86. Walk Through the Ashes
Chapter 86
Walk Through the Ashes
23 rd Day of the Blood Moon
Western villages of Illyanara – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
The army had marched ceaselessly for three days, sleeping as little as they dared and moving as swiftly as their legs could carry them. The elves kept guard at night; they slept less than the others. Queen Tessara, Baralas, and Thuriv?r had argued endlessly over who should have the ‘honour’ of holding the night’s watch. An honour which Tarmon had happily ceded to them.
The Uraks’ path had not been a difficult one to track. Every structure, every farm, inn, house, cottage – every single one – had been left burning, every soul within slaughtered, the land broken by the weight of the creatures’ steps. Corpses had hung from trees, limbs hacked free. Rows upon rows of rotting severed heads were impaled on spikes running along on either side of the dirt road from Camylin to Erith. Dann’s squire, Nala, had vomited at the sight. And then again a few moments later. Many of the other young squires and porters who travelled with the army did the same – along with a fair few of those who had seen many more summers. Dann didn’t blame them. The fact that his own stomach didn’t turn upset him in a way. It meant he had grown so accustomed to the horrors of war that even a sight as grotesque as severed heads on spikes had little effect other than setting an ache in his heart.
Smouldering cookfires and remnants of spiked trenches and makeshift fortifications of felled trees and iron signalled where the creatures had camped each night, the markings of their passage stretching for miles across.
All Dann had ever known of Uraks was that they were mindless beasts that killed and slaughtered. Everything he’d seen in his life had supported those thoughts. But seeing the fortifications they’d laid and the purposeful display of the mutilated bodies had shown him how wrong he’d been. These creatures moved with intent. They placed the bodies to brew terror. They laid their fortifications with care and thought. And for some reason, learning that he’d been wrong, learning that they were not the mindless animals he’d thought they were, had only served to strike even deeper fear into his heart.
The Uraks were terrifying enough when they were no better than beasts. But if they could plan, build fortifications, lay siege, set traps, it meant that these were not beasts who killed simply to eat and survive, monstrous from instinct alone. Nor did they do it for the reasons humans and elves did: land, glory, jealousy. It seemed to him the Uraks killed for nothing more than the sake of killing itself. They revelled in it, yearned for it.
His heart had sunk when they’d reached the long-broken and charred ruin of Erith. The village had been destroyed months ago, long before the Uraks who had razed Camylin had passed over it. The bodies were nothing but blackened husks, collapsing beneath the weight of the birds and animals that roamed the ruins. The rotting corpses of five children had been twisted about each other and pinned to a tree by a single black spear, forming some kind of gruesome rune shape. The skin had sloughed off their bones, ripped and torn where the birds had picked away at them. He’d only known they were children by the size of the corpses.
He didn’t stop, nor did he dismount, but he whispered the blessings of the gods as he passed. A prayer to Heraya to take them into her embrace, to Varyn to watch over those who yet lived, to Neron to see their souls safely from the world, to Elyara in hope that she might gift him the wisdom to defeat what lay before them, to Achyron to grant him courage, and to Hafaesir to forge him into the man he needed to be.
The villages were his home. And in truth, he had not expected to ever see them again. But he had expected even less to find them in this state. The scouts had reported both Pirn and ?lm had shared the same fate. All he could think about is what if that had been young Lyna Styr, or Aren Ehrnin, or Tim Ferlok. That was something Dann had not prepared himself for; it was not something he thought he ever could prepare himself for. He knew the Uraks had attacked The Glade. He knew the place itself was gone – though he still couldn’t spend too long thinking on it. But he had not asked Haem whose faces he’d seen amongst the dead. Dann wasn’t ready for that.
They encountered small groups of Uraks as they travelled through ?lm forest. Scatterings of the creatures that had fallen behind the main body. After what the soldiers had seen in Erith and along the road… Dann had never witnessed such fervour in killing. The men and elves tore the Uraks limb from limb, hacking and slashing long after the beasts were dead.
As the sun sat high in the sky on the third day, they stopped by a stream nestled in the heart of ?lm Forest. At first glance, the woodland looked just as it had done during The Proving. The air was still thick and heavy. The trees still held sway, their vast, arthritic limbs creaking and groaning with the breeze. Gnarled roots stretched across the forest floor, mushrooms of vibrant yellows and blues sprouting in the damp soil around them. That same incessant, unrelenting buzz of insects filled the air.
And yet all was different. Bodies of men, women, and Uraks were scattered through the roots and foliage, all mashed and trampled, clawed footprints pressing into the soil everywhere Dann looked. The air may still have been heavy, but it no longer smelled the same; the ancient scent of time was gone, replaced with that of iron, and shit, and blood, and death. Birdsong no longer played chase with the breeze. No hares or squirrels scuttled about. He saw a wolfpine prowling through the thicket, but the animal had simply torn a chunk of flesh from a corpse and fled.
The air of magic and wonder with which he’d always viewed the forest was as dead as the bodies that now decorated its depths. And the fear he’d once felt was nothing but a lingering memory. What he feared now lay on the other side of the forest.
The sight of it all made Dann think back to that herd of stampeding deer he, Calen, and Rist had found when hunting. Those claw marks in the stag’s ribs had been the first sign of what was to come. That seemed a lifetime ago now.
Dann dismounted, patting Drunir’s neck. “Drink up.”
Beside him, Nala dismounted from the bay mare Dann had gifted her – one of those he’d ‘liberated’ from the Lorian forces a while back. It was a fine animal with a good temperament. Probably would have cost an arm and a leg to buy in The Glade.
“How are you finding her?” Dann asked as he dropped to his haunches. He made to dip his waterskin into the stream but stopped at the sight of two bloated and rotting corpses pressed against the bank on the other side. All around him, men and elves were lined along both banks, thousands of them. Some filled their skins, others washed the accumulated dirt and sweat of constant travel from their face and hands, while others again stripped bare and dove into the water with alacrity. Either they hadn’t seen the bodies or they had seen so many in the weeks of travel that they no longer cared.
At any other point in his life – were it not for the bodies – that likely would have been Dann. But he was tired, not just in his joints, muscles, and bones, but in his heart. He had seen what the Uraks had done to the other villages, knew what they’d do to Salme if Dann and the others didn’t reach it in time.
“Can I be honest, my lord?”
Dann shook the dark thoughts from his head. “What did I say about the ‘my lord’?”
When the porter in Durakdur – Conal, he thought his name was – had insisted on calling Calen m’lord every ten seconds, Dann had mocked Calen with every breath he could. He couldn’t right well then turn around and allow Nala to call him the same. Dann had no problem if people called him an arsehole, but he wouldn’t be named a hypocrite.
Besides, there was something ‘wrong’ about the word. He was the son of a tanner, not the son of a lord. There were no lords in the villages. The closest lords had resided in Camylin, and they were all dead now most likely. Not that he’d ever known their names in the first place. The only name he’d known was High Lord Castor Kai, and even then that had meant little. Nobody had ever really cared about the western villages, and that had suited everyone just fine.
“Sorry…” Nala dipped her head and pursed her lips. The girl was so timid. Though the sights of the past few days had knocked much of that out of her. Seeing grown men empty their stomachs at the sight of rotting corpses seemed to have made her feel a little better about doing it herself.
“It’s fine.” Dann waved her away, smiling. “You were saying?”
She nodded to herself. “I was saying… I was saying that I’ve never ridden a horse before, at least, not for long journeys, and I didn’t know it hurt so much.”
“Your arse sore? Insides of your legs burning? Stomach muscles cramping?”
Nala nodded again. “You too? It seemed like I was the only one.”
“That’s because you’re the only squire with a horse,” Dann pointed out. He’d started calling Nala his squire as opposed to his attendant after Tarmon had explained the difference. Many of the tasks were the same: look after the horses, clean and polish the armour, set up and take down the tents, wash his clothes and bedding, and all other manner of tasks Dann was more than happy to do himself. But the way Tarmon had put it was that a squire came with responsibility. Nala was Dann’s to look after, to teach – not just in how to string a bow or hold a sword, but in how to live, and how to treat others, and how to carry herself. Which was a good thing, because Dann barely knew how to hold a sword himself. But something about it all appealed to him. He’d never had any siblings.
Nala had lost her parents to the Uraks, and her two brothers were a year and three years younger. The eldest of the two was squired elsewhere in the army, while the younger remained at Aravell.
“If you’d like,” he said, opening his palms out, “I can see if someone else would like to take the horse off your hands?”
“No!” The sharpness of Nala’s tone took Dann off guard. She stroked the mare’s side. “Maria is a beautiful horse. I’m really thankful, I swear it. By Varyn and by Elyara. I’ve just got to get used to it is all – the riding that is.”
Dann gave Nala a flat stare, looking from the young girl to the horse and then back again. “You named the horse Maria?”
The girl nodded. “Maria Brown.”
“Because she’s brown?”
Nala nodded again, a proud grin on her face.
“Maria the horse. Maria and Drunir… It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. We can think of other names along the way.”
“No, I like Maria.” Nala frowned and stroked Maria’s hair defensively.
“Well, not the hill I’d choose to die on, but Maria it is, I suppose.”
Nala straightened, her eyes widening. “My lord.” She pointed across the river.
Dann reflexively reached for the bow at his back, his fingers brushing the white wood, when his eyes fell on what Nala had seen. That stumpy little fucking bird. The creature had followed them all the way from the Darkwood, popping up out of nowhere like some kind of mole. How in the gods it kept up with the army on those little legs he’d never know. Another thing he’d never know is how in the gods he’d ended up in a battle of wits with a stumpy, kleptomaniacal, flightless bird. But he had, and he was losing.
Nala pulled her own bow from where it hung on Maria’s saddle. She’d barely had it a week and never remembered to unstring it. She reached for an arrow, but Dann raised a hand.
“But my lo—Dann...” She paused after saying his name, as though she’d broken some kind of rule. “I thought we wanted to kill it.”
He shook his head and lifted his chin. “I’ve chosen a path of peace, Nala.”
“Very noble of you, my lord—I mean, Commander.”
Dann stared across the bank at the bird. The little shit was staring right back at him, its beady eyes blending in with its brown and black feathers. He was reasonably sure the creature didn’t blink. Or at least, if it did, he’d never seen it do so.
“Emm… Commander.”
The tone in Nala’s voice told Dann all he needed to know. He let out a long sigh. “What does it have?”
As though answering his question, the bird dipped its head and pulled up a section of white cloak trimmed with purple and gold.
He turned and glared at Nala. “Does that thing have my cloak?”
“Emm… It appears so, Commander Sureheart. It must have gotten into the wagon.” She looked back at the wagon a few paces behind, which was being pulled by a stout horse while a man with a bowl-shaped hat held the reins.
“Nala.” Dann pressed his tongue against his lip. “Did you lock the chest?”
“I… I… I thought I had. I did. I remember doing it.”
“So you’re telling me that bird – which has no hands, mind you – either picked the lock with its beak or stole your key?”
Nala patted at her pocket, relief spreading across her face. “It didn’t steal my key.”
“So you’re sticking with the story that the bird picked the lock… with its beak.”
“Yes, my lord—I mean, Commander.”
“With its beak?” he repeated.
The girl stared back at him, her expression set in stone.
“Now I know how Aeson and Therin feel,” he muttered.
“What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”
“I said go get my cloak.”
The girl stared back at him for a minute, dumbfounded.
“Go!”
Nala set her bow back on Maria’s saddle and leapt into the river where it was only knee deep. Upon spotting her, the bird attempted to snatch up the cloak and flee. But all it could do was shift the cloak an inch or so before stumbling over, giving up, and darting away through the shrubbery faster than it had any right to.
“This means war, bird,” Dann whispered as Nala hauled herself onto the opposite bank and snatched up his cloak. “This means war.”
Beside him Drunir snorted, stomping a hoof.
“Glad to have you with me. And you, Maria?” What a stupid name for a horse. Maria?
But even as Dann pressed his fingers into his cheeks, the horse stared back at him with what looked to be almost a smile, her top lip lifting.
Dann scratched at her neck. “You’re not half bad.”
After Nala made it back across the river, changed her trousers, and set Dann’s sodden cloak back in the chest, she proceeded to triple-check it was locked. With a confident look on her face, she moved on to tend to the horses. As she combed Drunir’s mane, Erik strode through the wood and stopped at Dann’s side.
He looked out at those bathing in the stream, then turned to Dann, his gaze lingering. “How are you holding up? It can’t have been easy seeing that village the way it was.”
“I’m good.” Dann tucked his thumbs in behind his belt, his mind picking back through the images of mutilated corpses and burnt houses. “It’s just strange. I’d never even been to Erith before. Furthest I’d gone was ?lm. And that’s gone too. We’ll reach The Glade soon – what’s left of it. That will be even stranger.”
“We won’t let them do the same to Salme.”
“No,” Dann said, shaking his head. “We won’t.” A few moments of silence passed, filled by chattering and the splashing of water. “I’ve not seen my mam and dad in almost two years.” His throat constricted, the words growing heavy on his tongue. “I don’t know if they’re… What if…”
“We’ll deal with each thing as it comes, Dann. That’s all we can do. No more, no less.”
Dann gave Erik a nod. He’d grown to appreciate the man over the past few months. “I found myself thinking last night, were it not for you and your brother and your father, Calen and I would likely be long dead. And at the same time, were it not for you, Calen would never have killed that soldier outside The Two Barges either and the past two years would have been very different.”
“I never asked him to do that. He shouldn’t have been there?—”
“I’m glad he was there. Though, ‘glad’ isn’t a strong enough word. Whether he had been or not, the Uraks still would have burned The Glade, but there likely wouldn’t be an army marching to Salme’s aid… and Calen and I and everyone we’ve ever known would be dead.”
“It’s funny how one moment, one single event, can change so much. If we’d arrived in Milltown a day earlier or a day later. Or stayed in a different inn?—”
“Or you’d remembered your mantle.”
Erik laughed. “Or you’d not gotten so drunk and made enough noise to wake the whole town throwing axes.”
“What did me drinking have to do with anything?”
“You made it look like a good time. And I’d been in serious need of a good time that night. Something to take my mind off… everything. A lot of people died in Valacia.”
Dann saw the pain in Erik’s eyes, the darkness he knew so well. “So what you’re saying is that me getting drunk is going to save Salme?”
“That’s not even remotely…” Erik gave a resigned laugh, that pain momentarily fading. “Yes, Dann. You getting drunk is going to save Salme.”
Shouts echoed through the forest. “Ready to march!”
Erik gave a long sigh, then rested a hand on Dann’s shoulder. “We’ll get there in time, Dann.”
Dann nodded, giving Erik a half-smile, then turned to Nala. “Before we leave, take that cloak out of the chest and drape it over Drunir’s back. How do you think it’s going to dry stuffed in that chest?”
The last time Dann had looked down at The Glade from the edge of ?lm Forest with the sun sinking into the horizon had been the night Therin had told the story of The Fall.
That night, columns of smoke had drifted languidly from chimneys and the sounds of the Moon Market had danced on the air. He’d always loved the view of the rooves under the light of the setting sun, the twilight glow spilling through the trees. That view – to him – was home.
That view was gone.
No smoke rose from chimneys, and the few rooves that remained to glow in the setting sun were coated in char and tainted by the light of that damned moon. He could see the remnants of his home amidst the ruin and death, three of the four walls collapsed, the roof caved in.
The army continued on a steady march down the hill and off along the dirt road towards Salme, keeping its distance from the ruins of The Glade.
“You go ahead,” Dann said to Nala, gesturing for her to carry on with the others.
“This is your home?” the young squire asked.
“It is… or at least it was.”
“Then I’m coming with you. You shouldn’t be alone.”
Dann didn’t have the heart to argue with her. “Come on then.”
He gave a click with the side of his mouth and tapped Drunir with his heels. The horse neighed and set off down the hill towards The Glade, his breath misting in the evening air.
Dann caught Tarmon’s eye as he separated from the column, and the big man just nodded to him, holding his gaze for a few moments.
After a minute or so, Lyrei appeared at Drunir’s side. She looked up at Dann and gave him a weak smile, not saying a word.
He dismounted at the village’s edge and lead Drunir in by the reins. Nala and Maria stayed a few feet behind, the young girl’s eyes drifting over Urak corpses that had been reduced to little more than bones and gnawed flesh. The wolfpines and kats must have scavenged the village after the fighting.
Strangely, Dann found no human corpses. Only Uraks and livestock, a few horses, bones peeking through rotted and torn flesh. The smell was horrid. The vomit-inducing stench of decaying flesh was so palpable it coated Dann’s tongue and caused him to choke. That, blended with the ‘wonderful’ aroma of freshly laid shit, assaulted his senses.
Drunir walked alongside him without faltering, but he could hear Maria’s complaints behind him, snorting and nickering. He didn’t blame her. The Glade – the place that had always given him warm, fond memories – was a place of darkness and sorrow now, and animals had a way of feeling that more viscerally than most people did. They could sense things, feel the anguish in the air.
Partly-burnt wood cracked and split beneath Dann’s feet as he walked the ruined street towards The Gilded Dragon. He stopped and pushed some of the blackened wood aside. His heart clenched when he unearthed what looked to be half a skull, cleaved clean from left temple to right jaw, the flesh burnt away. Whoever had cleared bodies had not found this. A hundred faces flashed across his mind’s eye, from Verna Gritten to Marlo Egon to Iwan Swett – not that he cared much for Kurtis’s father, but that didn’t mean he’d wish death upon the man.
He dropped to his haunches and brushed the char from the severed skull, then picked it up and stood.
Lyrei reached out and took it from him gently, placing it into her satchel. She clasped his hand and squeezed. Only for a second, then let it go. Not a word passed between them, but it was like she could feel his soul.
“Why?” he heard Nala whisper to Lyrei as Dann brushed aside more of the rubble, finding no skeleton to go with the skull. He pretended he didn’t hear and just kept moving.
“The dead should not be left alone in a place like this,” Lyrei whispered back. “Someone took the other bodies. So maybe they’re buried here, or maybe at Salme or somewhere along the way.”
Ahead, at the end of the street scattered with broken spear shafts and Urak corpses, stood the remains of The Gilded Dragon. It would have broken Lasch’s heart to see the ruin that it was. The entire building had collapsed in. What was left of the wood was brittle and black.
Amidst the death of his home, Dann allowed a smile to curl his lips. He dropped to one knee and pulled a large chunk of soot-covered wood from beneath the cover of a broken shield.
“What is it?” Lyrei asked, standing behind him.
Dann ran his fingers over the scales of the wooden dragon that had once stood atop one of the inn’s balusters. Some slashes marred its surface, it was covered in soot and ash, and the tail was snapped where the baluster had been split, but he was pleasantly surprised at how intact it was – and how heavy it was. “A memory,” he said, running his fingers along the wooden tail. “A dragon surviving the fire… almost poetic. It’s something that will lift the weight in Lasch’s heart a little bit.”
Dann hauled the wooden dragon up and into his arms. He stopped and looked at Drunir. “What do you think? Can you take it?”
The horse stomped defiantly, as though saying ‘What do you think I am, a donkey? Of course I can.’
Dann leaned in and touched the side of his head against Drunir’s. “Good boy. That’s what I thought.”
Dann strapped the wooden dragon to the back of the saddle, propping a blanket at the back to make sure it didn’t dig into Drunir.
They carried on through the village, passing the husk of the Fjorns’ home, the Grittens’, and many others.
A clear patch of earth sat where Calen’s home had once been. The Lorians had set it aflame when they’d killed Vars and Freis. But someone had replanted Freis’s lavender bushes, and they’d spread about the perimeter of the old home. The bushes looked dead, the deep green colouring turned a shade of silver. But that was how they always looked in winter. That silver would fade, and those purple flowers would bloom again.
Calen would find a lot of joy in knowing someone had replanted them, and Calen deserved a little joy.
The last place Dann stopped was the place he had been avoiding – his own home.
It was ash and broken things. The doorframe still stood, empty, a small section of wall allowing it to hold its place. But that was it.
He stared at that charred ruin in silence, the world fading around him. It wasn’t until Lyrei’s hand slipped into his that the gentle sound of the breeze touched his ears again. As she had an easy ability to do, she said a lot without speaking, her gaze fixed on the ashes, her shoulder pressed close to his.
Even Nala stayed quiet.
“I don’t know if they’re alive,” Dann said after a long silence. He’d not said it out loud, not till then. The Angan hadn’t said anything about who from The Glade had survived. And Dann had felt too selfish to ask. So many people had lost their loved ones in this war, and so many more people would continue to do so. Who was he to ask a question like that? He had no more right to solace than anyone else.
Though, as he stood there, the depth of his worry sinking in, he wished he had asked, right or no.
Lyrei squeezed his hand, but it was Nala who spoke.
“My father always used to say that there are things we can control and things we can’t. And that it’s best not to dwell on the things we can’t because they’ll drive us mad. I hope your parents are all right, my lord.”
When Dann looked back at her, the young squire dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“My dad said something similar.” He let go of Lyrei’s hand and instead squeezed Nala’s shoulder. “We’re family now, Nala. You and your brothers aren’t alone. I know it might feel like it sometimes, but you’re not.”
He let out a soft sigh, then turned and grabbed Drunir’s reins. “Best not to linger. No telling if there are Uraks nearby.”
When they neared the edge of the ruined village, Dann mounted Drunir, Nala doing the same with Maria. Not fifty feet past the last burnt husk of a home, Dann spotted something that turned his blood to ice and twisted his heart.
“What do you see?” Lyrei whispered from Drunir’s right side.
Dann glanced at Nala on Maria to his left. She was staring away at the column of soldiers and banners marching up the dirt road. He gestured toward the rows and rows of graves just past the oak tree. Soil and rocks were scattered about the holes in the ground, upturned saplings half-buried, the ground turned to pieces.
“The graves have been dug up,” he whispered. “The bodies have been taken.”
The army marched along the dirt road, passing more broken farms and burnt holds, heads skewered on spikes and limbs scattered about. Many of the corpses were Lorian, at least the ones whose breastplates were intact enough to make out the black lion.
Strangely, knowing the dead men and women were Lorian brought Dann no joy. Some of the soldiers kicked the corpses, or spat, or cursed, but he saw no point in it. Corpses were corpses, and it was a dark thing to look on any of them. Whatever they had been in life, they were dead now. And doubtless they’d left behind people who loved them. Dann would do what he needed to do, but he refused to take joy in seeing dead men.
When they reached the fork in the road that sprouted one direction towards Salme and the other towards Talin, he couldn’t help but imagine Talin in the same state of ruin as The Glade had been. Dann had friends in Talin. Or more so his father had friends, and those friends had children. He hoped they’d made it to Salme.
Tarmon dropped back and spent some time riding beside Dann, Nala, and Lyrei. The man said little – as always – but the few words he did say were the right ones. As always.
They kept a steady clip as the sun sank into the horizon, yielding to the pale pink light of the moon. They would reach Salme in the next few hours but as of yet had seen little trace of the Urak horde besides the bodies and ruin it had left in its wake – though much of that had been done long before.
Dann was stroking the side of Drunir’s neck when three riders came galloping along the outside of the column, bellowing for Tarmon.
“What news?” Tarmon asked after calling them over. “Uraks?”
“It’s best if you see for yourself, Commander,” one of the riders said.
“I’ll have the meat of it now.”
The man shook his head. “Bodies, my lord. It’s… I would not speak of it. Please.”
Elves in the black of Vaelen, crimson and gold of Luntihír, and green of Ardur?n approached, all with curious faces.
Ilvalis, one of the Vaelen captains Dann recognised, raised a hand. “Need we prepare for battle, Narvír?”
Tarmon waved him away and focused on the scout. “Look at me, and breathe. Are we in danger?”
The man shook his head. “Not… not immediately, my lord. Please, it’s best you come.”
Tarmon gestured to Dann and Lyrei, then cracked his reins and galloped up the column with the scouts, calling out to halt the march.
Queen Tessara and the Ephorí joined them about halfway, on the backs of Dvalin Angan, along with Erik and Vaeril.
“What’ve they found?” Erik asked as he pulled his mount beside Dann.
Dann just shook his head and gave a slight shrug. But as they cleared the front of the marching column and Dann saw over the crest of the hill, he pulled on Drunir’s reins and spun the horse around. “Nala, close your eyes.”
“But I?—”
“Close them, now . And don’t let Maria take another step.”
He understood that even children could not be spared from the horrors of war. Not in a world where they would have to face those horrors every day. But there were some things no child should ever have to witness, no matter what. Some things no soul at all should have to witness.
“What in all the gods…” Tarmon sat stunned on his mount, his jaw agape, his shoulders slumped.
Someone retched.
Once he was sure Nala’s eyes were firmly closed and she wasn’t going to move, Dann turned back and tapped Drunir’s side. The horse continued to where Erik, Vaeril, Tarmon, and the others all waited, staring out.
Dread crept through Dann’s veins and crawled over his skin.
Before him the hill levelled out into an open plain, split by the long dirt road to Salme. The Oak Road, it had always been called on account of the old oak trees that framed the path for miles, planted centuries ago. Some stood as high as seventy or eighty feet, their massive trunks almost six feet across, their branches gnarled and twisting. He’d walked the road before, a number of times, accompanying his dad as Tharn went to trade leather at Salme’s port. He’d been in awe every time.
But that night, in the dark, the pale red light of the moon spilling through twisted branches, dismembered bodies were nailed to the ancient oaks, each in various stages of rot and decay. Arms and legs hacked free, massive bolts of iron holding them in place. The trees looked like voidspawn come alive.
Dann could only make out the first few trees on either side of the road, but something in the air told him those bodies went on for miles. He knew now why the bodies in The Glade had been dug up.
“Why?” one of the captains – Surin – asked.
“Fear.” Tarmon held his reins slack in his lap, his stare unmoving from the corpse-covered trees.
“We can’t march through that…” Ingvat said, sat astride a piebald gelding.
“Every moment we ponder here is a moment wasted.” Thuriv?r stood with his hand resting on his pommel. “These people are dead, and there is nothing we can do for them except enact vengeance.”
Dann hated to even contemplate agreeing with the elf – especially considering Thuriv?r was more motivated about returning to Aravell than he was saving Salme. And yet, he did agree. “The road is the quickest way.” Dann looked back at Nala, who still sat in Maria’s saddle with her eyes closed. “The land grows rough on both sides. The rocks are near impassable along the coast with a number this large, and if we try and take the hills near Talin, it will add a day at least. We don’t have a day… Salme doesn’t have a day.”
Queen Tessara moved closer to the trees, staring up at the twisted bodies nailed to the gnarled limbs. She turned back to Tarmon. “You speak with the Draleid’s voice, Narvír Hoard. This is his army. What say you?”
Tarmon shifted his gaze from the trees to Dann, then back down the hill to the massive column of souls that waited behind them. Shouts and murmurs echoed up the hill in the cold night. “I would rather not force this sight upon even a single pair of eyes. That is what the Uraks want. They want us to fear them, to fear what they will do to us. But no, we will march along this road. We will face the darkness they have set before us, and we will use it. We will show our people the kind of monsters we are fighting. We will show them the courage that is needed. And when we have slaughtered the dark beasts that did this, when we have ripped out their hearts and set their bones on fire, we will come back here and we will remove each and every body. And we will see them into Achyron’s halls.” Tarmon sat still astride his massive mount, nodding gently to himself, his breath rising in the cold air. “For now, there are others who need our blades, our courage, and our strength,” he said, turning his horse. Tarmon roared, “Dracur?n, forward to Salme!”