Clarkson pulled his cloak tight, shivering in the winter wind. Snow clung to his face and stung his eyebrows. It was all he could do to keep moving forward. One foot went in front of the other, slowly yet steadily. The light sack hanging over his shoulder thumped against his back in a lethargic rhythm.
He wasn’t the only one out, moving across the plains. Vanny and Kev stalked along to his left, eyes dead as they stared at the snow-covered ground. Kumm’av snapped at the reins of an ox, trying to keep it moving the cart filled with children. Branson, hardly seen without a smile on his face, now looked like the only thing keeping him moving was a necromancer pulling his strings.
Having seen more than one of his fellows fall to the snow in the past nine days, Clarkson wouldn’t find it surprising in the slightest if a necromancer actually was trailing after them. They were leaving enough bodies behind to fill a small crypt. Mostly the elderly. Gemmy had been the first to fall. His enthusiastic façade withered away by the second night as his nose and fingers started turning black. Although they had kept the fire going hot all night, no one had been able to wake him in the morning.
Clarkson tried not to think about the lack of feeling in his toes.
He just had to keep moving forward.
They were almost there. Almost to Joydale Village. A little community north of Elmshadow, nestled in a far narrower valley. It wasn’t the closest village. Clarkson, along with most of the others, had decided to head toward it anyway. Most nearby villages and burgs would be overwhelmed by the sudden influx of refugees. To avoid the risk of traveling for days only to be turned away, Clarkson and the others had elected to head further out.
They hadn’t counted on the sudden plummeting temperature. It turned a cold winter into a positively frozen winter.
Miserable. Deadly.
But they were almost there.
“Holding up?”
Clarkson looked over to find Erwin looking… well, not happy. The man, older than Clarkson but younger than most, had been one of the more enthusiastic ones for traveling out to Joydale. Said he had family out there who would take in their group, assuming they couldn’t stay somewhere like the village church. While he had lost a lot of his good cheer along with everyone else, Clarkson could still see the forced smile in his eyes.
“I’m moving,” Clarkson said. Peeling open his lips for the first time today felt like driving pins and needles into the skin around his mouth. But that was good. Pins and needles meant that he was feeling something. “You think everyone who stayed behind is still alive?”
“Still alive.” Unlike a number of their group. “I don’t know. No one I talked to knows why they’re attacking. Maybe they just hate us. Maybe the Duke said something offensive.”
“Would they take it out on us? We’re just farmers…”
“Let me tell you something. I spent some time with the Knights of Longview. Two hundred people caravanning around the deserts of Chernlock. We were a free company, fully registered with the garrisons and yet, I distinctly remember coming across a village that had been beset by bandits. Not our commission but we were fresh on our journey and itching for a good fight…”
Erwin trailed off. His eyes, glassy as they poked out from between the hood of his cloak and a thick scarf around his mouth, stared off into the distance.
“Commander died early on. Caught a stray arrow. His second couldn’t keep control—we were hardly the disciplined sorts and nobody particularly liked Yorya. Killed the bandits easily enough but, by the end of the night, I doubted that the villagers would have been able to tell the difference between us and those who had been raiding them.
“Now, an army should be more disciplined but an army is far larger. Trying to keep a few thousand in line, keep them from raiding and pillaging the people they just conquered… sounds impossible. If I were their commanders, I would say let them have at it. Blow off steam on the poor souls who stayed behind. Loot whatever they wanted and so on and so forth.”
Clarkson pressed his lips together. There hadn’t been a good option if that was true. Still, leaving six of their group behind, dead in the snow… Traveling didn’t feel like a good option. Maybe a closer village wouldn’t have turned them away.
“Why ask? Regret leaving?” Erwin asked, cocking his head. “It is a bit late for that. We’re almost there!”
Clarkson blinked and looked to Erwin. The man had his eyes up on the horizon. Following, taking his eyes off the snowy path ahead of him for the first time, Clarkson spotted the gleaming white walls of the village church. It practically glowed against the dark overcast clouds in the background.
A change in the caravan’s mood rippled through the travelers with Erwin’s words. Energy returned to the group. It was a subtle thing but their pace picked up. Even the ox seemed to sense the nearing destination.
Safety. Warmth. Healing, hopefully.
Those white walls of the bell tower, adorned with golden sigils of the Light, called out to Clarkson, drawing him ever closer. Just seeing it brought feeling back to his toes. By the time they reached the building, Clarkson was walking upright. He had even tugged off his own scarf.
Erwin made arrangements. The local priest brought out a heavy pot of stew. It was thin gruel, mostly water with a few dry plants and tubers from the storehouse thrown in. Yet seated within the chapel, feeling the warmth waft from his bowl onto his face, it was the most delicious stew he had ever eaten.
“Light be praised,” Clarkson whispered.
Erwin looked over, hefting his bowl in agreement. “Damn those Golden Order heretics.”
Clarkson winced at the memory of those golden beams that had torn through his home. Elmshadow was in ruins. It might never reach its former glory. The city guard and those mercenaries hadn’t stood a chance in the face of their enemy’s might.
Looking up at the glass windows of the chapel and the ornate golden symbols covering the panes, he had to wonder…
Why hadn’t the Light protected them? Was the Golden Order’s god simply stronger?
It was… a sobering thought.
Hands clasped together, Vezta walked the halls of Fortress Al-Mir, enjoying the atmosphere. With Zullie passed out from exhaustion and Savren finally satisfied with the alterations they had made to the ritual, she had no pressing tasks around the fortress. That gave her plenty of opportunity to take time for herself.
It had been so very long since Vezta last felt the beating of the [HEART]. It wasn’t something every resident could perceive. She could feel every thrum. Each and every pounding thud, echoing against the walls. The way the beating grew faster when stressful situations found her master, the soothing calm when he fell asleep. She could guess what he was doing at any moment just from the intensity of the beats.
It was so lively. Merely thinking about it brought a spring to Vezta’s steps. She had spent so long in isolation. Upon returning to the fortress to find her master missing and all residents slaughtered, she had fallen into a state of torpor, only to be awoken centuries later by a powerful magical presence crossing through the land.
It had taken effort to wake from her lethargy. The lack of energy within the fortress—and the world itself as a result of the Calamity—had kept Vezta slow and sluggish. Nevertheless, she had managed to open a gaping hole in the fortress ceiling just in time to draw that magical presence in. It had been a gamble to allow him to leave but a reluctant master was no master at all.
Everything had turned out so well.
People wandered the halls that had stood empty for a thousand years, carrying out tasks, training, and donating their magic to the collective of the fortress. Furnaces burned, hatcheries spawned poultry, and lesser servants scurried about, maintaining everything. For a long few hundred years, Vezta had feared that no magical peoples still existed in the world and the [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir would never beat again. Now they had a dozen within the fortified walls. Not all were employees, it was true.
Vezta wasn’t quite sure what to think about that. Two groups within Fortress Al-Mir had not made a contract with the [HEART]. The first were rescued slaves and refugees of the war.
Inviting random people to live in a fortress wasn’t something Vezta could recall having been done under her former master. Not at such a scale, in any case. Perhaps a particular individual of note or small group that would be advantageous to bring inside for protection. Arkk was rather unorthodox. Understandable given that Keepers of the [HEART] had been effectively exterminated from the world. He had no context for precedent.
Aside from a few words of advice or offerings of how her former master ran things, Vezta was quite content to allow him to act as he would.
That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t, as the humans put it, raise her eyebrows at some oddities. Walking through the refugee wing of the fortress, there was certainly a different air to it.
People sat around for the most part. They acted more like captives than guests. It probably didn’t help that several guards patrolled the halls. Mostly the original orcs Arkk had hired. They were around solely to ensure that no fights broke out—a fairly common occurrence, understandable given the stress of losing everything—but the impression they gave off wasn’t necessarily the best.
Three hundred people had found themselves invited into Fortress Al-Mir since the start of the war, plus a hundred rescued slaves from just before the war’s start. Only a handful had joined properly, wanting revenge or just to have something occupying their hands if not their minds. The rest were… leeches. As Vezta walked past one room, she peeked her head inside to find a few dozen men and women of varying ages sitting around, talking in hushed tones. No one was really sure what they were supposed to be doing.
The only real ‘job’ they had around the fortress was to harvest and consume the food produced by one of the large refugee hatcheries and fields that Arkk had constructed specifically for them. Beyond that, their job was to sit around and hope they could return to normal life once spring came. Though, with the war, the prospects of that happening were not all that likely.
They should be booted out or hired—and thus donate whatever scraps of magic they had to the greater fortress.
But Arkk wouldn’t go for that.
Still, at least they were peaceful.
The other group of unaffiliated persons currently housed within Fortress Al-Mir were not quite so content to sit around.
Vezta’s leisurely walk took her past the main treasure vaults. That was one issue that needed to be addressed. It wasn’t a problem yet but the fortress turned gold and magic into food for consumption. With so many people, especially so many non-employees, their gold reserves were starting to diminish. They would need to find additional sources of income if Arkk did not send everyone away.
Before that, however, was the problem of the dark elf kneeling at the treasury door. Only three rooms had reinforced doors. The [HEART] chamber, the treasury, and the flame witch’s private quarters. That meant it was fairly obvious that something valuable was hidden within.
No normal person should be able to open any of those three doors. And yet, this dark elf had a pair of metal bars wedged in the frame. He was trying to force it open.
The moment he spotted Vezta, his eyes widened and he started sprinting down the corridor.
He was fast but couldn’t compete with her once she unraveled her tendrils. A gaping, tooth-filled maw clamped down on his leg with enough force to take a small chunk out. More tendrils thrust forward, wrapping around his arms and shoulders. He fell to the ground, kicking and screaming. Vezta drew him back, deliberately drawing it out, giving the man time to contemplate his actions.
“You…” Vezta started, pulling the dark elf around to face him. “You are one of Katja’s men.”
“Get off m—”
A thick tendril squirmed over his face, sealing his mouth shut.
“Answer me one question. You will nod your head for yes or shake your head for no. Were you sent here by Katja or one of Katja’s underlings? Answer honestly. I will be displeased if I detect a lie.”
The dark elf froze in Vezta’s grip. He still kicked his legs and tried to twist his arms out of her tendrils but his head stilled to the point where it was clear that he wasn’t answering. Vezta waited half a moment more before closing her eyes.
“I see.”
Vezta let him drop, still wrapped up in her tendrils. Opening one of her mouths, she let out an unnatural whistle, sharp to the point where most mortals wouldn’t be able to hear it as it crashed through not the air but the aether. It took a minute but one of the lesser servants slowly slithered up the hall. Vezta simply waved at the door. Her meaning clear to the servant, it moved forward to eat the metal bars and repair the minor damage the dark elf had managed.
“Come along,” Vezta said to the elf, not giving him a choice as she dragged him over the ground.
Katja’s entire crew from Porcupine Hill had accepted Arkk’s generous offer of housing on the condition that her spellcasters participate in the ritual. While Vezta understood that spellcasters were a precious commodity, both because of the way the Abbey of the Light had their hands in tutoring spellcasters and because the war had seen most spellcasters joining up with various mercenary forces or the main army of the Duchy, she still felt like inviting a bunch of thieves to the fortress had been a mistake.
It wasn’t that they were thieves. It was that they weren’t employed.
Katja had her own guards posted throughout her wing of the fortress. Arkk had his orcs and gorgon patrol outside it but they weren’t to enter without him. Nobody wanted fights breaking out inside the fortress. Someone must have slacked off to have allowed this dark elf access to the rest of the fortress. That was a disciplinary issue that she would see to later. For now…
A few of Katja’s guards tried, halfheartedly, to stop Vezta. Seeing her dragging one of their own, tied and bound—and a little bloodied from where her mouths had taken small bites from him—had most of them moving aside the moment her eyes crossed over them. The only one who did stand in her way without budging was the giant of a human who served as Katja’s main bodyguard.
He crossed his arms, stepping in front of the door to Katja’s private chambers. “Halt,” he said.
“I will speak with your leader,” Vezta said, keeping her tone as polite as possible. “Whether you have all your limbs when I do is up to—”
“Horrik!”
The door opened, prompting the large man to step aside.
The leader of the bandits stepped out in a translucent gown, striped tattoos visible on her bare arms. Her eyes traveled first to Vezta, then to the dark elf on the floor behind Vezta, before settling on her bodyguard.
“Horrik, I have asked you to not antagonize our benefactors.”
The man did not verbally respond but he did let out a lengthy noise from the back of his throat as his eyes focused on the dark elf.
“I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for this,” Katja said, patting him on the arm. “Well, benefactor? What is the reasonable explanation for Len’s poor treatment.”
“I found him outside your wing of the fortress, attempting—”
“I don’t recall other trespassers being treated quite so roughly.”
“Attempting to access restricted areas.” Vezta pulled one of her tendrils taut. The snap of the elf’s arm made a few of the gathered onlookers wince. The muffled moans escaping from behind the tendril clamped over his mouth quickly degraded into whimpering. “I take such violations quite seriously.”
The dark elf’s eyes widened and he started twisting back and forth, very obviously trying to shake his head in the negative. Another bone snapped as Vezta bent his leg in the wrong direction.
“You are here because my master would like to use your spellcasters. He has generously offered shelter and financial compensation.” The dark elf let out another cry as his arm twisted far enough to pop out of its socket. “Relations between our groups need not sour. I believe Arkk wishes to work with you in the long term on other projects. But I cannot abide any threat to Fortress Al-Mir.”
Slowly, Vezta started to twist her tendrils. She watched the expressions on everyone’s faces. Katja had her lips pressed together, trying to look neutral. Horrik had a heavy scowl that deepened with every passing moment. Most of the other bandits ranged somewhere between disgust and apathy. One, standing nearest to Vezta, even had a smile on his face. Perhaps someone who didn’t particularly like this dark elf.
The elf’s head twisted fully. His struggles went limp. Vezta pulled her tendrils back to herself, reforming her dress and legs in full. The body dropped to the floor, twitching.
“There will be no warning. No mercy. Anyone caught violating the sanctity of Fortress Al-Mir will meet a similar fate.” Vezta smiled, deliberately stretching her lips just a little too wide. “Good day, Katja, Lord of the Bandits.” She turned but didn’t quite make it a full step before feeling the familiar tug of teleportation.
She found herself in the false fortress, directly in front of the array of teleportation circles.
Feeling the presence of her master, she turned and smiled. “Welcome home… Master?”
Arkk stood covered in sweat and grime, clearly tired. Something in his eyes had changed. The hope of the young boy who had initially made a contract with Fortress Al-Mir was missing.
“Are you alright?”
He drew in a deep, heavy breath. “Do I want to know what you were doing just now?”
“Meting out disciplinary measures,” Vezta said without hesitation. “Your absence has resulted in several… trespasses among Katja’s men. Most were simply returned to that wing of the fortress.”
“I trust that man did something to deserve more?”
“Your trust is well placed,” Vezta said with a bow. “He attempted to break into the treasury. I felt a need to make clear that we won’t have them walking over us.”
“If this causes problems with…” Arkk drew in a breath, straightening his back. His eyes regained a little light. “The ritual. Is the ritual ready?”
“Zullie and Savren are both happy with the alterations and I, in my limited knowledge of ritual magic, see no reason why it shouldn’t work. Once you adjust the temple room, we can begin.”
“Good. Good,” he said, reaching out and grabbing Vezta by the shoulder. He gave her a firm squeeze. “We need to do it as soon as possible. Now, even.”
“Is something wrong?”
Vezta’s master looked empty once more as his face went blank. He stared at her but not the kind of stare that would really see her. His sight was set on his thoughts. Vezta remained still, offering her support with a smile while letting him process everything he needed to.
Eventually, he spoke.
“Elmshadow… was a disaster.”