Revival - Chapter 217 The Road Home

By the morning after the Grand Bazaar closed, the Avalonian encampment had ceased looking like a market and had begun looking like a caravan again.

Canvas awnings disappeared beneath practiced hands, merchant tables were folded and bound against wagon sides, and the broad avenues that had divided the camp slowly vanished beneath rows of vehicles being prepared for the journey home. The wagons themselves looked very different from those that had arrived only days earlier. Avalon had come south carrying the wealth of the kingdom, but it would return carrying the wealth, knowledge, curiosities, and opportunities of half the known world.

Even the wagon once used for the Banded Crate had found another purpose.

The black ropes had been removed, the dangerous slate-lined caskets were gone, and the reinforced wagon had been reassigned as the caravan treasury. Concord gold rested within locked chests beneath heavy canvas, together with the three Sandfire Jewels received from Lady Elyndra Vaeloris. Four Avalonian guards remained beside it at all times. At the same time, the caravan master had quietly ordered that nobody beyond the senior leadership be told precisely how much wealth now traveled within.

Saelen Ord had problems of a different kind.

Avalon's Master of Trade stood beside another wagon with three manifests spread across an overturned barrel, reading the purchasing instructions sent by young Lord Caelen for what seemed the tenth time that morning.

"As much undyed silk as possible," he muttered.

The caravan master glanced toward the wagons behind them.

"I believe six tons qualifies."

"I sincerely hope so," said his aide.

Saelen moved his finger farther down the parchment.

"Ancient books concerning magic, forgotten kingdoms, historical kingdoms, mythical kingdoms, and anything written before the author believes the reader was born."

The caravan master smiled.

"That last requirement seems rather broad."

"You have not seen the books."

Three heavy chests had been required for them, and another smaller chest held damaged manuscripts whose value remained uncertain. Some were histories. Others were collections of legends, magical observations, fragments of religious works, and copies of records supposedly originating from kingdoms that had disappeared centuries before Avalon itself had been founded.

Then came the artifacts.

Saelen looked toward a padded crate containing six of them.

The Concord merchants had provided magnificent histories for every piece, each tale becoming slightly more magnificent whenever another buyer approached. One supposedly came from an emperor's tomb, another from an ancient mage tower, while a badly damaged silver disk had apparently belonged to three different kings depending upon which factor told the story.

Saelen remained unconvinced.

"How many do you think are genuine?" the caravan master asked.

"One," replied the aide. “Or maybe part of one.”

"Which one?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

The caravan master laughed.

Saelen pointed toward the final entry.

"And one small piece of carved golden wood."

That purchase had cost almost nothing.

The object itself was scarcely longer than a man's finger, beautifully carved despite being broken at both ends. Nobody knew what it had once belonged to, although the merchant claimed it had arrived aboard an eastern ship many years earlier.

Caelen had specifically requested unusual woods.

Therefore, Saelen had bought it.

He folded the manifest and tucked it beneath his belt.

"Six tons of silk, three chests of books, six questionable artifacts, spices nobody in Avalon knows how to cook with, seeds nobody knows how to grow, and a broken piece of wood."

The caravan master considered the summary.

"The boy should be pleased," said the aide.

Saelen sighed.

"That is what worries me."

Neither man noticed the Concord factor standing twenty paces away, paying considerably more attention to their conversation than to the wagon being loaded before him.

He was not the only one.

Throughout the previous two days, Concord's interest in Avalon had changed subtly. Questions that had once concerned prices and future quantities were increasingly concerned with production. Merchants wanted to know where the imperial salt was refined, how the blue leather armor could fit men without individual tailoring, how the spar carriages turned across difficult ground, and what methods allowed Avalon to move such extraordinary quantities across the Wilds.

Some questions were innocent.

Others arrived accompanied by silver.

One Avalonian wagoner had been offered fifty silver merely to sketch the axle arrangement beneath the spar carriage. Another had been offered twice that amount for the name of the craftsman who built it. A soldier had reported being invited to drink by three exceptionally friendly Concord merchants who somehow spent the entire evening asking about workshops in the Hollow.

The soldier drank their wine.

He told them nothing.

Saelen Ord found the entire affair simultaneously irritating and flattering.

Avalon had spent generations purchasing the works of others.

Now others were attempting to steal Avalon's.

That represented progress of a particularly inconvenient kind.

Lord Eldric had concerns beyond wagons and curious merchants.

Near the eastern edge of the camp, he met with two representatives of the Concord Council beneath a smaller pavilion. Aldric joined his father, while Captain Ser Sylvar Vorr remained near the entrance with Ryn Breckenmere. Kareth stood somewhat farther away beneath guard, watching the proceedings with the guarded expression of someone who understood perfectly well that the conversation concerned the price of human beings.

Three days of negotiation had produced a remarkably practical solution.

The lesser Wildling prisoners captured during the attack upon the caravan would not return to Avalon.

The Concord would take custody of them.

"We shall arrange their ransom through our existing western contacts," the senior representative explained. "Your people receive the agreed value now, while the Concord assumes responsibility for recovering payment from their tribes."

Lord Eldric studied the agreement before him.

"And should their tribes refuse?"

"Then the loss belongs to us."

Aldric raised an eyebrow.

"You are purchasing our ransom claims."

The Concord representative smiled.

"We prefer to describe it as facilitating settlement."

Kareth laughed from behind them.

Everyone turned.

"Your merchants have found a polite way to trade prisoners."

The representative considered that observation before nodding.

"We are merchants."

Kareth appeared unable to argue with the logic.

The arrangement solved a considerable problem for Avalon. Feeding, guarding, and transporting scores of prisoners across the return journey would have slowed the caravan while adding nothing to its defense. The Concord already maintained contacts among western tribes, border settlements, intermediaries, and merchants willing to carry ransom notices into dangerous lands.

The lesser captives would remain behind.

Three would not.

Those prisoners possessed sufficient rank that Avalon intended to negotiate their release directly.

Kareth was foremost among them.

The Concord would nevertheless send word ahead.

"The tribes will know their princelings live," the representative explained. "They will know Avalon holds them honorably, and they will know ransom remains possible."

Kareth's expression changed slightly at that.

Lord Eldric noticed.

"No threats will accompany the message."

The young Wildling looked toward him.

"Why?"

"Because your fathers already know what losing sons means."

Kareth held his gaze for several moments before giving the smallest nod.

Aldric said nothing.

He had begun understanding that silence from Kareth often meant considerably more than speech.

The agreements were signed before midday.

By afternoon, the first prisoners were transferred into Concord custody, and another burden disappeared from the caravan's return journey.

Yet the Concord representatives remained fascinated by everything surrounding them.

One lingered near the pavilion after the formal meeting concluded.

"My lord Eldric, there is considerable interest among our Council concerning future cooperation."

"I suspected there might be."

"Particularly regarding Avalon's new industries."

Lord Eldric smiled pleasantly.

"Trade discussions are always welcome."

The representative smiled in return.

Neither man pretended he had answered the actual question.

Across the camp, another Concord merchant was attempting a less diplomatic approach.

He offered an Avalonian carpenter twenty gold for drawings of the spar carriage.

The carpenter stared at the coins.

Then he stared at the merchant.

"For drawings?"

"Accurate drawings."

The carpenter scratched his beard thoughtfully.

"Twenty gold?"

"Twenty."

The merchant smiled, believing greed had accomplished what diplomacy could not.

The carpenter smiled back.

"I cannot draw."

Then he walked away.

The merchant remained standing there with twenty gold pieces in his hand.

Nearby, Ryn Breckenmere nearly choked trying not to laugh.

By sunset, Lord Eldric had received seven reports of attempted payments, gifts, suspicious invitations, and unusually generous offers of companionship. None had produced anything particularly useful, although Saelen Ord quietly recommended that every caravan member be reminded that descriptions of Avalonian workshops belonged to Avalon.

Lord Eldric agreed.

He did not become angry.

The attempts told him something far more valuable than anything the Concord might have stolen.

They were watching Avalon now.

Not merely as merchants watched another market.

They were watching Avalon as rivals watched something rising.

That evening, the first wagons rolled into their departure positions.

Silk filled several of them. Spices, books, jewelry, foreign curiosities, seeds, foods, tools, and treasures filled many others. Gold rested beneath guard, while hundreds of purchases waited to cross the Wilds toward people who did not yet know how much their world was about to expand.

Near the center of camp, Lady Elyndra Vaeloris watched those preparations beside three of her guards.

The little brass compass rested beneath her cloak.

She had purchased the instrument.

She had not purchased the answer it represented.

That answer waited somewhere beyond the long road north.

Somewhere in Avalon.

Somewhere within the Hollow.

For the first time in many years, the elven lady was no longer searching without direction.

She knew exactly where she intended to go.

The Broken Road

The last matter before departure belonged to the mages, although the problem itself was neither new nor particularly mysterious.

Every trained mage from Avalon to the Concord knew that correspondence boxes could not communicate across the Steps. When the Rending had broken the world, it had done more than tear rivers from their courses, raise cliffs across ancient plains, and leave the great waterways falling violently between shattered levels of earth. The Rending had broken magic itself within that wounded country. Ley paths twisted or ended, enchantments behaved unpredictably, and correspondence boxes simply could not establish a connection from one side of the Steps to the other.

There was no experiment left to perform and no clever adjustment waiting to be discovered. A correspondence message could travel astonishing distances through established networks, yet it could not cross that broken region.

The result was an increasingly intolerable three-week silence between Avalon and the Concord.

Lord Eldric met with Mots and two senior representatives of the Concord Circles beneath his pavilion while the caravan prepared for departure around them. Aldric joined his father, while a correspondence box rested upon the table beside a collection of maps showing routes that wandered hundreds of miles simply to avoid crossing several dozen miles of broken country.

"We need a road around the Steps," one of the Circle masters said.

"A magical road," Mots corrected.

The distinction mattered.

A rider could cross the Steps with a written message and eventually place it into another correspondence box on the northern side, but doing so defeated the purpose of having the boxes at all. Urgent questions for Magus Calvred could take three weeks to receive an answer, while discoveries concerning the Rendments might remain unknown in Avalon until long after they mattered.

Fortunately, trade had begun creating another route.

Mots placed one finger upon the eastern side of the map.

"Khar-Dûram Vhalgrin."

The dwarven city lay well beyond the magical wound surrounding the Steps, connected to trading networks that reached both northward and southward without ever crossing the broken lands themselves.

One of the Concord masters studied the route.

"That takes our messages considerably east."

"It takes them considerably east," Mots agreed. "Then considerably north, and eventually considerably west again."

Aldric smiled.

"So instead of crossing the Steps, we shall send a message halfway around them."

"Precisely."

The older Circle master shook his head with amusement.

"Merchants would call that inefficient."

"Merchants would call three weeks without an answer worse."

That ended the argument.

More importantly, Litus Solis had recently begun establishing a permanent trading office within Khar-Dûram Vhalgrin. The office would possess its own correspondence box, giving Avalon and the Concord the missing link they required. Concord messages could travel east through established networks to the dwarven city, where the Litus Solis factors could receive and redirect them through northern networks toward Avalon.

The route was long upon a map.

For magic, distance mattered considerably less than the wound it avoided.

The Concord masters quickly began discussing protocols with Mots. Messages concerning the Rendments would receive priority, every communication would be numbered, and copies would remain at Khar-Dûram Vhalgrin so that nothing important disappeared during transfer. Magus Calvred could therefore exchange observations with the Circles without waiting for caravans or riders to cross the Steps physically.

Aldric studied the map while they spoke.

His attention eventually moved farther south, toward another collection of settlements scattered beyond the established Concord routes.

"The Veyari Remnant Domain."

Mots followed his gaze.

"The desert elves."

"They have correspondence networks?"

The elder Circle master nodded slowly.

"Almost certainly, although knowing they possess them and being permitted to use them are very different matters."

That possibility brought Lord Eldric's attention away from the dwarven route.

The cities of the Veyari Remnant maintained their own ancient roads through the southern lands, along with magical traditions that predated many human kingdoms. Their relationship with outsiders remained carefully controlled, but another route through their cities could eventually provide Avalon with a second pathway around the magical break.

Mots considered the possibility before shaking his head.

"That requires an agreement we do not possess."

"Not yet," Eldric replied.

His thoughts inevitably turned toward Lady Elyndra Vaeloris and the three elven guards preparing to accompany them north.

The Concord master noticed his expression.

"You believe your new guest might open that door?"

"I believe asking costs considerably less than assuming."

That earned a quiet laugh.

For now, Khar-Dûram Vhalgrin would become their bridge around the broken world. In time, perhaps the Veyari Remnant would provide another, and other distant cities might eventually join a network that allowed messages to flow around the ancient wound from several directions.

The Rending had broken the road.

It had broken the river.

It had even broken magic.

Yet thousands of years later, dwarves, merchants, elves, and men were beginning to discover that a broken road did not always need to be repaired.

Sometimes another road simply needed to be found.

Raven Crag

Korrin Blackjaw leaned forward across the scarred table, his broken teeth showing through a grin that had once cost another man three fingers. His beard hung matted against his chest, his hands carried scars across every knuckle, and the pale line running from brow to jaw gave his face the appearance of something once split apart and badly repaired.

Across from him, Lord Vetch the Hook spat onto the rush-covered floor. He had earned his name honestly enough, for his left hand ended in a curved iron hook fixed into the scarred remains of his wrist. His narrow eyes remained constantly in motion, measuring the messenger, the room, and every possibility hiding behind the words they had just heard.

For three days, the lords of Raven Crag had believed fortune had finally remembered them.

Eleven Wildling tribes had gathered their warriors against the Avalon caravan, bringing together a force large enough to overwhelm almost anything foolish enough to travel beyond the Steps. The earliest reports had been confused, carried through tribal runners, smugglers, and frightened merchants who agreed only that a great battle had occurred somewhere along the southern road.

That had been enough for Korrin.

"Eleven tribes should leave damned little for us."

He had celebrated before learning anything more.

Vetch had been considerably more interested in whatever survived the fighting.

Avalon had traveled south with hundreds of wagons carrying the wealth of its lands and much of the surrounding kingdom. Those same wagons would eventually return carrying Concord gold, foreign merchandise, expensive silks, medicines, spices, weapons, and whatever other treasures the southern merchants had convinced them to purchase.

More importantly, the Avalonians should have been wounded.

Their guards should have been depleted, their horses exhausted, their provisions consumed, and their wounded packed into wagons that would further slow the march northward. Raven Crag possessed enough hardened men to strike such a caravan, particularly after eleven tribes had already done the bloody work of weakening it.

Korrin and Vetch had intended to finish what the Wildlings began.

Then the better reports arrived.

The Avalon caravan had survived.

The Wildlings had not merely failed.

They had been broken.

Vetch listened to the latest messenger without interruption, although his iron hook slowly scraped against the wooden arm of his chair.

"Tell me exactly what happened."

The messenger swallowed before answering him.

"The tribes attacked together, my lord."

"All eleven of them?"

"Every report agrees upon eleven."

Vetch continued scraping the chair.

"And Avalon still continued south?"

"Yes, my lord."

The hook stopped moving.

Korrin's smile disappeared completely.

"How many Avalonians were killed?"

"We have no reliable number."

"Then find somebody who does."

The messenger shifted uneasily before continuing.

"The caravan remained strong enough to continue toward the Concord."

Neither lord answered immediately.

That mattered more than casualty numbers.

A caravan shattered by battle stopped moving. Survivors gathered their wounded, abandoned unnecessary wagons, searched for defensible ground, and sent desperately for assistance.

Avalon had continued south.

Vetch waited until the messenger disappeared beyond the chamber doors before speaking again.

"They still suffered losses."

Korrin reached for his cup.

"Nobody fights eleven tribes without losing men."

"That does not make them weak."

"It makes them weaker."

Vetch studied him carefully.

Korrin drank before continuing.

"We still have enough men."

"We probably have enough men."

Korrin's eyes narrowed at the distinction.

Vetch leaned backward and rested his iron hook against his thigh.

"The question is whether we can feed them."

That silenced Korrin.

The Wildlings had supplied Raven Crag for years through arrangements that neither side bothered pretending were honorable. Grain, livestock, dried meat, horses, and other necessities passed through tribal hands in exchange for weapons, protection, favorable markets, and the occasional decision by Raven Crag not to raid particular settlements.

Those arrangements depended upon abundance.

Eleven defeated tribes would have little abundance remaining.

Their surviving warriors would return to camps filled with wounded men, grieving families, frightened children, and animals already being slaughtered to replace provisions consumed during the campaign. Every sack of grain would suddenly matter, and every horse would become more valuable than whatever promises had once been made to Raven Crag.

"They owe us supplies," Korrin said.

Vetch laughed quietly.

"Then ride west and collect them."

Korrin stared across the table.

"You think they would refuse?"

"I think hungry men remember agreements differently."

Vetch leaned forward again.

"I also think eleven tribes have just buried enough sons to become unpredictable."

That was the second problem.

Raven Crag could still gather the men necessary to attack Avalon, but those men would have to move through country filled with defeated Wildlings. Some survivors might welcome another attempt against the enemy that had broken them.

Others might simply see Raven Crag horses carrying food.

A wounded tribe could become a dangerous ally.

A starving tribe could become something worse.

Korrin rubbed his scarred jaw.

"Then perhaps we wait."

Vetch's hook struck the table hard enough to rattle both cups.

"We cannot simply wait."

Korrin slowly looked toward him.

Vetch's expression had become colder.

"If we attack Avalon, we gamble against whatever strength remains in that caravan. If we remain behind these walls, every captain beneath Raven Crag begins measuring whatever strength remains in us."

That truth required no further explanation.

Raven Crag had never been held together by loyalty.

Fear held part of it.

Profit held considerably more.

The remainder survived because every ambitious captain understood that Korrin Blackjaw and Vetch the Hook remained dangerous enough to make challenging them an expensive mistake.

A successful raid against Avalon would have solved everything.

The captains would receive plunder, the soldiers would receive coin, and Raven Crag would receive another bloody demonstration that its lords remained strong enough to provide both.

Without the raid, thousands of armed men would remain inside Raven Crag with empty hands and disappointed expectations.

Some would blame Avalon.

Eventually, others would blame their lords.

Korrin understood first.

His broken smile slowly returned.

"We give them someone else."

Vetch watched him carefully.

"Someone else for what?"

"For everything."

The meaning settled between them.

Missing grain could become theft.

Failed negotiations could become treachery.

A popular captain could suddenly be discovered plotting with the Wildlings, while an ambitious lesser lord might find evidence of betrayal hidden conveniently among his belongings.

Raven Crag had always survived through controlled brutality.

Now control would require considerably more brutality.

"Three captains," Vetch finally said.

Korrin considered the number.

"I would prefer four."

"Three should prove sufficient."

Vetch scratched his beard with the iron hook.

"If everyone understands after three deaths, killing the fourth only wastes a useful bastard."

Korrin laughed deeply at that.

Neither man mentioned innocence.

In Raven Crag, innocence had never provided much protection.

Outside the chamber, the fortress continued through its ordinary evening. Soldiers argued over dice, hungry men complained about dwindling stores, and captains whispered eagerly about the fortunes Avalon would eventually carry northward.

Those men still believed the coming struggle would be fought against Avalon.

They had not yet understood that the defeat of the Wildlings had changed the battlefield.

If Raven Crag marched south, it might encounter an Avalonian caravan far stronger than anyone had expected, while defeated tribes threatened its supply lines from behind. If Raven Crag remained home, disappointed captains and ambitious lesser lords would begin circling whatever weakness they believed they saw.

Either choice promised blood.

Korrin Blackjaw and Vetch the Hook merely intended to choose whose blood would be spilled first.

The Wildlings had failed to weaken Avalon enough for certainty.

Instead, they had weakened the fragile arrangements that kept Raven Crag fed, profitable, and obedient.

Raven Crag had always survived by consuming the weakness of others.

Now its two lords understood something far less comfortable.

Before winter arrived, Raven Crag might have to begin consuming its own.

This version delays Hagen’s identity and lets the reader first encounter him as everyone else does: another filthy, frightened man drifting south with the refugees. His former life should emerge gradually through his weapons, habits, memories, and guilt.

The Road South

The man walking south from Windwatch looked like another vagabond.

There were enough of them now.

Every road leading away from the northern lands carried people who had lost something, and after several weeks their differences had begun disappearing beneath the same layers of road dust, exhaustion, hunger, and fear.

This particular man traveled alone.

His beard had grown thick and uneven across a face that might once have been handsome, although too much drink and too little sleep had left deep shadows beneath his eyes. His clothing smelled of sweat, smoke, and taverns, while an old woolen cloak hung from shoulders broad enough to make the garment seem too small.

Mud covered his boots almost completely.

One sole had begun separating near the heel.

A rough cord held his pack closed because the leather strap had disappeared somewhere behind him.

There was little remaining worth stealing.

Yet people gave him room upon the road.

The reason rested beneath his cloak.

He still wore armor.

It was battered leather now, scratched across the chest and worn pale along the edges, with empty fittings where better protection had once been attached. A sword still hung from his hip, while a heavy dagger remained tucked behind it.

Those things betrayed what the dirt concealed.

He had been a soldier once.

Probably a mercenary, judging by the mixture of equipment and the absence of any lord's colors.

He had been successful once, too.

Men did not acquire shoulders like his without years beneath armor, and they did not wear swords with that unconscious familiarity unless steel had been part of their lives for a very long time.

Something had happened afterward.

Nobody asked him what it was.

His eyes discouraged questions.

He also kept looking north.

Every distant sound brought his head around.

Every barking dog tightened his hand around the sword.

Whenever morning mist collected along the low places beside the road, he walked faster until sunlight burned it away.

The other refugees noticed.

They understood enough not to stare.

Everyone traveling south carried something they were afraid might catch them.

His name was Hagen Ironring.

Once, men had placed Captain before it.

Thirty-four men had followed him into the Reach.

None of them had returned.

Windwatch should have been far enough.

Hagen told himself that when he first arrived.

He found a cheap room near the southern wall and paid for three nights, then spent most of those nights downstairs drinking instead.

The taverns became progressively worse as his money disappeared.

Hagen preferred them that way.

Respectable innkeepers noticed things.

They noticed the quality hidden beneath battered armor. They noticed military habits, old scars, and the way Hagen always chose a table where nobody could approach from behind.

The lowest taverns noticed nothing.

A man could drink himself unconscious there and wake beneath the same table without anyone considering it remarkable.

Hagen became very good at that.

The first cup quieted his hands.

The second softened his thoughts.

Enough ale could push the mountains several hundred miles farther north.

Sometimes enough could even silence the screaming.

The price was everything else.

His spare boots disappeared first.

Then his better cloak.

His mail brought enough silver for nearly a week.

The second sword lasted considerably less.

Hagen knew exactly what he was doing.

That somehow made everything worse.

Every morning he promised himself he would eat properly, find work, clean his armor, and behave like a man who intended to remain alive.

Every evening he found another tavern.

He hated himself for that weakness.

Then night came, and Hagen remembered why he drank.

Thirty-five men had entered the Reach.

They had been hard men.

Hagen remembered that whenever guilt tried turning them into helpless victims.

Torvald had been strong enough to carry another man's pack without slowing.

Rusk had served beside Hagen for years.

Mikkel had been young, but he had been learning quickly.

They had fought mountain tribesmen and survived.

They had crossed country that would have killed softer men.

Then they found the temple.

Hagen remembered the shattered statues.

He remembered the carvings.

He remembered the sealed stone door.

Most painfully, he remembered having choices.

That was where the guilt always found him.

They could have remained outside.

They could have left the seal untouched.

They could have walked away.

Instead, Hagen allowed curiosity, shelter, and the possibility of profit to outweigh caution.

Then the seal broke.

He remembered the impossible chamber beyond it.

He remembered the apparatus with its metal spires and strange suspended crystal.

He remembered the wall opening behind it like some monstrous flower carved from pale blades of stone.

The mage had whispered its name.

Shadow Blossom.

Then the creatures came.

Those memories never arrived in order.

Torin sometimes died first.

Other nights, Hagen saw Mikkel clutching desperately at his own ruined belly before Torin even screamed.

Rusk always died.

That part never changed.

Hagen remembered his lieutenant fighting shield against claw, still cursing the creature in front of him when another came beneath his ribs.

Then the apparatus broke.

The chamber lurched around them.

Darkness flooded channels cut into the floor, and something ancient seemed to shift somewhere beneath the mountain.

Hagen understood almost nothing about what they had found.

He understood what happened next.

Whatever had been contained there was no longer contained.

He ran from the chamber because nobody remained alive beside him.

Outside, the surviving men saw something in his face that stopped every question.

Hagen ordered them to abandon the camp.

They obeyed him.

They still trusted him.

That was another memory he could barely endure.

The fog began following them before sunrise.

It moved against the wind.

Hagen knew immediately that something was wrong.

He kept the survivors marching south.

They carried their wounded until exhaustion forced them to abandon almost everything else.

Nobody complained.

Whatever followed them made discomfort seem unimportant.

The first man disappeared during the second night.

They heard him scream beyond the firelight.

Hagen led the search himself.

They found his sword.

They found blood.

They found nothing else.

The following morning, Hagen ordered everyone moving before sunrise.

The fog followed.

Sometimes shapes moved within it.

Sometimes they heard claws scraping stone somewhere behind them.

Sometimes nothing happened for hours, and frightened men began convincing themselves that the worst had passed.

Then another scream came.

The company grew smaller.

Hagen stopped sleeping.

He gave his food to the wounded because his stomach could no longer hold much anyway.

He walked at the rear whenever the ground allowed it.

That detail never appeared in his nightmares.

His guilt never permitted it.

The dreams remembered only the men he failed to save.

For days, the Reach took them apart.

Hagen fought when the creatures came.

He dragged one wounded man nearly two miles before the man's breathing stopped.

He carried another until fever made him delirious and the fog found them again.

He buried nobody.

There was never enough time.

That failure hurt almost as badly as everything else.

Eventually seven remained.

Then there were five.

Then only three men walked together.

On the final night, Hagen remembered fighting beside men too exhausted to lift their shields properly.

He remembered blood covering his hands.

He remembered someone shouting his name.

Then he remembered sunrise.

Hagen woke among the dead.

For a long time, he waited.

He expected the fog to return.

He expected something to come through the rocks and finish whatever the Reach had begun.

Nothing came.

Thirty-five men had entered those mountains.

Hagen Ironring walked out alone.

Some part of him had never forgiven the world for allowing that.

The refugees began arriving in Windwatch weeks later.

That was when Hagen understood the nightmare had followed him south.

Families came first.

Then entire groups arrived together.

They carried stories about missing farms, strange mist, slaughtered livestock, disappearing patrols, and creatures moving through places where such things had never lived before.

Eventually someone mentioned a Shadow Bloom.

Hagen left the tavern and vomited in the alley.

Afterward, he sat against the wall until morning.

He did not know whether opening the temple had caused everything.

That uncertainty offered no comfort.

Something had been contained beneath the mountain.

His men had entered.

The apparatus had broken.

Something had awakened.

Now people were running.

Hagen could not prove those things belonged together.

He could not convince himself they did not.

That was when drinking stopped being pleasure entirely.

It became punishment.

Hagen drank because he wanted the memories gone, but somewhere deeper he drank because he believed he deserved what the drink was doing to him.

He deserved the filthy rooms.

He deserved the shaking hands.

He deserved waking in alleys.

Thirty-four better men had not been given the luxury of becoming drunks.

Hagen had.

Then one evening he saw a little boy dividing a piece of bread with his younger sister.

The children were refugees.

Their mother slept nearby.

Hagen watched the boy carefully break the bread, study both pieces, and give the larger one to his sister.

Something inside Hagen hurt unexpectedly.

He reached into his pouch.

Three silver pieces remained.

That was enough for several nights of drinking.

Hagen placed two coins beside the sleeping mother.

He kept one.

He hated himself for keeping it.

That coin bought his final night in Windwatch.

He heard about Levy Point from another traveler.

The southern road remained open.

Avalon controlled it.

That name had been following Hagen almost as persistently as the fog.

Avalon.

Refugees spoke about food moving north.

Merchants spoke about secured roads.

Soldiers spoke about forces gathering farther south.

Hagen knew little about Avalon.

Still, something about the name refused to leave him alone.

Perhaps the old rumors were true; there were people there who understood the Reach.

Perhaps someone could understand what his company had found.

Perhaps Hagen could finally tell someone everything.

That thought frightened him almost as badly as the Bloom.

They might blame him.

They might imprison him.

They might hang him.

Hagen discovered that none of those possibilities frightened him enough to turn away.

The following morning, he started south.

That night, beneath an old tree beside the road, Hagen dreamed about his company again.

This time they did not accuse him.

That somehow hurt worse.

Rusk merely looked at him.

Torvald stood nearby.

Mikkel appeared as Hagen remembered him before the temple, young and irritatingly proud of his newly acquired armor.

None of them spoke.

Hagen woke crying.

He sat beneath the tree with his sword across his knees and allowed the tears to come because nobody was there to witness them.

For a long while, he considered using the blade.

The idea felt dangerously peaceful.

Then Hagen remembered the little boy breaking bread for his sister.

He remembered carrying the wounded man through the mountains.

He remembered Rusk following his orders because Rusk had trusted him.

Perhaps dying was not the same thing as paying.

Perhaps suffering was not either.

Hagen looked south.

His grandmother had once told him that the Veils rarely sent people what they wanted.

Sometimes they sent what was necessary.

Hagen had not believed anything like that for years.

He wanted to believe it now.

"If anything still listens, give me somewhere to go."

His voice trembled beneath the branches.

"I do not know what else to do."

Nothing answered him.

The night remained perfectly ordinary.

For once, Hagen did not resent the silence.

When morning came, he rose slowly.

His body hurt from sleeping against the tree.

His hands still trembled slightly.

His armor remained filthy, and his pack contained almost nothing.

Hagen Ironring looked nothing like the captain who had once led thirty-four mercenaries into the Reach.

Perhaps that man really was dead.

Hagen tightened the straps around his armor.

Then he joined the refugees walking south.

Somewhere ahead waited Levy Point.

Beyond Levy Point waited Avalon.

Hagen did not know whether Avalon would allow him to find forgiveness, judgment, or merely another road.

For the first time in many weeks, however, he allowed himself to consider something he had previously believed belonged only to better men.

Perhaps surviving had not been his punishment.

Perhaps surviving had left him something unfinished.

Hagen kept walking toward Avalon.