Chapter Ninety-Five
Vorathen
A madman’s jump. A legend’s answer.
My second hour, the camp surged with rhythm—orders snapping like banners in wind, men moving as if driven by an unseen tide through the riverbed of war.
“Sagittarii to the eastern ridge,” Viktor said, voice cutting over leather and steel. “Oil and pitch forward but covered. If the wind shifts, you pivot on my call—no heroics.”
Master Carys inclined his head once, flint-bright.
“We’ll make your line sing, Commander.”
“Good.”
Viktor’s stare was hard.
“Feindoran.”
Gabriel stepped in with a ledger tucked under his arm and a bow case at his back.
“Reporting.”
“You ride with Vykenra. Carys has operational command. You answer to him or me—no one else.”
“Understood.”
Storne came out of the dust with two aides and a map case.
“Seraphim,” he said, gaze cutting to Ruby, “find yourself a bloody warhorse. The one that raced you over the cliff will suit.”
Gabriel didn’t miss a step.
“You mean the Draekenran stud that nearly took Oran’s finger.”
Storne’s mouth refused a smile.
“I mean the kind that doesn’t balk when the sky catches fire.”
To Viktor:
“Take my armorbearer. Name one for yourself while you’re at it.”
A chin jerk.
“Balian.”
A dark-haired youth shouldered forward from the pavilion’s shade, cuirass rubbing a too-skinny frame.
“Commander,” he said, voice too soft for the title.
“With Seraphim,” Storne barked, already angling toward the palisade.
Gabriel smirked, low enough to pass for a cough.
“Balian’s Storne’s nephew. Keeps him close for his sister’s sake.”
Viktor’s grin tugged crooked.
“Then for his sister’s sake, I’ll make a soldier out of him.”
His gaze sideways.
“Recommend me a horse, Gabriel. Storne will have my head if I drag in another mare.”
“You want bone, wind, and will,” Gabriel said, eyes on the lines of the remount strings. “Deep chest. Cold eye. Not a dancer—a breaker of miles.”
From the pavilion poles, the red-braided Kryonite youth edged closer, helm tucked under one arm. “Beg pardon, Commander.”
A quick glance for permission.
Viktor’s nod was curt.
The boy went on.
“There’s a devil that runs the basalt gullies. Black as sin, scar down the muzzle. Loyal to the teeth—if he lets you near ‘em.”
Gabriel shook his head. “A wild stallion running the desert—”
“Where?” Viktor cut him off.
“North ridge,” the boy said. “Past the dry fall, where the wind sings in the stone.”
Viktor folded his arms, gaze narrowing.
“You can take me there?”
“Aye.”
A curl of a grin.
Viktor stilled, a memory dropping like a stone. He lifted his chin the slightest measure. “You’re the one who gave me desert dew. Aren’t you?”
“Aye.”
“Name?”
Gabriel flipped the ledger.
The boy answered, “Samson Andreas.”
“Lieutenant Andreas,” Gabriel read. “Eighteen. Enlisted at fourteen—how the feck—Storne’s guard…”
“Move him to my guard,” Viktor snapped, not breaking eye contact.
“Armorbearer.”
He turned to Balian.
“You two. With me.”
Viktor unhooked Ruby’s reins from the rail and set a punishing pace for the north gate. Samson fell in on his right, Balian trotting to keep up on the left, the camp’s noise thinning to hoofbeats and breath. Sentries snapped to as they passed. The gate opened with a groan of iron and dust.
Beyond the palisade, northeast, the flats opened—white and wind-peeled, the basalt ridge a black seam against the morning.
“There,” Samson pointed.
“Lead on,” Viktor ordered, pulling the reins to the right.
They left the horses at the base of the ridge, tying Ruby long to scrub of saltbush. Viktor shrugged off his mantle and rolled his sleeves. The rock underfoot was knife-sharp, broken lava and grit that slid if you trusted it.
They climbed in a stagger—Samson scouting a half-dozen paces ahead, Balian minding his footing, Viktor moving like he’d been born of rocks that crest the sea.
Samson dropped to a knee, palm over a crescent-shaped gouge in the basalt.
“Fresh,” he whispered. “Front hoof—he strikes when he turns.”
A few yards on, a strand of black hair snagged on thorn.
“He’s close,” Viktor said, voice rough as gravel.
Samson nodded and pointed two fingers along a narrow shelf.
“He runs through there, Commander. Lets the wind do half the work. Clever bastard.”
Viktor’s mouth curved, sharp. “I like him.”
He touched Balian’s shoulder, guiding him with quick, silent hands: you—low, to the left—block the pass. To Samson, a gesture—hook wide, cut off the runout. Viktor took the spine.
They moved like pieces on a board, dust quieting, breath held. The shelf narrowed to the span of two boots, the drop enough to turn a man’s stomach. The wind rose—cool, relentless—the smell of horse and iron.
Viktor dropped to his knees, one hand to stone, one on the line he’d looped from Ruby’s head. He tested the give, then coiled it twice around his fist.
Samson froze and pointed over the crest.
There.
Cut out against the pale sky.
A stallion as black as night, a ragged white scar on the bridge of his muzzle.
“Vorathen.”
The word ripped from Viktor’s chest.
“Devils respect teeth, not tenderness,” The Midnight’s voice slid in—thin as wire, cold as shade.
Viktor did not look away.
The tone turned velvet, vicious.
“Even a legend limps if he lets another man bridle his mount.”
Viktor gritted his teeth.
“You know just how to get under my skin,” he growled, fingers tightening on the coiled line. “We really are brothers.”
The Midnight’s presence flickered—a laugh.
Viktor exhaled once, steadying.
The stallion lifted, tasting the wind, mane lashing. His far ear flicked toward Viktor’s ridge. He snorted once and turned to ghost along the edge.
“Tory— Now.”
Viktor rose in a single fluid motion, boots on the rim, wind in his face. The distance between predator and prize shrank to a heartbeat.
He looked down once—
at the abyss, at a black shadow knifing past like a spear—
then stepped to where only a madman would.
He leapt.
For a breathless second there was only wind—salt and height and the clean, bright snap of a bad idea becoming legend. Viktor hit the stallion hard, one arm slamming across the thick neck, the other finding a fistful of mane.
Vorathen screamed, a sound that rattled shale loose from the ridge.
The world turned to muscle and murder.
The beast reared back, hooves striking sparks from basalt. Viktor clamped his thighs, low and mean, face to the whipping mane. He snapped the coiled line of rope forward and down, hooking it across the bone-white nose.
For three breaths he had him.
The fourth broke.
Vorathen slid his forefeet, dropped his shoulder, and bucked.
Viktor felt the decision before he hit the ground—let go or lose the arm.
He let go.
The sky flipped.
He rolled, came up on a knee. Blood in his teeth, laughter in his chest.
“Commander!” Balian’s voice cracked from the shelf.
Samson didn’t move.
“Hold,” he hissed, eyes bright.
“Look.”
Vorathen spun on a knife’s edge, ears razored flat, front hooves slicing the air.
Viktor didn’t retreat.
He splayed his palm against the stone.
The air thinned, sharp as winter breath.
Flame licked in a circle around the stallion, blue-white and low.
Ring of fire.
Vorathen skidded, screamed again.
The fire held him.
Viktor rose, slow, hands open.
“Easy,” he said, voice like flint striking.
“Silen’ar.”
(Enough.)
He cut the circle with a flick of his fingers.
The fire parted like silk.
He stepped inside.
The stallion’s sides thundered, muzzle snaked and struck. Viktor was already there, palm to the scar, fingers iron-hard.
“Vorathen,” he breathed, letting the stallion take his scent, the cold of him.
The world narrowed to the two of them.
Both raven-dark.
Both called to glory.
“We cannot outrun our destinies,” he pressed into the void.
“Down.”
The stallion’s weight shifted.
Black eyes meeting blue.
Not obeyance—agreement.
Viktor cupped the jaw where the white scar split the black. The fire sank into the earth and went out. He stood with the stallion, breaths matched, pulses braced.
“Good.”
He gathered the rope, stepped to the left shoulder, and with brutal grace swung up bareback. Vorathen tremored beneath him, ready to explode. Viktor sat deep, heels down, hands low.
“Slow.”
They took three steps.
Then—thunder.
Vorathen bucked, plunged, tried to shake the man to pieces. Viktor rode it like a storm he’d been born into, hips with him, hands giving and taking, curses tearing out of him with each grated breath.
“Enough,” Viktor rasped and dropped his weight.
Vorathen stilled, ribcage beating against Viktor’s calf.
“There,” Viktor said, breath hot, sweat streaking his brow.
“There you are.”
Breath heavy, legs shaking, he turned the stallion so he faced Samson and Balian.
“Bring the halter,” he barked, voice cracking the basalt wall.
Samson scrambled up, eyes huge, and pressed the leather into Viktor’s palm.
“Fecking hell, Commander,” he blurted. “That was—”
“Not yet.”
Viktor set the halter, quick and clean.
Vorathen tossed, then settled when the rope kissed the scar again.
Balian edged out of the shadow. “Do… do we have him?”
“We have him,” Viktor said, mouth tight but fierce, almost a grin.
The Midnight’s presence swept the gulley. “Well done, Tory.”
Viktor clicked his tongue once and sent the stallion into the open, Samson and Balian falling in like they were afraid to blink. At the scrub, Ruby snorted and stamped, ears forward.
“Samson, take Ruby’s rein,” Viktor ordered. “Lash her to Balian’s horse.”
Then he urged Vorathen forward, giving the new stallion the breadth of a ship’s bow ahead of his mare.
“We’ll stable him outside the palisade with the oxen until he learns some manners.”
Samson grinned, feral and proud. “Aye, Commander.”
Viktor laid a hand to Vorathen’s neck, feeling the drum of the heart beneath.
“Vorathen,” The Midnight murmured, giving -rath its earned emphasis. “What does it mean?”
Viktor’s smile was sharp.
“The Unbroken.”