauled, not unlike a bind in sword-on-sword combat — but the axe afforded him the great advantage of leverage.

With a tearing motion, Bart disarmed the man figuratively and literally in two fluid, rolling swings of his torso and hips — the first ripping the weapon from the apostate's hands, the second severing them both at mid-forearm in a grisly, splintering wound — and then a third with the carried momentum like a lumberjack hewing a burl, drove the blade through the back of the cultist's skull, chopping the top of his head clear off the bottom in a grisly spread of human shrapnel that was dashed to the floor along with the shredded peak of its hood. The body followed the violence of the motion, thrown bonelessly to the ground like a felled game hen — stone dead.

The final ringing din of battle rattled off the massive, stone walls for a time well after the last apostate beast lay still. Whitt and Nazir peeked over the platform, both leaving the crush of direct combat to the professionals. Bart's chest heaved as he fell to one knee, the palsy shaking his hands as he finally staggered over — pain taking his legs from him.

“BART!" Nazir barked, running full-out and sliding to a crouch near him — only for Bart to raise his arm, holding him off as he leaned heavily on the eye of his axe.

“I… I am fine… it is just a fit, I… I am unharmed…" Bart said, his eyes smiling through the slit in his visor as he weakly gave the Southerner a thumb's up. Nazir burst into a relieved smile.

“Oe'er here, Churchman," Jules' voice called, getting both his and Nazir's attention, the hunter had followed the scuffs, blood smears, and mud from the entrance, and found a series of square pits lining both sides of the aisle — and in them, the surviving townsfolk had been stuffed. Bart hobbled over, the Wendigo's presence was oppressively close here, as thick as it could be without directly manifesting as it had before. Bart's fervor of duty had driven it back a bit, but not away. No, he did not think himself so mighty as that.

Whitt and Jules had rapidly set about pulling up their kinfolk, and Bart was relieved to see many whole and intact children in the arms of mothers and siblings, the state of the village and amount of blood had given him such pause. Nay, sadly instead it seemed of all those rescued, only the youngest of the males seemed to be still alive. Every man with an able arm had died fighting.

“'Tis gone! 'Tis gone, gone! They took it!" an aged, wheezy woman's voice wailed, Whitt had drawn up a wizened figure of similar age to himself, her hair white as snow and bundled back from her face by a bandanna and hood, all stained with blood now, her pale eyes wild, “Ye too late, they found it… I nae said a word…" she seemed anguished. Bart straightened his back and caught Whitt's eye, raising his visor.

“What is she saying?"

Whitt's eyebrows crested, and then he sighed heavily. Once more, his years seemed to manifest as a tangible weight as he walked the frantic woman over to a fallen stone, sitting her down and gently rocking her on his shoulder. They sat there like that for a long few moments before Whitt spoke.

“Th' altar. We an' our clanfolk are charged wit' keepin' this place inviolate o' the touch o' outsiders." he said, shaking his head, “An altar tae th' Queen was here. Buried." he said, nodding his head. “We buried it, our grandfather's grandfathers."

Bart cast his eyes back to the suspiciously empty space upon the dais, the rockfall seemed less fateful now, an intentional tomb rather than outrageous symbolism.

“'Tis a powerful relic, laddie. A truly awful thing, tae others… jus' targets o' leisure. They wanted th' altar. An' they got it."

Wendigo's laughter came quiet to Bart's ears alone, quiet, pleased, patient. Bart clenched his teeth.

“Another thing they will answer for." he resolved, guilt hanging heavy in balance with the gratitude he still saw in the old man's eyes.

“Thank ye, Churchman." Whitt said, still rocking Tarja on his shoulder, the woman weeping softly; “Tae cost was still heavy, but iffin' ye had not come along, 'twould 'ave been total."

Bart smiled, it barely touched his eyes, but it did as he turned weary eyes to the young children. He counted the cost, and found at least there — in those tiny lives — he found the payment worth it. The dead had thought so, who was he to question what they paid?

“Glory unto god, it is but my duty," he said tiredly, looking out to the rising moons, seeking comfort in thoughts of another place. A good and gentle place.

~ ~ ~

Dawn rose over a much different world than dusk had set upon, Bart and company sitting alongside their little caravan in that nameless little hamlet, watching over the survivors til the light of dawn had driven away fears of the dark and its reprisals. Moreover, it had brought Jules and his kin from up valley with provisions and care.

Bart was found naked to the waist, bent over heavily on one upraised knee at the mouth of the wagon, exposing the great expanse of his chest and back. Naima was carefully but industriously seeing to a multitude of oozing red cuts and marks, a tiny pair of glittering brass forceps in hand, extricating the saidsame multitude of tiny glass slivers from his flesh — his payment for the melee atop the ziggurat.

Chief Kaden surveyed the state of the Church Knight as he came upon the tableaux, one eyebrow raised into his hairline.

“Ye've 'ad a full evenin'," he remarked laconically, Bart grinned at him in much the same way, the rueful cast to his face not managing to dull the glimmer in his eyes.

“It was — ow — eventful," Bart agreed, wincing as Naima removed yet another tiny barb from his flesh.

“Horrid weapon, using volcanic glass as such, absolutely savage." she groused as she worked, her fingers clad in fine leather gloves for protection as she extracted the flakes and shards, dropping them into a small leather-lined box as she went, “Even the glancing blows off your armor showered you in tiny nails. Horrid." she reiterated, Bart could only wince.

“She's been at this for a full glass and a half," Bart said with a clench of his teeth. “Every time I think she is done… there is more."

“You should be on your hands and knees thanking the Lady, Learned one and God that by some miracle none of this made its way to your eyes." she said in a severe tone, plucking yet another sliver from his flesh, “As it stands — painful and pervasive as these are — this kind of wound is exactly the sort of thing that my little salve speeds along best. As uncomfortable as you are now if I have been thorough-"

“You have." Bart cut in sternly, getting an arched eyebrow from Naima now as he was rapidly becoming well-acquainted with,

“-Then you shall be healed up in a day, maybe two," she said, the pot of unguent resting on the lip of the cart nearby — clearly the next phase of Bart's treatment.

“Well, nae fer naught, interruptin' ye's doctorin', but I wanted tae say we've finished bundlin' up th' last o' the local kinfolk. “ Chief Kaden said, nodding in a workman-like fashion, “Me clanhome's tae put them up piecemeal til tae fixin' can be done here," he said, looking around grimly.

“Would 'ave been a shade darker, were not fer ye and yers, laddie." the lean man said, behind him with the last of the survivors Jules appeared in silence. The chief met eyes with both men and nodded once more to Bart.

“Good work, laddie. Ye are ye Lady's creature tae th' teeth," he said, and Bart managed a genuine smile between the pricking. The chief spared him a slap to the shoulder and instead exchanged a grip with the hunched-over knight-brother, squeezing fondly as he took one last look at the ruins.

“'Tis my duty, is all," Bart said with a vague gesture of his hand by way of a shrug — Naima still quite hard at work precluding his shoulders from moving overmuch — getting a toothy grin from the older man as he turned away.

“A few new planks…" he mused and wandered off. The spirit of these hills lived in the man, nothing but a few setbacks. They were built hard here. Speaking of hard men, as the chief left to see to his people — Jules stepped in, the dour huntsman nodded with a doff of his narrow cap at Naima — who saw no amount of personal conversation as a reason to cease her work. Bart winced as a particularly deep flake was pulled from his flesh.

“'Twas right 'bout ye, Stormcrow." the huntsman stated apropos of nothing, direct and earnest. Bart felt his temper flare briefly, the man's acerbic bearing sat ill with him — but it was clear Bart was no exception to the sharp side of his tongue, rather the rule. Subsiding with a raise of his eyebrows, Bart gestured vaguely at the man,

“And? If you are here to drive your feelings on me home, I fear I have little care left for — Ngh — minor irritations," he said, Naima having to dig her forceps in deeper than previously, blood ran freely down his back, rather than the fine oozing cuts. Jules' face was a mixture of rue and revulsion as Bart recovered, smoothing a hand across his face as Naima daubed the blood away with business-like precision.

“Aye, I dinnae envy ye the experience." Jules agreed, eyes flicking over the man in a sort of mute awe.

“Ye were cut up like this th' whole scrap up top?"

“Apparently," Bart grated a bit, Jules sat down across from him on a large curl of a root, the tree itself so ancient it covered much of the main intersection of the village, the huntsman just stared at him for a minute, shaking his head.

“'Twas right, ye were nothin' but an omen of ill fortune. Ne'er has been a time when th' Church looks in at th' Ol' Ways… I dinnae expect ye tae stick it out, mind." he said honestly, looking him up and down again. “'Twas jus' one o' ye, and half-lame besides. I expected ye tae spout wise, and then shuffle off tae ye fortress an' leave us tae struggle on, as always."

“Sorry to disappoint you." Bart grated at him somewhat more vehemently than he intended, Naima's hands still at work, Jules' teeth showing in another cringe as she extracted another jagged flake of the weapons from him — the huntsman's eyes wide. Bart's expression became anxious,

'How big?' the knight-brother mouthed silently to the woodsman, who simply shook his head and held up two fingers each themselves two fingerbreadths apart. Bart winced and the other man nodded grimly.

“Soldiers." Naima sighed resignedly, returning to work without missing a beat.

“Anyroad," Jules said after that sobering moment, “I dinnae expect ye tae follow-through. I'm a hunter, an' I always call me shots, hits an' misses both," he admitted glibly, scratching his short growth of beard, those too-intense eyes still on Bart's. He held his gaze too long, too deep. “Ye did as much as I could expect in short order. So I'm here to square th' slate," he said and extended his hand plainly,

“Good workin' wit' ye."

Bart considered the hand and the humility it presented. It spoke well of the awkward, dour man. He had little in the way of manners, but he clearly possessed a strong sense of ethics. Bart didn't much like the man, but he found they could part on the level there — a soldier's ethics. Jules may not be a common Man-at-Arms, but he served his community as much as Bart did his own. They were soldiers still.

“A fortunate enterprise," Bart agreed with a squeeze and truly meant it. The stoic man nodded once, doffing his cap at Naima before turning and picking Lidia out of the nearby companions. Bart turned his head, Jules once again seeming not to care overmuch for social niceties like a lowered voice.

“Apologies tae be made, ma'am," He said with a formal tone, taking his cap from his head, “Much as was said before was said out o' intentional provocation, an' I bear the blame for the sharp side o' me tongue, iffin' ye'd forgive me or nae," he said with a little bow from the shoulders. Lidia for her credit, seemed as shocked as anyone — after all, how many times could she have gotten a sincere apology in her short, brutal life?

“I… I well," She began, sitting back on her hands from where she perched atop the wagon, her bright green eyes narrowed in serious consideration.

“I forgive ye, but only 'cause ye were square with th' Hayseed first," she said with a resigned tone, her voice somewhat uncomfortable, “Dinnae think ye will get away with it twice."

“O' course, ma'am," Jules said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Lidia smiled, it was a bit frayed at the edges, but she seemed to have the tips of her thorns dulled at the least. The huntsman nodded once more, tucking his cap snugly back down over his head before he paused and added, “Callum sends 'is regards, he's hale and whole, he an' that great hound o 'his."

Lidia brightened a bit at that, and that smile strengthened to something more genuine as the woodsman vanished into the trees, the invisible watcher of the wilds.

“Mayhaps he's nae so bad a sort." Lidia ventured in a small voice from her perch atop the wagon, sprawling out cat-like over the edge once more.

“There. From what I can see, that's the last of them. Miserable things." Naima said, Bart wincing a bit as she plucked the last sliver from his back, the big man shivering as the breeze chilled him across the dampness of his blood and sweat-slicked torso, his shoulders slumped with fatigue.

“God and Lady be praised," he groaned as she began the much-quicker task of daubing the pleasantly cool unguent upon the stinging wounds, resting his head on his upturned knee, shoulders slumped as he was no longer tense against the possibility of driving a rogue sliver deeper.

“Next time you encounter maniacs with primitive weapons, don't let them hit you as much," she said sternly, wrapping his body in winding linen bandages in layers as she dressed the various punctures.

“Don't get hit'." Bart observed laconically as he blew out another breath; “Truly the arcane knowledge I was sorely lacking, whatever would I do without your stunning council." to which he earned a lopsided smirk from the dark-haired healer,

“Don't be churlish, it's unbecoming."

“Yes ma'am," Bart said automatically, getting a pat on the head as she worked.

“Good boy."

“They've all gone now, quite efficient really," Nazir breathed, walking back up to the group and flopping down into the open back of the cart, the sunrise burning the sky orange and red — as if the evils of the night before were but ash and fume to the morning light, “I never thought I would prefer the ravening maw of beasts to the eyes of babes, but if I never see another child look at me the way they did it will be a blessing most divine."

“Agreed." Bart groaned, both men clearly fatigued beyond reckoning.

“Do not say it will grow easier, I do not care to gain the stomach for such things." the dandy said morosely, staring up at the swaying boughs with half-lidded eyes as Naima quickly wrapped up her winding of bandages, Bart nodded at her and walked over with a faint limp, flopping back onto the wagon next to the tired southerner. Bart may have done the bulk of the fighting — but there was far more warfare being waged than the mere physical.

“It will grow easier, I apologize." Bart sighed and Nazir made a face at him as the two men stared up at the dawning sun as it filtered down through the trees.

“I specifically requested the opposite of this," Nazir groused tiredly, his shirt and face still stained with blood, mud, and dirt in much the way Bart was, the all-encompassing grime of combat played no favorites.

“Too bad, you're a man with a good heart. Unless that changes, you have not seen the end of such things." Bart said with surprising thoughtfulness; “The World can't spin on the backs of soldiers alone, we're a pragmatic lot and none-too-comforting once the fighting is done."

“Truly, a world populated only by men-at-arms is a dour one. Safe, but dour." Nazir agreed and Bart laughed a bit, wincing as the motion made his wounds sting against their wrappings.

“Alas, you will have to bear the immeasurable weight of incomparable talent. It is a mighty burden, 'tis true." Bart agreed with faux solemnity that drew another silent, shaking laugh from Nazir.

“If I must." he agreed with equally false gravitas, both men grinning as the caravan milled around them, Nazir's eyes distant as he spoke after a beat: “I have new respect for you and yours, I have lived in the shadow of violence my whole life, but until we met I have never been forced to truly engage with it in it's element, red in tooth and claw like that," he said, his voice a distant thing as tiredness took them both.

“It is different even for me," Bart murmured, the two men watching the light through the branches, the dance of birds and animals. Life returning where the pall of death had quieted all, “To be taught to fight men, to prosecute wars is one thing — to fight evil, true flesh-and-bone evil is altogether something else."

“It taxes the spirit." Nazir agreed, leaning his shoulder against Bart's broad one as his eyes started to drift.

“It's why God gave us music, stories, and bright men with bright souls to sing them to us," Bart said with a yawn, drawing a grin from the dozing southerner; “To lift our hearts from our burdens."

“Indeed…" Nazir said, eyes squinting as he took a deep breath, staving off his own yawn; “… does the sun seem brighter today?"

Bart looked up and squinted, the light that climbed through the trees was cheery and warm. It cast a hopeful glow about the ravaged village, shadows that cast over the blood and ruin paired with light that caught the late-spring flowers and green growths of both shoot and branch.

“Perhaps… a bit…" Bart sighed, closing his eyes to its warmth, leaning back against Nazir's shoulder. Steady breathing was all he heard in response, his own following suit as the wind rustled softly through the trees.

Both men were asleep in moments, well-earned, exhausted smiles still on their faces.

~ ~ ~

The interlude could not last. Far more ragged than he had been from his exertions at the ziggurat, Bart lost track of the days, his frequent episodes took time from him as much as physical acumen in spite of his redoubled efforts to contain them. Naima had medicines and tinctures that helped him sleep and eased the pain, but made him sluggish and numb — too numb to grasp his weapon or move with initiative — so he forwent their use except in the worst circumstances. Days bled into each other, and yet still he struggled, despite his performance at the Wendigo's ruined temple he had found his strength had diminished in kind — each humiliating failure to master himself like that again kept private between him and Rashid, the older warrior far too understanding of Bart's frequent outbursts and fury. He managed to maintain himself, if only barely — yet he still felt hesitation upon touching the haft of his weapon, what if his body betrayed him in a crucial moment once more? He already had won many of these recent encounters by the razor's edge, such a falter in the fight with Dagan-Baal, or the plagued men — or Humbaba, the root cause of it — would have spelled his end. His resolve remained firm, but doubt — much like the specter of the Wendigo, was here to stay for the time.

The creature itself was scarce after the melee atop the ziggurat, Bart had seen no overt manifestations as it had when it shadowed him, but he still saw it now and again, peeking from shadows or between the boughs of trees or in the shadow of a spire. Bart knew when it lurked by the tugging twist of nauseous anxiety that roiled in his belly at its presence, but it did not always deign to show itself — and it showed itself naught at all to the others. His own, personal, private monster worrying at his soul like a hound with a bone.

A tenday or so was when it happened. The morning canter was interrupted by a cry of alarm from one of the workmen — Salim's sharp eyes once once more it seemed. The young southerner pointed at the horizon to the north.

Smoke. Great columns of ash and soot.

“God's blood." Bart hissed, Naima looked up to him as he reined in sharply, pulling the cart to a stop.

“What is it, Bart?" she asked, her tone hollow — empty with answers already known.

“That's Fort Ivory unless I'm more addled than I think — it should be at most two days ride beyond those spires." As before, Bart had never been this far north — but he had maps, and the training to read them — despite his hazy perception of time, he'd kept more or less track of where they were. The jagged spires and fangs of stone had continued but begun to taper off as a massive mountain rose in the distance, peaking out beyond the dense, rolling hills — spreading from horizon to horizon like a great pair of arms. The core of the range itself was a shattered-looking series of crags that curled up from the ground around a massive, central mount that was rent and torn into a crater so titanic as to defy the idea of scale. The gutted, torn bones of the earth jut up all around the distant summit like hammered iron spires of a tiara, thus its name — Crownspeak, colloquially. The center of the Northern Sidhelands and the core of its power — the entire base of the immense mountain was solid, primordial forest, untouched by man since creation. The trees so ancient and immense that even at this distance one could pick out individual boughs, branches, and trunks in the all-encompassing canopy — the Northern Sidhewood, in all its primal majesty. The smoke rising from the hills yet beyond spoiled the view, however.

“So it burns as well," Rashid said, pulling his horse up close to Bart, Nazir doing likewise, peering over the rolling horizon at the plumes.

“Those are not solely the fires of structures." The dandy said, his amber eyes narrowing; “Look closely at the base, that's black smoke. Greasy. Cookfires, bonfires, and braziers."

“An army." Bart interpreted for the others, Rashid nodding grimly.

“A small one at least, we can assume the taller plumes are either the outer fortifications or attempts to take the fortress." Rashid continued, Bart, nodding and furrowing his brow.

“Then these are not the same creatures that raze Lachheim to the south nor tasked us atop the Ziggurat." Bart asserted, turning his horse to peer intently; “The Ghuls we encountered abhorred light and fire, they burned like dry tinder when exposed to it. These are something else."

“The Plagued Men?" Lidia offered her brow knit in memory. Bart tilted his head in agreement, she was canny.

“A good guess. They are cursed husks, but they seem to eat, drink, and live as men do, even if in a horrid mockery of that life."

Rashid stroked his mustache thoughtfully; “You could also raise and hide an army of withered men such as that among common bandits and scoundrels, rather than having to hollow the earth like the fell beasts in Lachheim had." Bart sat up straight as a bolt at that, and then swore sulfurously, slamming his fist onto his saddle bow hard enough his horse snorted its displeasure at him.

“Of course! I should have seen it immediately." he spat with disdain, his companions turning quizzical gazes at him. The big man spread his free hand; “When I departed, the Lord Protector warned me of reports of banditry near Fort Ivory. Then, after we were attacked on the road by those cursed men..." he left it hanging and Nazir quickly picked the thread up;

“So clearly, whoever is truly in command of these forces has been mustering them long ahead of the monstrosities within the earth's bowels, and hiding them in plain sight as common brigands." he said, making a face that soured his handsome features with disgust; “Rape and murder would be an easy way to hide their hideous cannibalism."

“No one would think much of even slain brigands being diseased and scabrous either," Naima added clinically, drumming her fingers nervously on Sikha's totem bracelet. “Had my dear Husband not been so thorough, we would have never caught on at all."

“So what is the plan?" Salim spoke up, startling everyone. The young man, barely past his sixteenth year was chronically quiet, but he looked up at them fiercely, determination in his eyes.

They needed a plan, they couldn't just ride straight through a standing army; they'd be overwhelmed and cut to ribbons even if they were all withered god-forsaken husks. Bart furrowed his brow, his array of military strategy told him in no uncertain terms that they should turn around and call upon reinforcements, or perhaps ford the river to the west and go around, but that would slow them down tremendously with the wagon and horses…

“Why dinnae we jus' waylay some o' the outside sentries and dress up like 'em and walk right on in?" Lidia asked bluntly, Bart felt a surge of anger at the amateurish, nigh-childish plan. This wasn't some fairy tale where... he paused, his eyes going up and meeting Naima's, and she slowly started to smile and leaned over and hugged Lidia.

“Lidia, dear one. You are a treasure," she said, squeezing the Midlander woman, whose green eyes were wide and alarmed.

“I dinnae un'erstand... my idea wasn't that good..." “No, it's actually alarmingly simple and that's why it works. If these are the Wendigo's Plagued Men as we've seen, then new recruits happen this way all the time, men and women touched by the taint showing up in slip-shod armor and equipment with no formal uniform." Bart said, and Lidia's eyes lit up as she realized her own brilliance.

“Right, so iffin' we just smear some makeup on ourselves to look all plague-stricken an' gross, an' er'ry one doffs their finery for grotty commonfolk garb..." she began, and Nazir grinned ear to ear.

“We could walk right through them to the gates of the fortress itself! Now... we'd have to convince the defenders to not pour boiling pitch down our faces, but one problem at a time!"

“Let me deal with that." Bart said, grinning deviously himself; “I know a few ways to get my Order's attention from a distance."

~ ~ ~

Lidia's plan went off easier than they could have imagined, Bart, Rashid, and the little cutpurse herself ranged out ahead of the group with Salim's little militia of workmen armed with basic swords and cudgels. They weren't more than a quarter day's canter before they spied the open evidence of marching feet, and it took little time at all to follow it to a patrol of the cursed men lazily wandering in a messy picket, eyes glazed and distant — seemingly almost drugged or drunk with something, their movements strangely disjointed.

It wasn't even a fight: Rashid and Bart burst from around one of the spiky crags in an explosion of violence. The two brawny soldiers crushed the bulk of them under a furious charge of armored horses and stomping hooves, Lidia and the workmen trailing behind and finishing off the wounded with daggers and swords while the two warriors ran down and slaughtered the survivors in a short, brutal conflict. Bart felt gruesomely energized by the battle — if he could even call it that — the wizened soldiers were preternaturally durable and seemed to feel no pain, but they were brittle and weak. He hewed through them with little true resistance, and in the end, did not even feel a single tremor in his hands — and had no trace of an episode's onset either. Invigorated, he grinned at Rashid from behind his visor, and the burly Akali nodded with stony approval. With no time to celebrate, they set about stripping the corpses.

“Ach, ye' could have been a mite cleaner 'bout the killin'." Lidia groused as she peeled a filthy mail hauberk from a corpse missing both an arm and its head, her face looking a touch green. Many of the workmen were similarly sickly-looking — Salim excepted, pale as he was he worked with a fervor in his eyes akin to religious zeal.

“I apologize. Next time I'll strive to murder the unholy soldiers of a dead goddess with finesse." Bart said, similarly busy with another dead soldier split from crown to collarbone, his comment raising a low grunt of amusement from Rashid, and the two met eyes — silent agreement passing between them as they set about tending to the more gruesome corpses in place of their young companions.

It took an hour or so to salvage what they could from the bodies, and then longer to dispose of them, Bart expressed a desire to burn them, however, Rashid shook his head.

“While the purifying flame is good, in this case, we cannot risk the smoke of their pyre revealing their fate." He peered about and pointed. The ridge they'd tracked them to around the spire ended on an abrupt precipice over a considerable drop. “There, it is less than ideal, but no freshly-turned earth to find, and the only way anyone will stumble across them is by flying — or falling," he said, and Bart blew out a breath, puffing out his cheeks as he looked on in grim agreement.

“Let's be about it then."

The two men took the initiative. Bart quietly made sure that no one but he or Rashid handled the corpses overmuch, the Wendigo's dark presence lingering over his shoulder as they went, he did not wish to risk tainting anyone else with the strange curse, Rashid seemed immune to such intrusions and well... he already had a passenger. The entity did not communicate directly as potently as it did during the dream; Bart had a gut feeling it could not exert that much presence with his mind so active, and that is what exacerbated his fits. Could it report his movements to the enemy? A thought that chilled his blood as he hefted body after body over the side, but he dismissed it tersely. If the monster's presence could relay his actions to others — he would be long dead now via ambushes. It was the only logical conclusion.

“Worry not, you whoreson abomination." Bart murmured under his breath, throwing another body over the side with a grunt, grimacing at the sickly crunch it made as it hit the rocks below; eyes raising to the heavens; “I'll find you in person, and we can discuss this issue at length."

~ ~ ~

It took perhaps an extra half-day in total to dispose of the patrol, return to the caravan — and aid Naima and Nazir in cleansing the more egregious stains and putrescence from the stolen garments. Bart noted that Nazir's myriad talents also appeared to cover a great deal of knowledge of Naima's craft, as they worked anointing the inside of the hauberks and buff coats with a sanitizing spirit and oil, Bart nudged him gently.

“I thought you a merchant, yet time and again I find your hands steady and sure at such tasks beyond such ken," he said, and Nazir grinned — an expression Bart never found himself tiring of seeing, it lit the man's face up like a beacon.

“Sharp eyes you have my brother, yes I am nominally a merchant — it is my role within our family as it was with my father, however. Naima and I are twins, where she has gone I always follow." Bart blinked and looked at the two of them, the minor height difference had thrown him off but as they both looked up at him with the same smoldering amber eyes, strong chins, and dark hair, he realized they were strikingly similar.

“I never realized you had the same eyes," Bart said, and Naima smirked, bumping her brother with her hip.

“It is the kohl. My brother is ever fond of it, it makes the color of his stand out much more than mine," she said, and he grinned at her.

“That, and you are always looking down your nose at everyone dear sister, it dulls the luster." he jibed at her, electing an exaggerated glare from the stern woman. Nazir laughed and turned his gaze back to his work, raising his voice once more,

“I collect many things, stories and songs of course — but also skills. My sister was ever a focused creature and I one of flight and fancy, so I hitched my fortune to hers quite often." he said, spreading his hands at the oils and solvents; “I am ever curious, so it was only natural that I provide my darling sister's work an equally skilled set of hands as her own whenever occasion permitted."

“Admirable," Bart said wistfully as he continued with his side of the work; which was mostly mixing and matching the armor itself — he was no armorsmith, but he knew how to fit most forms of mail and plate from practice helping his fellow novices into and out of their gear.

“Have you no siblings, Bart? We've talked of much... but little of you outside the Order." Nazir asked, his eyes expectant as Bart shook his head.

“I am an only child, my birth was... traumatic for my mother. She is small and as you can see... I am not." he said, and Nazir frowned but nodded, not pressing the issue. “I have a friend though, almost an adopted brother, Lucian," he said, his eyes casting to the haft of his axe leaning against the cart: the shock of white hair braided into the charm on the buttcap reminding him of his close friend.

“Family is what you make of it, I would welcome you and this Lucian into mine wholeheartedly when we are done with all this Empty Queen nonsense," Nazir said gamely, shaking out another suit and passing it to Rashid, who was stacking them behind them. Nazir grinned up at him; “I have other sisters who aren't hissing cobras who are of marriageable age..." he left it dangling and Bart blushed, noisily thrusting a mail coat at the dandy.

“Thank you, but I feel my duty will keep me from such honors for some time, friend," he said hurriedly, pulling an almost girlish giggle from Naima as he did so, Nazir nodding with sage-like gravity and setting back to work.

Bart blew out a breath, his mind racing with a myriad of thoughts, the last thing he needed was to be thinking of marriage, he barely understood his heart already let alone adding in the complications of his dear friend's family.

“I think this will do for disguises, everyo...." Bart trailed off as his hands suddenly fumbled the gauntlets he'd just stripped of their lining, shaking uncontrollably as he staggered. Nazir said something he couldn't understand, he felt hands trying to stop him from falling, the lean dandy unable to slow his armored weight as he hit the ground, a fit of shaking taking his knees from beneath him. He tried to catch himself as Nazir got Naima's attention, hooking one arm over the lip of the cart they were sitting in. His body lit up with pain as the weakness took hold, his vision swam with blackness as he sucked air through gritted teeth.

In that darkness, he saw the skull. Staring at him with baleful hunger. Did it know what he was planning? Had he made a mistake bringing his friends? He ground his teeth with such force he tasted blood, the image of the monster fading in and out as his brain surfaced above that darkness again and again, losing his grip on the cart he fell heavily on his back. Staring up at the sky, he arched upwards, struggling against the weight of his armor and the weakness of his body all at once. He heard Naima telling others to back away, felt her cool hands on his face. His hand flailed around, she grasped it. Her hand was tiny in his massive, scarred mitt — but it gave him a place to focus, an anchor.

He sank below the darkness again one more time, it felt like being plunged into an icy winter stream, he couldn't breathe but he held on. The Skull grinned at him again, raising its too-long arms, too-many-fingered hands reaching out for his face. Its voice once again clear, oppressive, and winnowing.

I WILL BREAK THEE, AS I HAVE KINGS AND SAINTS. IF THERE IS A CRACK, I WILL FIND IT. IF THERE IS A SEAM I WILL FORCE IT WIDE. THY ART MINE BUT FOR THE BLEEDING.

Bart's eyes snapped open as he let out another strangled cry, his muscles found strength again, Naima cried out in pain as he wrenched himself from that frozen black ocean of pain with a sudden, foam-flecked roar, sucking in a sharp breath as the episode ended, leaving him in a heap on the ground, trembling and, shaken and exhausted.

“B-Bart..." Naima's voice hissed as he came back to cognition, he looked down and gasped — her hand was still in his — and he'd crushed the tiny limb, her fingers twisted, splayed, and and bent in hideous directions —clearly broken in his still-squeezing grip that remained tight as iron in his abating panic. With a cry he tore his hand away violently, kicking his feet against the turf, pushing himself away from her as she crumpled to the ground with a gasping cry, Nazir running to her side as she clenched her teeth against the pain, tears streaking her face.

“I'm... I'm sorry I... I couldn't..." Bart wheezed as he fought against the weight of his armor, rolling roughly over to face her, still much in the throes of the fit himself. The woman's iron resolve wavered as her brother gently probed her nearly mutilated fingers, drawing cries of pain from her. Nazir called to Rashid in their tongue, who hopped from where he sat, moving for Naima's wagon.

“Naima... I'm..." he breathed, tears in his eyes as he heard the monster's voice in his head again, all of its own accord — echoing in memory.

If there is a crack, I will find it. If there is a seam, I will force it wide.

Bart swallowed hard, struggling to his feet as Naima looked up at him, worry in her eyes... but not for her destroyed fingers, but for Bart still. He could see it, naked and bare in her gaze — and that made it so much worse.

“Bart... it's... its fine. You are strong, I... I should not have given you my hand." she said, trying to force a smile. Nazir's eyes were dark as he looked up at his friend, a wariness there mixing with the open concern, that stung the big warrior and he swallowed a sob.

“I... I will fix this, I promise." Bart said, hobbling away as Rashid arrived with a small satchel, Naima winced as she showed Nazir how to set her broken fingers, sparing Bart an anguished gaze as he shambled away alone.

~ ~ ~

Night had fallen, and the skies were clear save for the looming haze over the horizon where the army of the damned men sat, the Twin Maiden Moons hung in the sky; their dual shapes casting a bright glow down over the heartlands, illuminating everything in a silvery-gray glow. Bart sat apart at the edge of the water; the road had rejoined a parallel track to the Kingsroad and the Espree River, and one of its tributaries ran close.

Naked to the waist, he sat examining his body with his shaving mirror, the scar beneath his breastbone, the star-like one in the same shoulder, both new and red, but also a thousand tiny welt-like marks where innumerable bits of shrapnel, claws, and teeth had found unnoticed purchase through his armor. He took his razor in hand, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. Tomorrow they'd reach the fortifications at the rear of the army, and Fort Ivory itself would be within a simple gallop's range. His face looked up at him from the mirror again as he slowly began to scrape and cut, the thick beard growth falling in hunks and tufts around him as he scraped his chin clean again — pausing as the palsy dared to rear its head once, fighting it down with trembling fingers he forced himself to finish the task. Hands shaking, he laid the razor aside — splashing his face with water, breathing out roughly as the cold braced him, sluicing it through his mustache in silence.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer alone. He saw her in the mirror first, tensing reflexively — but the familiar red hood put him at ease.

“Hey." Lidia's voice came to him, she sat down nearby on an adjacent stone. Her voice was quiet, her eyes concerned under the wrapped cowl. She'd changed out of her borrowed military clothing once more for a mix of things equally borrowed from Nazir and Naima, loose trousers of a simple brown, and a snug-fitting, sleeveless tunic threaded with a similar red hue to her favored hooded cowl. It complimented her well, Bart thought so at least.

“Hey," Bart replied, both of them falling into silence as he continued to stare down into the mirror. The silence was heavy, but not uncomfortable. The two very different souls had found some kind of equilibrium with one another.

“Naima's gonna be fine," she said after a spell, sitting with her knees to her chest, perching more than anything. Bart blew out a breath, letting his head dip; “She says her medicine gunk will have 'em healed up in a month or two, sooner iffin' we get tae somewhere she can do some brewin'. Potions and whatnot."

“I'm glad," Bart said in a hollow voice, he felt a touch on his arm and did not pull away. Lidia's tiny, calloused fingers were gentle.

“It's nae yer fault, Bart," she said and he froze... Lidia had never really used his name, she called him some form of nickname or vague good-natured slur, 'Hayseed' or 'Tinman'. The touch deepened, and suddenly he felt her arms around him. Embracing him from behind. Her cheek pressed into the back of his bull-like neck, and he froze. Eyes closing... how many of his nightmares involved someone touching him? How much had he been avoiding it? Had... had anyone really hugged him since his mother bid him goodbye?

“Yer too strong, that's all... too strong for yer own good. Ye dinnae 'ave to carry the whole world, even iffin' yet can fit it on ye shoulders." she said, laying her hands flat on his massive chest, pressing her body to his. It didn't feel licentious, it didn't feel... wrong like it had in the dream. There was no desire there, no hunger. Her presence made his muscles go slack, and he felt the mirror slip from his fingers as she just held him. The tiny thief stayed there in silence, just holding him under the moonlight. He felt her heart beating in time with his against his back.

Bart didn't know when he began to cry. The tears rolled down his face in silence at first, staining dark spots on his trousers, and soon they were joined by quiet sobs, his hands covering his face in shame as his body shook with the wracking, nameless grief. Lidia never left him. She did not say a word as he quietly wept out the pain. He did not know how long it took until he had no more tears, he didn't even know what he was crying for — was it himself? Was it his friends? The thousands lying dead behind him? The thousands more that may be dead in the fortress ahead? Was it for the last shred of innocence he had left? He would never know, he simply let it out in wordless sobs until there was nothing left.

“I never 'ad a big brother," Lidia said after he'd slowly gathered himself, her hands had moved across his chest to rest over his heart, and she held him still, never letting go. “Always wanted one. Dad ne'er looked nae a moment at women after mother... said he'd 'ad the love o' his life. That was it." she said, sharing more of her life with him, she drew a shuddering breath against his back, her cheek warm against his shoulder.

“Ye'd 'ave been a good one. Yer so strong... so big, right here." her fingers pressed at his breastbone, at his heart. “Ye'd 'ave kept me safe. Chased away th' monsters and bastards wit' too-familiar hands. I hated ye at first. Ye were so fookin' upstadin'. So righteous an' sure. I hated it. That's why I took ye's purse. Seein' ye and the Dandy and Bigstack, all ye bein' so fine and happy." she said, Bart felt a wetness on his back, and she drew in another ragged breath.

“Ye'd 'ave been a good one. I'm glad I 'ave ye 'ere now. Please, stay wit' me. I cannae be alone like that again... ye dinnae have to carry the whole world, I'll pick up sommat th' weight too. Just please... promise me ye won't leave me alone."

Bart was stricken by that, her words. The raw, naked vulnerability in them. He found his hand reaching for hers, the massive scarred paw closing around hers. He'd always wanted a little sister, and somehow... here in the depths of his greatest despair, warring with a monster for his very soul, stained to his bones with the blood of the innocent and the damned alike — fate had given him one.

“I promise." He said, his voice harsh and ragged. “I promise. I'll carry the world if you'll pick up the moons," he said, and she gave a little sobbing laugh, hugging him so tight he felt her arms creak.

“Ye... ye I can carry the moons," she said, and Bart found himself smiling, looking up at the sky and the stars. They said dragons made them, each one molded and then ignited so that no matter what, man would never be left in the dark again. Nobody was alone, not even the moons. Bart liked to believe that, liked to believe in a universe where things were made not out of need — but out of love.

“Can we stay like this a while?" He asked her, and he felt her nod against his back, holding him close. The two looked up at the moons, watching the stars rotate slowly overhead, he had not ever seen the stars so clear, so far from everything — and after a while, Bart spoke.

“When this is over... would you like to come to my home?" he asked quietly, feeling the woman stiffen a little; “My mother gets lonesome, she would love someone else to fuss over for a little while... and Father never has enough hands for all his projects..." he said, and he felt her tremble.

“Ye... ye that sounds nice. Does ye mother know how tae make pumpkin bread?" “She's a baker," Bart said, and she laughed a little behind his back. Sliding down to sit beside him. Leaning her head on his massive shoulder they watched the stars dance and twinkle. Neither felt that alone anymore.

~ ~ ~

The sight of Fort Ivory as they crested the hill was sudden. Bends in the road and the broken, jagged spires of the land concealed it until they were nearly atop it, and the entire party stood stunned, aghast even. Bart included.

“Ye call that a FORT?" Lidia exclaimed, speaking for all of them as the sun crested the hill behind them, casting the structure in sharp relief.

The fortress was massive, imposing as a rule rather than a happenstance. Its titanic curtain walls climbed well over a hundred spans high, thick and unyielding with soaring buttresses that made Lachheim's formidable fortifications seem quaint. Each flagstone and turret was wrought out of white granite that gleamed brightly in the sun — lending the edifice its name. The walls stretched far off into the distance, the front-facing bulwark a full three leagues wide, the massive defenses terminating at their edges into a pair of huge stony spires that jutted from the earth, much like the rest of the heartlands — framing the overall structure in an ominous light against the shattered backdrown of Crownspeak. It was split equally between two halves, each an unassailable citadel in its own right with nested walls, turrets, and massive keeps that peaked high in the center, pennants snapping in the wind.

The two halves joined together around a massive gate wrought out of black, riveted iron that stood wide enough that one could march a small army through it abreast — while carrying a fair-sized manor home on their backs. The concourse behind the gate itself ran the entire length of the two twinned structures, vanishing into the thick, primordial wood that abutted it at the back — The Lady's Walk, or so they called it. It was the true beginning of the Kingsroad and the beginning of the First Paladin's crusade.

As impressive as the fortifications themselves were, the true majesty was the Sentinels. Each gatehouse of the titanic portal was topped by a two-hundred-span tall statue wrought of that same black iron and white granite, each one a battered, scarred, and battle-tested image of an armored Paladin: shield cracked but holding firm, sword notched but sharp, helm dented but still straight — warding the gates as if to say out loud: We will outlast you.

It was also aflame.

It was not like Lachheim, a slow but mortal wound that swept around the city, no it was not that dire just this yet. A collection of fires burned at the curtain walls, and within the fortress proper the external fortifications smoldered with extinguished fires, battle scars of the traded blows with the standing army at its gate. A veritable carpet of bodies outlined the outermost reach of the defender's own killing fields in short, narrow patches — the leftovers of the collection of presses they'd made. Siege towers erected on-site smoldered at the walls in great, greasy stains against the side of the shining granite. Fort Ivory was not a place easily taken.

Still, there were losses. A few turrets at the curtain walls were crumbled and ashen and in spite of their defenses, not a single tower had been prevented from pressing against the wall. The situation was a true siege, and while the defenses of Fort Ivory are stalwartly designed for it — its assailants were born besiegers and backed by purpose-built siege-breakers.

Indeed, the sight laid before them was one of such stark contrast to the glimmering walls, the besieging force may as well have been rendered out of tar and mud, a seething mass of bodies scattered around a chaotic mess of hide and fur tents, yurts, and teetering shacks assembled out of whatever was at hand — yet despite the slapdash appearance they had numbers, a great deal of them — and more than that on their side.

“Is that... a...Giant?" Nazir asked as they peered down at the enemy force, a massive, twisted form lumbered along, easily twenty spans tall if not more. Its bulky form was wearing a huge draping tarp over its hunched back, sewn with bone and steel plates, its body was a twisted, knotted assembly of limbs and... bodies? Bart recoiled from it as he saw its 'head' was not so much a single thing, but a twisted cluster of human faces melded into a nodular mass of semi-slack jaws and wild eyes looking every which way as it lumbered forward — a familiar dual-chambered torso, two ribcages breathing slightly out of time — caught Bart's attention, and he understood what it was without knowing more.

“Hecatoncheires." Rashid stated, his gaze frowning; “Hundred-handed Ones, they're twisted creations of the Queen's flesh-warping energy. Wherever her hungry forces walk, so do these beasts eventually, made out of the broken pieces of other, less fortunate soldiers." he said, the burly warrior's knowledge of fell beasts again making itself known. There were a dozen or more of the titanic, twisted abominations — each used as a siege-breaker, it made more sense how the towers were making it to the wall Bart noticed, seeing two of the twisted hulks working together to move another half-built platform into place.

“Wendigo makes them." Bart said, staring at the monster, its shoulders and forearms sprouting a dozen normal-sized arms from a single titanic elbow, each one finding new purchase on its task as it manipulated a beam into place; “The unworthy are stacked like bricks, with their blood for mortar and bones for lattice. They are all still alive in there, somehow." his voice left his mouth like a dead thing, listless and empty... Rashid looked at him with a momentary expression of surprise but nodded.

“Yes, your Order is well-informed. Wendigo creates these creatures out of its ravenous hunger for all things, which means if there are many here... so is one of its champions. We should be on our guard." Bart nodded, but he felt unease now... something else was present out there, something he only knew was there for the sake of the pulling, hungry darkness of his unwelcome passenger.

They donned their disguises then, Bart and Rashid mostly covering themselves in heavy cloaks and ragged tabards over their own armor, leaving the bulk of the disguises for the unarmored members of their caravan. Naima made herself busy with grease paint and kohl from Nazir's personal stash — one he was promised would be replaced — and made to muddy everyone's features with sooty, dark grime and shadows. Lidia managed well enough on her own, familiar with making oneself look dirty and unremarkable — she sped things along quite well until under a quarter glass everyone was marching forward in a shambling caravan. The wagons were thrown with a collection of hides and skins from one of the trade caches, and overall it looked suitably dilapidated to not draw too much attention. Just another covey of converts wandering in to join the siege.

The first sentries were in sight within minutes, Bart and Rashid out front nodded to one another. They'd trailed the patrol they'd ambushed long enough to watch them interact at least a little, so when one of the sentries raised its hand in an arcane gesture, Bart returned the motion he'd seen the patrol use, a sort of odd cross-body salute. This seemed to satisfy the sentry, who listlessly fell back to his post, paying them little attention as they passed the outer picket — and descended into a tiny slice of hell.

The camp smelled like an open jacks, the sewage reek of unwashed bodies and human waste mixing with the smell of burning flesh, hair, and the ever-present scent of rot. Lidia visibly swayed a bit from her spot on the wagon, Naima steadying her in her stolen hauberk — the sidheborn's sensitive nose once again doing her no favors. Bart was stunned at how well the disguises actually worked, they shouldered past multiple checkpoints simply by not bothering to slow down, the sentries looking up then back to whatever petty concern dominated their thoughts — often small things, fights, food or some form of gambling Bart couldn't identify using what looked like teeth and claws instead of dice. It was so hideously... common a scene for men-at-arms, that the transition into the atavistic horror came as a shock.

In closer to the milling bodies, he saw that the slipshod armor and lack of uniform were not entirely true, odd stoles and mantles that seemed hand-made out of whatever cloth, fur, or hide was available, draped across the soldiers universally. Some hung from around shoulders, others splayed across hunched backs, weighed down in place by dangling charms that were as chaotic in design as the wearers. Bart noted it had to have some kind of significance, possibly religious? They were uniformly lacking in uniformity. More than that, he saw that the path to the great hundred-handed giants was not linear; through the throng of bodies milled the occasional twisted figure, taller and more robust than others. Of those taller accursed, each one had at minimum two heads, often three — all of them seemingly fusing much of a prime upper body into another, subservient form. Melding bodies into a horrific gestalt creature that grew like horrible, twisted man-spiders. They were afforded a wider berth than others, and their draping stoles were more extravagant, suggesting that these fused abominations were afforded some station.

Suddenly, there was a sound of a low, rustic horn. It rippled through the entire horde like a wave, all pausing in whatever they were doing to look skywards in rapt attention. It sounded once more and the throng began moving as one, pushing at Bart and company, wide-eyed they tried to fight the tide of bodies, and several shoved back and barked things in a rough tongue or just growled and even drew weapons, Rashid hissed;

“No, no just... go with them. We will have to move among them quietly or we'll be discovered." Everyone else huddled together, forming a tighter group around the wagons as they were turned off the causeway, driven with other mounted men and massive multi-limbed abominations towards the center of the camp. Bart felt his skin crawl even beneath his armor and disguise as one of the twisted, towering brutes swung closer, its dual heads turning to look him over with too-intelligent, too-human eyes in both skulls before it strode past him. Bart was glad for his concealing hood and helmet both, the idea of a melee breaking out in this crowd was a true nightmare.

“Where are they all going?" Bart whispered roughly to Rashid, whose stony face turned grim as the crowd slowed, pointing with his chin towards the center of the thronging mass. Bart swallowed. He didn't have to possess Rashid's understanding of their enemy to know an altar when he saw one. It was nothing particularly special, a slab of black stone, rough-polished at best, not immense or overly decorated, it looked like at best a particularly stout chopping block. No larger than a page's writing desk, held up by a rustic, primitive tripod-like stand of lashed-together wood and logs. What drew the eyes was what was upon it: blood. So very much blood, it painted the slab and the earth around it, churned up into rust-colored mud with the sheer amount of gore that had sluiced down over it. Bart's eyes widened as he realized. It was the altar. Stolen from the Barrowspire, brought here for this purpose — which was what drained the color from the Knight-Brother's face.

Bent backward over it was a nondescript man, but Bart identified him easily from scraps of uniform as a defender from the walls, the way the others stiffened around him made it clear they'd seen it as well. The man was struggling, clearly quite conscious and in a near-blind panic. A small, feminine figure heavily shrouded in wispy black robes labored over a table of hideous-looking tools, dull, pitted bronze, and wicked volcanic glass gleamed up from its surface. Each implement was bathed with still-wet gore, the air smelled so heavy of blood that Bart found his tongue tasted coppery from the very air.

“We have new faces with us today at communion." came another voice, a croaking, resonant growl spoken deep up from the bowls and the chest. The figure speaking walked onto the raised ground of the altar, its frame swaddled in a massive peaked cowl that dangled low over its face like the cultists atop the Ziggurat — but by design left the mouth free, clear, and very, very visible. Blood-smeared lips smiled, too full and too wide as it walked across the wooden planks with a clank of armor and mail. Beneath the peaked cowl and open mantle, the figure wore heavy, complex armor of modern design. Nondescript and blackened down to the very rivets, it was dented, scarred, and worn — utilitarian armor for a brutal, utilitarian fighter. Bart's eyes widened with sudden recognition.

“Lidia. Get the horses unhitched." he hissed, She looked up at him questioning as the man on stage continued.

“First Communion is important, it is the day you cast off the White God's pitiful yoke. The petty, abrogated morals of your church and your society. Morals made to keep you weak. Pathetic. Servile." he spat the words; “The Mother's love is a blade, iron sharpens iron, stone sharpens bone. Life is red in tooth and claw, and it is our right to clash. To take!" he roared, raising his arms and getting a gruesome sort of cheer from the assembled men and monsters. He gestured to the small feminine figure, who lifted now-familiar hands wielding an axe made of an equally familiar wedge of cruel, knapped obsidian.

“Lidia don't argue get the horses unhitched," Bart said again, and she darted her eyes around, confused as Bart's eyes were torn away to the tiny figure on the altar's dais. His hand snapped to his axe, but he found Rashid's stone-firm grip staying his hand, shaking his head.

“But... they... this is an abomination!" Bart hissed, anger taking over him as he watched the man-at-arms struggle in his bindings, Rashid nodded, his voice low. His eyes were dark and dangerous.

“He is lost Brother Bart, pray for his soul but his earthly body is doomed, we need not throw ourselves away with him. Courage, Brother." he consoled him in a strict tone. Bart's teeth gritted as he forced himself to watch.

The tiny figure swung the axe at the struggling man's chest, the screams were inhuman. The feminine form was too small to carry much strength, so she was forced to hack his sternum open in a series of short, rapid strokes that rang out loud and wet in the air — each punctuated with a crazed shriek of disbelief and agony. Lidia and the workmen averted their gaze subtly, Salim and the rest, however, stared with haunted eyes. The tiny figure wrenched apart the man's chest cavity using the axe's stone head like a lever, and he screamed all the louder and more unhinged, reaching a thready note that lacked all semblance of humanity, before thankfully passing out as his torso crunched and splayed open like some horrid, gore-spouting flower. She set to work chopping still twitching, bloody gobbets of meat out and laying them into a bowl as the cowled man turned to the crowd, spreading his arms.

“Come, brothers, sisters... first communion, take the strength of your foes from their heart's blood and taste it," he said, lifting one of the gobbets of meat to his hooded face and tearing it apart with his teeth, he then began calling names. Common names, human names. They answered, and shambled to the fore of the crowd, kneeling and given their bloody sacrament, carved straight from the mercifully now-dead man's body. Bart felt a sudden, intense anxiety possess him and he turned to Lidia again.

“Lidia..."

“I unhitched th' horses but they dinnae 'ave saddles or tack" “We'll manage, get everyone on we're going to have to run soo-" But his hoarse whisper was cut off as the croaking, armored figure on the dais raised its voice again, demanding attention.

“And one more face, so long expected. It comes to us from far away, deep within our most hated enemy's stronghold. He comes to open the gates for us, truly a blessed day for those of the Mother's breast... “ the voice trailed off, raising its hooded visage — and looking directly at Bart. The crowd split between the two of them, the pressure of bodies driving the group slowly toward the too-familiar figure as its full-lipped mouth spread in a rictus grin of triumph, adding just one more clearly, pointedly enunciated name:

“Ser. Bartholomus."

The cowl revealed a raw-boned face, one that had ghosted alongside Bart since his first day on the road, fury welled up in the knight-brother as the man lifted the pointed cowl, letting it fall back from a face too defined to be traditionally ugly, but too weathered and alien in its angularity to be ever beautiful. A hooked nose, severe cheekbones, and that all-too-familiar, expressive mouth rested in a twisted grin below frosty eyes the color of stormy winter skies. Bart raised his visor as all attention focused on him, the silence deafening in its intensity.

“Parias." Bart spat. The old, weathered warrior spread his arms as he stepped forward, the familiar shape of the dual-clipped point of his Darrowmite falchion swinging at his hip. He closed the distance between Bart's horse and himself, smiling.

“I was beginning to wonder when you'd show. I all but drew you a map to where I would be, practically told you my plans to your face." he grinned, eyes narrowed to pinpoint pricks of jet-black, focused madness. “I'm disappointed, I expected you to charge the altar like a good Would-be-Paladin," he said, the tiny figure at the altar whirled, the scar-faced girl from before wielding the stone axe, her face smeared with gore and eyes truly, deeply mad. Ishtar. Her eyes gleamed with the glee of a child as she spread her arms wide, to Bart's increased horror, revealing the blood-stained girl was completely nude beneath the long, wispy robe.

“I even wore my prettiest outfit for you..." she purred in a gross, bubbly parody of sensuality. Bart felt his gorge rise. Parias' low, mad cackle got his attention. Small mercies.

“Just as well, we're all here now. What was the daring plan? Pretend to be my soldiers, and just walk through my army to the front gate? Perhaps some light sabotage along the way?" he asked, illustrating the point with a mocking show of walking his fingers up one armored arm before laughing low and crazed, sucking in a seething, sharp breath through his teeth.

“Ohhhh yes Bart my boy, you've been expected! Here to open the gates, to meet the Lady... that tawdry white slut." his vocal tone rose to a near ecstatic crescendo, but then dropped to a low, disgusted croak as he spoke of The Lady. Bart felt his hand tense on his axe haft, one good stroke would have Parias' head off and in a heap at his feet. Bart hesitated though, the men were milling around now, even the great hundred-handed behemoths had strode over with alarming alacrity for such twisted frames. His frantically scrabbling brain searching for a way out of things, he caught Lidia's eyes and she beckoned his gaze lower, beneath her cloak she showed where a brace of those black-powder bombs from earlier hung. Her eyes flicked one way towards the gate, and Bart getting wise to her thoughts, nodded ever so slightly. Parias' smile faltered a moment.

“Oh, what was that? Some plan? The Order never did train for subtlety." he said in a deadpan voice, the sound of weapons drawing all around them getting Bart's hair standing up on end, Parias closing the last of the gap, as if daring Bart to take a swing at him, arms spread wide.

“Well then, Hero. What daring escape do you have ready? Have you considered perhaps... why are you still alive?" he asked, and Bart halted as the wild-eyed man pointed at him, grinning wider and chuckling darkly.

“He, he, Yes, YES. You want to know why. Of course you do!" he crowed, snatching his hand back and spreading the fingers with a showman's flair. “What do you have, that I can only possess while you still live? I assure you it's not your stunning personality, Bart my boy."

Bart felt the weight of the other's eyes on him, asking him who this madman was and what he could be talking about. Bart wanted to explain, but... there was simply no time. Wracking his brain, the big knight-brother couldn't think of anything, Parias' eyes meeting his, and a smile turning from mad to sultry as he lowered his voice to that croaking purr.

“Think carefully boy," he said, stretching his arms out straight to either side of him, his body seemingly moving as if possessed, like the sheer excitement of it was too much to stand still for. Bart's mind raced, and then it dawned on him, Parias' face twitched, and a single eyebrow rose expectantly.

“Oh I think the man has the feel of it," he said. Grinning lopsidedly, he pointed at Bart; “What do you have, that I need you alive for Bart?" he called out, his voice almost accusatory, angry even.

“Only one who is invited may know where the Lady in White resides," he said in a grim, resigned tone and Parias cried out in absolute nigh-orgasmic delight, bending near double with laughter so mad and frantic he frothed a little, snapping his hand closed in triumph.

“Yes, YES! That! That is what I have done so VERY much to keep, your living, beating heart is all I need. Your soul just needs be in your body and it will show you the way, you cannot become lost in her wood as much as I cannot be anything but!" he cackled and turned to them, eyes looking a bit dead.

“However, it says nothing about your ability to walk unassisted, or any company you keep... so back we come again my dear Bart — what daring, heroic escape do you have planned? Truly I cannot see it, go on then," he said, gritting his teeth and lowering his voice. “Impress me."

“Gladly." came Lidia's highlands brogue, harsh with contempt; Parias jerked his head to the side glaring at her, lip curled like an angry dog with a venomous remark already forming behind his gnashing teeth — when the explosion hit. Lidia was nothing, if not dramatic.

Lidia had been learning quite a bit, and while she still had a hard time reading and writing script, numerals were something she had very few problems with. Mathematics in fact was her strong point, what Bart had experienced as her ability to keep a full count of their steps in mind across a multi-level sojourn beneath the earth was just the tip of a great innate potential with numbers, one that had led the cutpurse to experiment when introduced to what else — but chemistry.

The explosions weren't the airy concussions of the simple powder bombs Naima had whipped up in a hurry, these explosions blinded those looking straight at them, gushing gouts of flame and hurling chunks of anyone too close to the blasts through the air like grisly hail. Bart snapped his boot out, kicking Parias full in the face and sending the man to the ground as his army had a gap quite literally blown through it.

“Charge! EVERYONE CHARGE, NOBODY STOP!" Bart roared, slapping everyone's borrowed mounts to a run, Lidia had doubled up with Salim on one of the few ponies with a saddle, Naima on with Rashid, and the workmen riding double on the four carthorses, bareback and wild-eyed they took off. Lidia looked back at Bart with fear in her eyes.

“They're after me not you, now GO!" he said, slapping Salim's horse with the flat of his axe, sending the nimble southern mare skittering after the others. Bart tore the cloak from his body and brandished his axe, bellowing at the top of his lungs:

“IN NOMINE DEUS!"

The tongue of the angels comforted him for but a moment as he was forced to swing his axe at several men, rolling his shoulder in wide, sweeping cuts that let gravity do much of the work, and what work it did, cutting three men down and wheeling his horse as Parias dragged himself to his feet.

“KILL THEM, TOUCH NOT THE KNIGHT HE IS MINE!" came the maddened howling as he mounted an offered horse; in his brief glance back Bart recognized the heavily-scarred beast from before, wearing heavy barding thick with nails and spikes that made the beast into a thundering bed of nails for anyone adjacent to it. Seeing his friends making for the gap, he spurred his horse. Leaving Parias and the chaos of the rapidly spreading fires behind him.

Calling it a 'gap' was generous, but Lidia seemed to be on top of it, secondary detonations went off ahead of them, scattering and startling the already panicked horde into a frothing mass that Bart and Rashid rode down mercilessly, driving their heavier mounts before the others to literally plow a path through the bodies, weapons flashing at any who did not topple beneath the charge, leaving fallen bodies behind them lacking limbs and heads.

“BAAARTHOLOMUUUS!" came an unhinged roar, and bursting out from a throng of his own men, his mount's studded barding shredding them indiscriminately as he charged forwards, was Parias. His steed's unholy strength surged forward at a dead sprint, bulldozing its way through anyone foolish enough to remain in its path of destruction, the cruel soldier whipping his Darrowmite falchion from its scabbard, the grisly weapon's blade black and pitted except for the silver stripe of an all-too keen edge. Bart took one look at that and spurred his horse harder.

“There, the edge of the picket!" he barked, and drove forward, axe and horse leading, Lidia's bombs landing far ahead of them and giving one last concussive salute, blowing enough of a hole in the line for Bart and Rashid to burst through it in an explosion of violence, leaving a ragged gap that the others bolted through — suddenly out and free on the open ground before the Fort.

“Bart! If you are going to do your trick, now is the time!" Nazir crowed to him, pointing at the walls getting uncomfortably closer by every passing second, Bart spurred his horse ahead, tugging his gauntlet free on his right hand, raising his visor as he spread his arms wide at full gallop — his tabard on display, he hooked two fingers into his mouth.

Then, he whistled.

It was a simple signal, the simplest possible. Passed down from ancient times. The oldest signal that man had ever used even in the age of Fire and Stone — and he blew it out in blasts, three long, two short, four long. The telltale glimmer of glass shone across towers, the mark of a spyglass in use in the early-day sun. Bart repeated the message, same meter, same pause. Head whipping around desperately.

Then came the sound of a brassy horn. Three long. Two short. Four long. Bart pumped his fist, laughing in spite of himself as there was a sudden, loud clatter of machinery, and inset within the massive gate, a smaller inner gate split the impassable bulwark with a clean line.

“They're opening the Gates!" He said, looking back... and seeing a gaining troop of horsemen coming up on his friends, he and Rashid rode warhorses made for long charges, but the packhorses were tiring, slowing... they'd be caught before they made the walls. Bart didn't think, he jammed his hand back in his gauntlet and slapped his visor closed, pulling hard on the reigns, he swung back around. The two workmen at the farthest struggled with their bareback mount as a horseman bearing a cruel spear rode up upon them, leering as he leaned forward to try to skewer the unarmored man.

Bart's axe blurred, whipping up as he passed, carrying the horse's momentum with it. He chopped into the grisly soldier's face with a brutal downward slap, sending his lower jaw skittering away as the dead man flopped back limp in his stirrups. Bart not losing an iota of speed as he continued his mad charge.

Again and again, he rode back and forth, intercepting the horsemen in clashes of steel, driving them back off his friends and giving them the space they needed. The lines surged forwards behind them, the great Hecatoncheires rising up, carrying massive tree-trunk shafts easily double their height, tipped with huge piton-like points. To the opening gates, they all rushed, a black flood bearing down on Bart and his friends, above them arrows and catapults began to hail their fire down upon the greater mass, seemingly avoiding firing upon Bart's position for fear of his comrades.

Bart rode in one last time, striking another man's head from his body in a vicious backhand before he was nearly jarred from the saddle by an impact that came seemingly out of nowhere. He righted himself and was greeted by a steel-plated fist striking him squarely between the eyes. The helmet took most of it, his visor ringing as Parias' grinning face came into view.

“You will watch your Lady gag from her toothless muzzle on my bloody cock before you die." he cackled, swinging his head forward brutally, even lacking a helmet himself — he headbutted Bart. Firmly. So firmly in fact, his helmet rang like a bell and he reeled, jerking his reins away. Parias' howling laughter followed him, the man fully engulfed in his own madness now.

“Bart, hurry!" rang out Lidia's voice from ahead, the lot of them were inside the gates now, the gap opened in the secondary set narrowing: they were closing the gate. Bart spurred his horse harder, putting his ringing head down and driving his heels into the horse's sides, Parias' laughter so close he could feel the foam fleck off his helmet-clad face. He jockeyed for position with the man, the two throwing punches and elbows at one another, the narrowing gap approaching rapidly, too small for both of them side by side.

“I have had..." Bart snarled and twisted in his saddle, balling his fist and reeling his arm back like a great coiled spring;

“ENOUGH," his fist lashed out and caught Parias full in the mouth, the impact stunning the murderer with the sheer weight of man and horse together, Bart's leg reeling back out of the stirrup;

“OF YOU!" he roared and drove his heel into Parias' horse's side at a sharp angle, causing the hell-bent beast to stumble, driving it off the point as Bart pulled in close, the gates looming above him as they inched closer.

Bart's mount burst through the narrowing gap, his horse still at full gallop. He couldn't stop. He had to beat Parias into the woods, he couldn't let himself be exposed any longer.

“BAAARTHOLOMUUUUS!" came another cry that turned Bart's guts to water, and the gates shuddered, and then men screamed, as bursting through the men-at-arms reinforcing the massive gates came the massive, black steed and its nail-studded barding, Parias laying about him as he did, chopping and hacking through a half-dozen men in as many seconds — those who his savage mount did not merely stomp to flinders. At their sides, doors that lined the concourse opened, and more reinforcements rolled out, but Parias merely spread his arms.

Then, the sky fell.

A massive shape bowled through the partially opened gates, the impact threw men from their feet, and the sudden, horrific grinding of metal caught everyone's attention. It was a gigantic, rough-hewn spear. One of those tree-trunk-sized weapons the Titans had carried... no, not a weapon, a tool. They'd made them just for this... as soon as the gates were open those things were getting into range. Now the mammoth piton had the doors wedged open, and outside the horde crashed forwards like an unrelenting tide.

“Now, Bart... I've played with you long enough." He hissed and spurred his horse. Bart hadn't realized he'd stopped, gaping at the scene, and turned and drove his own heels in, his horse leaping to action — but the poor beast was in a lather as they hurtled down the mile-long inner corridor. The central avenue was simple hard-packed earth, lined on either side with intermittent gates where reinforcements and men-at-arms could mass — but the end of the hall had no gate, merely the implacable darkness of the Sidhewood. Behind him, Parias' laughter echoed as the reinforcements struggled to close the broken doors around the massive spear shaft. Parias blew past them all in a full gallop, blade held high as he closed in on Bart. Above them, the Sidhewood of Crownspeak loomed, its canopy massive and primordial, the shadow blotting out even the morning sun as Bart fled into the welcoming darkness of the wood.

“I'm sorry Bart, but we'll have to cut this short." Parias chortled, and cut across Bart's flank, his blade lashing out not at the knight-brother — but at his horse. The scream of the animal as Parias' dread blade laid open its belly at a full gallop was deafening, and the horse immediately buckled in a heap as shock set in. Bart was thrown bodily forward from the saddle, he did his best to tuck his head and arms, but he hit the ground hard in a twisting, rolling heap. His teeth rattled in his head as his helmet dented and twisted, and a million points of pain lit up across his body as he came to a stop face down, blind.

Momentary fear took him before he realized his helm's visor had been crushed in by the impact. Dazed and struggling, he tore the ruined helmet off in time to see Parias rein in close, swinging down from his horse near Bart's fallen mount. He was given a gruesomely perfect view of Parias' horse savaging his own mount as the man slid from the saddle, the monstrous spike-armored beast he'd been riding, stomping and tearing into his lamed horse in great, screaming strikes and snaps — quite literally kicking it apart while the poor beast still lived. Bart felt tears sting his eyes as the valiant animal died horribly, Parias' stride not even slowing at the sight nor sound.

“The gates are open, just as I said they would be." he rasped, grinning madly down at Bart. “I knew you'd come, you couldn't resist. I felt it... you felt it, I know you did." he cackled, crouching down to look at Bart as he coughed and dragged himself to his feet, finding his axe haft-up in the ground. Bart glowered at him through a mask of blood, his scalp cut at some point in the fall.

“Fine then, Parias. If you're in such a God-damned hurry to die, let me help you." Bart growled, taking his axe in both hands; “Cannot leave you to figure out dying yourself, you'll get lost."

Parias howled with laughter, coming to his feet and throwing his cowl back fully, the battered canvas laying over his shoulders like the mantle of some dead king. His short hair messy and wild about his face, cropped off recently, likely for the battle itself.

“Pithy! I like it. You've got belly to you Bart. Mettle. I respect that." he said, a genuine appreciation in his voice as he drew himself up, taking an odd high-guard posture Bart felt tickle his mind as familiar... when suddenly there was an intensely brief whirring sound, and a wet, meaty thunk of steel on flesh, and Parias staggered. He did not cry out, he merely looked down. A crossbow bolt stood, sticking through the gap in his armor just below the armpit, a cracking-good shot at that. Yet the dark man seemed mostly irritated.

“Can't they see this is a private gathering?" he asked in a toneless lilt. Behind them, several of the defenders had formed a short firing line; the bulk of the forces pouring in to hold back the tidal wave of bodies forcing at the gates now. It was a delaying action, even Bart could see that half-trampled and bloodied. Parias snorted and spoke harshly off to the side; “You deal with them, then."

It was as if his shadow answered, too long already, it twisted and writhed into an impossibly straight line on the packed dirt beneath them, stretching out past the defenders. It then simply... opened. There was no motion, just a sudden, violent nothingness. Everything inside of the shadowy perimeter was simply pulverized. A single, horrible wet, grinding meat-on-bone sound all at once... and a dozen men lay dead. Annihilated so utterly as to be unrecognizable as flesh. Bart blinked back from that, as the now-familiar heat-haze effect in the air heralded the screaming, madness-inducing gibbering his mind attempted to give in to. He knew what was coming.

“Oh? Of course, I believe you've met." Parias hissed, as a too-long, too-many-fingered hand cut through the air as if it were but a curtain to be parted so simply. Through the rift as if it were draping silks patterned as reality pushed the familiar deer-like Skull, the wet-slick sucking sounds of meat on bone loud as its dual-chambered chest cavity inhaled, once and twice again slightly off-key. The monster carried the night with it on its back, light shrinking from it as the shadows it cast leapt and twisted as if they were flame and smoke as one, the barrier violently hemming out even more defenders in another gruesome orgy of bone and limbs.

The Wendigo was here. Not in his mind, not in a vision, not in a dream. Here. The presence of the beast pressed at his psyche, filled it with screaming, gibbering madness, wants, needs, demands, and desires it all plowed into him like a bow wave of terror and instinct. Bart felt true, primal fear for the first time in his life. The fear of being run down... and eaten alive.

Behind the monster, he heard Lidia scream. His eyes saw them, Naima, Lidia, Nazir, Rashid, and yes, even Salim and his friends on one of the walls. Ushered out of the way by the valiant Fort Ivory defenders and into the keep, the sight strengthened him, his friends had survived — were behind the walls. They could last in there, they'd be safe. Parias of course — broke that tension with a low, ugly cackle.

“Well, now that we have some privacy," he said, taking up that all-too-familiar guard again. Bart had a moment to process it before he recognized where he'd seen that posture before:

Ser Bowen.

Bart did not even have time to swear as Parias came at him in a mad rush, blade cutting and weaving like a snake on a hot stone, each strike methodical and precise. Bart was pressed to his limit simply defending from the maniac's assault, each parry ringing his axe's haft with vibration so fierce he feared his hands would numb from it, chips visibly flying from the haft where Parias' blows deflected. Bart felt himself driven, pushed back into the wood. His head swam, but his mind latched onto that — Parias was trying to force him back, drive him into the woods so the magicks would reveal the way. He had to hold his ground or find a better moment to break away. Parias sneered.

“Hah, the old leper still teaching that defense?!" Parias howled with laughter, mockingly beginning to count out the blade strokes as if he were walking Bart through the parries at drill, calling out Bart's parry and counter strokes exactly, almost seeming prescient in how Bart would respond.

“One, two, three ha HA come on Bartholomus! Show me some innovatio-ACK" The torrent of abuse was cut short as Bart took his own turn at prescience with a right cross that landed like an auto-hammer. The sheer sound of Bart putting every stone of weight in his body into that swing echoed out across the trees. Bart felt the man's nose crumble, he felt teeth break. His gauntlet all but shattered Parias' jaw as he stumbled forward, overbalancing and coming up close to the madman's face.

He was given a perfect view of Parias simply popping his shattered jaw back into the socket, a dull look on his face; “Surely you did not think with the Wendigo itself as my boon familiar, that I would be done in with a punch?" he drawled, and balled his own fist. With speed that Bart could not track, the favor was returned to him. The fist smashed his nose, a familiar crunch telling him that it'd broken once more, his head snapped back from the impact, and he staggered, giving a spontaneous cry of agony at the strike, clutching reflexively at his face. Parias gave no quarter. Forward lashed his fist again, slamming into Bart's gut with preternatural force — driving a bellow of agony out of the knight-brother. Bart had never been hit by someone that hard... he'd been kicked by a horse once, and that was closer to what he felt than any blow dealt by a man. His armor audibly groaned in protest at the blow, and he felt something in the plates give, and with a telltale twitch of his arm — clearly so did Parias. Staggering backward again, Bart found himself sucking air, doubled over in pain as he raised his weapon.

“This is the man that felled two of the Queen's own chosen?" the black-armored murderer scoffed at Bart, pacing back and forth, closer and closer, hemming Bart further towards the woods; “They must have gotten soft, I am losing my interest in you rapidly boy," he croaked ominously, bringing his blade up to guard.

Bart struck, his vision swam with pain from the newly-broken nose and his body demanded that he realize that he was just thrown from a horse, but nonetheless, he struck. His body knew the motions, knew the rhythms... he'd done well in a fight with Ser Bowen, he let his mind drift back to the beginning as he entered the swing, how had he caught out the Knight of the Thorn? Sparks flew as the two men traded blows of astounding power, Bart put every ounce of might he had into it, and Parias seemed to grow only more excited the harder Bart crashed their blades together.

“Yes, YES that's it! I love your anger Bart, my boy, it's so righteous." he mocked him, laughing as Bart swung a series of aggressive chops at his head and body, forcing the man's guard intentionally higher and higher — and then inverting his cut, he swung hard at the man's middle. Bart saw it then, he knew how to win as he completed the motion. Parias had rolled his shoulder into a cross-body guard with his long, single-edged blade, guarding his vulnerable middle against the predicted chop — instead, Bart hooked his axe into Parias's gauntlet, wrenching the man suddenly forwards, his fist clenching and lashing out just as it had in the duel with Ser Bowen…

… Yet falling upon empty air.

Pulled forward, Parias had simply ducked the blow and in the same motion grasped Bart by the ankle, then with a snarl and the full weight of his shoulder — he flipped the knight-brother's legs straight out from underneath him, his axe spinning down to land buried to the eye in the turf; Bart landing in a heap with a bark of pain and frustration. He rolled to his feet, placing his hand on the haft of his axe — only to find Parias' own hand snapping down over his. Bart had enough time to flick his eyes up to the madman's own dilated gaze, his face skeletal in the scattered light, his lip turned down in disappointment:

“You bore me, Hero."

He raised his heel sharply and stomped down onto — and through — the haft of his axe. The man's boot driving directly into the chipped and hewn point in the handle — a point he'd been targeting since the start of the duel, weakened enough that the man's inhuman strength did the rest. Bart stumbled back violently away from the grapple, his hand wrapped around only the bottom half of his axe's splintered, useless haft.

Spitting blood and phlegm to the side, Bart flicked his eyes about... he was deeper in the woods, all he really needed was a place to break away — but now he was effectively disarmed. Parias dipped in close as Bart whipped out his poniard and hefted the rest of his axe as a club.

“Oh come now... is that all?" Parias said in a bored tone as he nimbly batted Bart's thrusts and clubbing strikes aside; “I am disappointed." he said. Bart raised his weapons again, intent on selling his life as dearly as he could — there was no way he could allow himself to be used, he drew in a breath to lunge forward... and it died in his throat. Pain lanced through him, weakness took his body, and one of the paralytic fits lashed through him like cold, skeletal fingers. His guard wavering as he struggled to remain standing, his body wracked with sudden tremors and pain.

Parias was quick as a snake, the man's body neatly contorted and lunged forward. There was a crunch of steel, a scream of metal against metal, and a sudden, meaty thump. Bart stopped, jerking backward as Parias rammed his blade through the broken link in his armor from the battle with Humbaba. Through the link, his gambeson and with a faint ping of a shot rivet — through his gut and out the other side, driving a plate off the back of his harness.

“I thought I felt something give. Master Balgus' work seems to be lacking." he hissed and twisted his blade. Bart screamed, hand snapping down to grasp the weapon knifed into his torso — his strength enough to force six inches of steel back out of his gut as he struggled. He heard a scream from behind them, Lidia's voice again. Bart tuned out the pain, the struggle for a brief moment, as her frantic cries came through crystal clear.

“NO, NO YE PROMISED... YE PROMISED YE RAT FOOKIN' BASTARD YE PROMISED ME!" Despair, as Bart had never known, struck him in that moment, he didn't break promises. Not ever. He couldn't break his promise.

Pain lanced through him, bringing him back to the now. He looked down the length of Parias' steel, seeing it red with his blood and drawing his gaze along its line to the lunatic's maddened eyes.

“Defiant to the end. Respectable." He croaked. With a clench of his teeth and a surge of muscle, Parias twisted his wrist anew — tearing the weapon upwards. The harsh shrieking noise of his blade's unnatural edge shearing through Bart's armor was ear-splittingly loud, agony tore a hot line from Bart's belly to his chest and the sheer force of the cut's mechanical leverage threw him backward, plates and rivets flew like shrapnel, his armor all but exploding.

Bart fell heavily to the ground, laid open hip to collarbone through armor, mail, and gambeson. His brigadine armor hung in ruins from his shoulders like a savaged steel waistcoat. He was wet knee to throat with his own blood as he arched in pain. He was mortally wounded, not now part of his brain knew... but soon he'd have more blood on him than in him, and... that would be it. He dragged himself back... he just needed to get a little further. They were truly within the trees now, the trunks stood around them, soft loam had given under Bart's back when he landed, the walls having subtly given way to thick, primordial trunks high as any keep in the land. Parias laughed, straddling Bart's torso as he tried to crawl away, dropping his armored knee heavily onto the man's chest. Bart screamed again.

“Oh, such a dutiful boy, even now. I commend you in your love for the Pale Bitch. Misplaced fervor is fervor still." he said, leaning down over Bart's face, he grinned all the wider as the shadows closed around him and Bart's prone forms. Bart's mind screamed as the Wendigo drew closer, drawing its inky black stain of influence with it.

IF THERE IS A SEAM, I WILL FORCE IT WIDE.

The creature's not-voice rattled in his brain and he grit his teeth against the intrusion as Parias bared his own; not in a grin, but a hideous, atavistic gnashing,

“Oh but I fear this exercise has left me a bit... peckish." he purred, and licking his lips, Bart struggled with sudden horror as he realized what was about to happen. Grunting and shoving with slack, bloodless muscles, Bart kicked his feed and dug in his heels and shoulders in blind, panicked resistance as Parias snapped his mouth down onto Bart's bloodied face.

The big knight screamed as the man's teeth tore into soft tissue, biting and clamping down over Bart's left eye. Panic surged in him with a heart-crushing frenzy as he felt those too-expressive lips seal around the socket, flailing as he found himself unable to resist the murderer's inexorable strength. There was a sucking, hideous pressure and the guttural, gibbering protests turned into a high-pitched, primal shriek of panicked, animal agony as the madman twisted his head, pursed his lips, and then clamped down those hungry teeth and tore.

Bart screamed. Fresh blood spattered the ground and ran Parias red from mouth to chest as the cannibal lunatic twisted and jerked his neck in an almost canine motion — and then swallowed wetly, Bart writhing on the ground in wordless, furious agony — now only one blue eye staring back defiantly, murderously at Parias' crouching form as Bart dragged himself away. The left was now just an ugly, empty socket.

Bart was beyond speech at this point, pain and shock had taken over, and he was simply dragging himself backward, moving on the pure driving instinct of Must get away, have to get away to survive. Have to survive. Have to fight. Bart's instincts were running on their own, with no greater input from his rational mind.

“Well, well, Hero." Parias said, chewing idly and licking his lips; “Time for us to take a little walk."

Bart looked up, and then back down at his dagger, he grasped it and stared at it a moment... if Parias had him, he could force him to walk, force him to take him to The Lady. He couldn't have that, quickly he inverted the blade, aimed at his own throat. Parias' eyes widened, the man clearly not having planned for such an action, Bart sneered and drove the blade at his own neck, his sole remaining eye staring at the madman with almost petty malice, a final insult to the man at the end.

The blade... found no purchase. Instead, Bart found his arm struggling against a dim, misty figure. Seemingly made of smoke, its fingers were almost delicate as they effortlessly halted Bart's motion, and then reversed it, slowly pushing the blade down and away until Bart's bloodless fingers dropped it. The savaged knight-brother focused on the figure and made out lean, angular black shapes, and a primal, axiomatic sort of strength.

“Wendigo, prithee explain how ye walk in mine woods." The voice did not come from the misty figure, who suddenly had a glowing pair of ghostly-green eyes. Like motes of foxfire. Around him, more foxfire eyes winked open in the shadows, among the trees, a million, million eyes of various arrangements — not all humanoid — lighting up the darkness, surrounding the skull-like entity and its mortal vessel.

“What is this?" Parias asked in a dull, irritated tone. “By what right do you obstruct me?!" he roared as one more, massive set of eyes winked open, and above Bart's supine form, and suddenly rose a massive, ebony beast. Its frame stepped forward out of the shadows, its skin the color of warm slate. Geometric designs seemed to be carved into the surface of its bare chest and arms as if they were living stone, Whorls of etched flesh worn like armor. Heavy, knobby gloves covered its taloned fingers up to its elbows, a kilt of some kind covering its waist. Its massive upper body was bare but for a thick girdle that rose to its breastbone, and a tall, faceless helm blacked out the creature's visage for all but those two blazing foxfire eyes glaring from two fitted eyeslits. From its helmed skull — a crown of proud, elk-like antlers rose, signaling even now what they did for common animals: Authority. Bart knew what it was, and his body and mind both quailed beneath the existential pressure — of a Sidhe Lord.

“Answer me, Dung Eater. Rot-Gulper. Answer me eater of Carrion prithee why doth thee walk in my woods, the answer to that is oblivion and ye rightly know." the powerful figure's voice seemed to radiate from the forest, audible in his mind and ears alike. Parias spat curses and turned to the skull-faced entity looming behind him.

“What is this? You said if the brute was alive he'd take us to the Unicorn, did you forget something again?" Parias accused, incensed at the seemingly ancient entity. There was a moment of intense pressure between the two, a clear struggle for control... and the spirit relented as the Sidhe Lord saw fit to educate this day;

“Verily thou hath brought thy war to my grounds, even the Men of White respect mine woods and wage no war here, build their edifice beyond its verdant boughs out of respect. Verily thy Queen respected our strength once, or do ye wish to hurry our inevitable conflict, Dung Eater?" the lord's voice thundered, steeping forward over Bart, raising hook-taloned hands and producing from thin air, a broad-bladed hunting spear.

“I am the Erlking. Thou stand in my realm, the final prey. The hunger of hungers, ye verily I who Hunts All will hunt thee as well, as I will hunt The Stars and the Suns, wilt thou move thine eternal appointment anon?"

Bart was stunned, still trying to drag himself away but... mostly just watching. The Erlking, the Sidhe Lord of the Crownspeak. A veritable demigod, reality itself bent beneath the weight of this mere sliver of his presence. Parias snarled and pointed a finger at the sidhe lord.

“You have no right to block us, he lives and your magics have no say beyond that!" He spat, and the massive, emerald-eyed apparition... laughed. It was low, quiet, and mocking. It pointed to the ground beneath Bart's ravaged frame.

The roots he'd sprawled on were spattered with blood.

“Thy host's zeal hath undone thee. Thou hath spilled blood unbidden in mine own forest, and thus I reject ye, who violate the peace of my borders, ye will withdraw from here, begone from mine sight lest I turn the Wild Hunt upon thee, and run thee and thou midden-heap of a host from dusk ye unto dawn."

Parias was literally frothing, he screamed in completely inarticulate rage as Bart continued to edge back into the woods, the assembled host of emerald-eyed fae grew more solid-seeming and more hostile with every passing moment.

“YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! BARTHOLOMUS YOU MISERABLE SHITSTAIN I WILL KILL YOU. KILL EVERYONE YOU'VE EVER LOVED, EVER MET, EVER SPOKEN TO!" Parias raved, frothing as Bart found himself laughing a little, an ugly, wet sound but he managed it.

“I WILL BRING RUIN TO YOUR NAME DO YOU HEAR ME BARTHOLOMUS MUELLER?" Parias screamed, jabbing a finger at him; “I WILL BRING RUIN UPON YOUR VERY MENTION IN HISTORY!"

Bart could only chuckle, madness really. His brain clearly having lost too much blood as Parias stepped back from the looming Sidhe Lord and his retinue, the Wendigo bowed its skull-like head, a silent abdication as it drew Parias back into its shadowy cloak, pulling and tugging at the raving madman as a mother might a tantruming child until they sank out of sight. Gone between the veils that it strode between reality.

Bart decided now was as good a time as any to stop moving. So he did, falling backward. He saw the titanic spirit looming above him; in a blink, he was no longer twenty or thirty spans tall, but merely a head taller than Bart. It knelt down and stared at him with those flickering emerald eyes of foxen flame.

“As for thee. Thou art expected. I owe thee no aid nor succor beyond the peace of my forest. Prithee if it pleases thee, die right here in comfort. However, thy Lady awaits." and then of all things... it clapped Bart on the shoulder in a familiar fashion. Bart couldn't help but chuckle, blood staining his lips. Just lie down and die if he wanted? What a choice. Bart did lie there a while, and the burning-eyed spirits slowly departed, their domain inviolate still. Bart's figure propped against a root, he took a minute to catch his breath... he was further into the woods than he realized, he could not even see the distant walls of Fort Ivory... had they really run so far in their melee? Or... had the woods instead reached out to them? Bart's entire being was tired, too tired for such thoughts of magic and mystery. Fairies and horrors could wait, he had an appointment to keep. Groaning, the savaged warrior stood, staggering under the sheer weight of his armor, of the blood loss. His vision was oddly lopsided, blood pouring down the ruined mess of his left socket, he shuddered — his mind recoiling from that still very fresh memory as pain reasserted itself. Grunting with the effort — Bart walked. Not fast, and not pretty, but he trudged forward into the dark of the woods.

Time and space didn't mean much, Bart focused on his feet. The Sidhewood was so ancient, so massive there was almost no ground cover, no scrub or brush — the roots themselves formed the forest floor, a hard-packed pavement with patches of soft loamy soil in between. The very place even smelled green, so full of life even in the dimness of the light-absorbing canopy he felt the odd lensing effect of the misty air on his sight. Eye forward, one foot in front of the other.

Bart must have walked for an hour, maybe two. He couldn't be sure — his brain told him that was impossible, he was bleeding so badly that an hour of walking would kill him, and yet here he stood. Walking further and further towards... something, the path itself seemed to guide him. The ground sloping easier, the roots being smoother — the forest gently guiding him with minimal resistance to his passage. Every few steps he felt another piece of his armor rattle free and fall to the floor, marking his passage with loose plates and shot rivets. He kept moving. What else was there to do?

Soon he felt... warmth. The cool air of the forest took on a springtime balminess, he smiled in spite of his assorted agony as the scent of honeysuckle and wildflowers blew to his nose, drawing him forward faster. Birdsong played through his ears, and the babble of a brook was somewhere in the distance. At once he felt a warmth suffuse him, light for the first time played down through the canopy, golden and bright, it bathed the grove he stood in with its radiance. Bart felt his pain ease, felt a sense of... belonging pull at him, and he walked toward the light. Beyond it, a form stirred in the grass. A pale, four-legged build, lithe and fluid as silk stood from the grass. Bart's marred vision struggled to take it in through the glare of the sunlight after so long in the dim. Wordlessly, he sank to his knees as it approached.

In all of Bart's days before and since until the Pale Dawn took him, he would never claim a more beautiful sight. None would ever rival what his lone blue eye took in that day.

Her pelt was short and silky, iridescent in its hue — for it was white in the way that no other thing was white, in a way no other thing could be. She shone in the light as she stepped through its glare, and despite her four-legged form, there was nothing of base, primitive animal grace about her. She flowed across the ground with perfect, effortless poise. A scintillating ivory statue morphing and rippling with such grace and beauty Bart found himself forgetting how to breathe as his mind struggled to handle the sheer wonder, the density of every poised, liquid movement.

Her stark white mane flowed ethereally about her face, framing her features and form with its glistening glory. Heavy, thick, and silky, it was brushed away from one side of her neck, hanging in a satin sheet of bouncing coils and voluminous ringlets seemingly spun from shimmering silk — so glossy as to nigh appear wet, like glimmering slashes of white paint on rippling canvas. They dripped down her like a sheet of pigment, mounding on and pouring over themselves, around her neck and shoulders like the stole of a ruler — fluffing up at the base of her neck like an ermine collar on a cosmic Queen.

Her eyes captured him, held him in place — two perfect golden pools, intense with a boundless intellect and boundless love. They were completely solid, pure spheres of glossy, glimmering aurum — and yet as she looked at him, he saw them focus, dilate, and move in spite of their seemingly metallic makeup. His mind was dumbfounded by the impossibilities and simply became lost in their boundless love.

Bright golden tracery lined her eyes like Nazir's kohl, running like twin tears partially down her dainty muzzle. Her face was delicate and made of curves and graceful lines, her structure a careful balance between the strength of an equine face and the delicate sprightly wildness of something more cervine, all leading up to her tall, spiraling horn — itself wrought wholly of what appeared raw, unalloyed gold, gently curving towards its curling tip. Her lips, face, and muzzle were oddly lush and developed, expressive even — and as her face broke into a gentle, heart-rendingly beautiful smile it was made clear why.

She was exquisitely delicate, standing just below the collar with Bart's ragged frame, every part of her was seemingly balanced on a blade's edge of perfection with no wasted space or effort in her form. She was lithe and sleek and almost doe-like in the rich, gliding grace with which she was built. Her body was equine in outline and yet in motion, she carried none of the wary animal anxiety or frantic uncertainty of cattle — her every step was poised and considered, in complete control — her presence radiated a sense of being, personhood beyond personhood. She had a long, leonine-like tail with a long, glistening silken brush and her lean body's legs ended in downy feathered hocks and dainty, cloven hooves that gleamed golden and true as her eyes and horn. She somehow at once was too delicate to exist and seemingly solid and real as bedrock.

“I know you," Bart said, on his knees, bleeding and savaged. It was a compulsion, a demand that exact phrase I know you. “Were I totally blind I would know you for what you are." Her eyes met his, and she smiled at him again and its warmth stole the pain from his wounds.

“And I know you." was all she said, and it was like someone had struck a tuning fork against his soul. In that moment between their eyes, she indeed knew him. Knew his heart, body, and soul. She looked into him as he knelt, soaked in blood — wearing broken armor and wielding a broken weapon — and she knew him.

“You have endured much, dear one. Nearly too much. You are deserving of rest." she said, her voice deep, resonant, and smooth, a motherly tone full of comfort and promise of succor and safety. She strode around him in a slow circle, and as she did, the grass beneath her very hooves sprouted and grew. There was a vague gold radiance, a limming effect around him, and he felt a gentle, pulling force — completely invisible yet cautious, gentle even — pulling at him, guiding him to the ground. He let her lie him down with her power, his one remaining eye closing.

“Rest, dear one. Rest beloved. For you are here, and in my judgment I decree you safe. I will keep you. Whole and safe. I will keep you, my beloved."

Bart's eyes felt heavy as the Unicorn, the Lady in White, The Queen of Love, lay at his side and rested her beautiful, silken head on his chest.

He took one very tired, very well-earned breath, and then knew no more.