Prologue: Heard No More

The Year 1581 Anno Salvatoris

40 Years After the Settling

“Lucky, you say?”

Aritz’s ears perked at the admission, the barrel of his flintlock but five paces from his forehead. The clattering of metal pails and heavy footsteps echoed from the lower floor of his manor, the clamor of citizens’ revelry and seagulls’ cawing sounding from outside the opened windows. Salt air wafted into the room heedless of invitation, the aroma of the inviting sea breeze mingling with the permeating stench of stagnant sweat accumulating in the tense environs.

The woman, this impostor, this phantom wearing Kama’s skin, stood unperturbed at arm’s length from Aritz, her red hair coming undone from a tight bun and dancing in front of her face in wispy strands. A trail of sweat streamed down the side of her forehead, the heat of the day at last overtaking the interior of the manor.

Her eyes betrayed no fear, no misgivings about what led her to this moment. What led her to mercilessly slaughter Aritz’s wife and children. What led her to impersonate a comrade-in-arms, traitor though she was. What led her to stand before him, his own weapon held to his head, with nary a trace of remorse, regret, or recompense.

A savage she is, he thought. Well and truly, just as the lot of them.

“How lucky do you feel, earnestly?” Aritz asked, raising an eyebrow.

The woman did not respond. She merely stood with a present scowl, the orange hue of the waning sunlight glowing behind her, casting her expression in a blanket of shadows. The shattered remains of Aritz’s trophy shelf crunched and crackled beneath the heel of her boots.

Aritz grunted with affirmation. “Fortune hardly smiles upon you. You’re nothing more than a revenant of a people long gone from this world.”

“No,” his assailant answered, her nostrils flaring. “I am but the long shadow you cast from the moment you took our land from us. I am the remnant of what was lost, and the echo of all the voices yet to come.”

“And what voices still remain to sound your supposed battle cry? Hmm?” Aritz licked his lips, the leather of his chair growing hot against his sweat-slickened back. “So few remain who hold fast to their faculties, after all.”

The subtlest of winces flashed in the woman’s face.

I have you now. “Then I ask once more: how lucky do you feel? How must it feel to be the last among your people, perhaps one of a dwindling number clean of mind and free of will? Do you feel proud that your people are little more than mindless husks, that they are relegated to but a vegetative suggestiveness, that they can do no more than follow orders to which they’re given without any drive or wherewithal to protest or question? Am I to feel sorrow for you, that atop this pile of heathens and savages, you would deign to say that I am a monster merely for doing as the Savior bid of me?”

The stone expression upon his assailant’s face at last began to crack.

Finding comfort in this, Aritz leaned back. He crossed one leg over the other, clasping his fingers together as he rested his elbows upon the armrests, a grin creasing his lips. “The Savior, through me, demanded a use for your people, beasts though they may be, for even the lowly cattle provides us with succor. What you call the ‘Harvest,’ I would call…a blessing.”

“A blessing?” the woman responded with incredulity. “You would—”

“Yes, I would,” Aritz asserted. “Look upon what remains of your people and tell me that those mindless husks, those poor sods with not a thought to carry them, at least are deserving of the release that was provided their brethren. It is a disservice to your people to keep them in that sordid state.”

The woman scoffed dismissively. “And I am to thank you, then?”

Aritz flashed a wide smile. “Now you understand. I did only that which was necessary, and I would do it again, and again, and again.” Slowly, he rose to his feet, his hands clasped behind his back. He took a tentative step forward, closing the gap between them by a pace.

The flintlock ever so slightly began to waver in the woman’s furious hand, her fingers wrapped tightly along the grip.

He basked in the remaining light, the orange glow illuminating his face while keeping the woman’s in the shadows. “I will speak of your Harvest,” Aritz said, amusement rising in his throat. “And I will revel in the telling.”

_________________

Chapter One: The Dogs of War

The Year 1556 Anno Salvatoris

15 Years After the Invasion

All Sen could do was stifle a sob into her palm.

Silence echoed in substantial volumes across the battlefield, not a word nor cry uttered amongst the gathered combatants. As she surveyed the scene in the canyon, Sen could only assume that what was coursing through her was making its way through both the Tribespeople and Invaders alike.

Shock. Pure, stunning shock.

A god felled by a mortal hand. And the cost that came with it.

She watched as Aritz slowly backed away from the Bear’s lifeless body, perhaps even himself riled into complete silence. The General of the Invaders’ forces did not seem to take his eyes off the blade he had just driven into the god’s skull, the steel glistening with deep-red blood. I would have thought that bastard to be celebrating, Sen thought. But here he is, dumbfounded with the rest of us. He merely took one halting step backwards after another, the knife quivering in his grip, his teeth gritted. All the arrogance that Sen had ever seen him with, all of it gone in an instant.

The mountainous winds howled their grief, nearer to a scream than a gust. Pellets of heavy snow pelted Sen’s face and coat, red falling with the white, the sky itself crying tears of blood. Her hands, raw from the cold, gripped the shaft of her spear tighter, her mind averse to touching the Deatharm that remained sheathed in the holster around her thigh. As wrong as it had felt before, it only felt more so to touch the tool of an Invader. The weapon of a people who had managed to fell the very essence of strength and bravery among the Tribes.

Sen followed the path of the snow as the wind carried it in the direction of the pedestals dedicated to the three Animal Deities. In the chaos of everything, she hadn’t realized that the Wolf and the Owl had departed, or retreated, or whatever they may have done. All three pedestals were empty, regardless. The Bear’s just felt all the emptier.

And with the host of Bearsign warriors all collapsed before it, their minds broken and frozen in an instant at the god’s murder, the scene was simply horrendous.

It provided for an involuntary cease-fire, if only because all present were at a loss for what next to do.

In those initial moments, Sen could hear the slow reloading of the Invaders’ Deatharms, but no one shouted orders. No one seemed eager to press a charge against a suddenly handicapped opponent. None of them understood the reasoning for it.

But the same could be said of the remaining Tribespeople, Sen knew.

Kamataa’s words kept repeating in her head the longer she stared at the felled Bearsigns. When one is exposed to the Boon granted to them by their respective Deity, they grow…inseparable from it. It only grows worse the longer they are exposed to it. To Sen, it stood to reason that no one knew that truth. She wouldn’t have believed it herself if not for this moment, if not for all the mindless husks she had encountered in the City’s slave camp during her failed rescue attempt of her brother.

This was Kamataa’s plan all along. To strike down the gods where they stand, Ziia had said. She managed to make it possible. But how?

A grumble from behind broke her focus from the silent battlefield and back toward her sister. Tez had remained on all fours, still unable to sit back up under her own power. The break from the Bear’s connection had clearly sapped her, but not quickly enough that Sen couldn’t do anything to stop her sister from losing her mind entirely. As Tez heaved a handful of rasped breaths, a new pendant dangled from her neck. A new connection to a new god. It was the only thing keeping Tez’s faculties intact.

For what seemed the first time, it was their brother’s turn to protect them. Brin’s Memory pendant glinted against the snow gathering atop it, the heavy winds pounding the ornament against Tez’s shoulders and chest. When Sen had taken her departed brother’s pendant as a memento, Tribal customs and taboos be damned, it never once crossed her mind that it would wind up saving someone’s life. How little she had known then. And how little she had anticipated.

Sen gently grasped her sister by the shoulders and helped her up to a seated position. Tez’s eyes were still moderately glazed over but seemed to be regaining some clarity and focus. Her gaze was narrowed, trailing off toward the snow falling past Sen’s reach, the bruises beneath her eyes still vibrant from the broken nose she suffered during the fight against Koelhe’s followers in the Stone Tribe village. Blood spattered and trailed down her face, both her own—primarily from the reopened wound along the bridge of her nose—and that of her fallen foes. She was still breathing heavily but she had started to steady herself. A trembling hand reached up to grasp the new pendant around her neck, a disconcerted and frightened expression strewn across her face.

Tez lifted the pendant to eye level and examined the rune, her eyes growing wide. “S-S-S-Seeennn…” she stammered, anxiety rising in her voice. She turned the ornament towards Sen, nearly to the point of hyperventilating. “What-What-What d-did…what did you…” She tugged hard on the pendant, the chain pulling taut against the back of her neck.

Quickly, Sen grabbed her sister’s hands, prying the ornament loose before it could snap. “Tez, stop, stop, stop!” she screamed, afraid to let go. “It’s the only thing keeping you alive right now, so leave it!”

A tear escaped Tez’s eyes as she listlessly turned her head one direction and the next, unperturbed by the snow squalls turning her skin a raw red. “Why did you, Sen…” she whispered. “Why is it—”

“I’ll explain everything later, but I need you to trust me!” Sen released Tez’s hands and took her sister by the shoulders once more, forcing her to look upon her in the eyes as best as she could manage. “And I need you to listen. We have to get you somewhere to acclimate. Here is not the place.”

Tez blinked unsteadily, squinting off into the distance. “The…the b-b-battle…” She shrugged her shoulders out of Sen’s grip, her attention turned to something sticking out of the snow, a steel point still coated in swaths of red. “Sp…spear…”

“Tez, listen to me!” Sen said sharply, the words hissing out of her mouth. “You are in no condition for that right now. None of the Bearsigns are. We need to get you out of here.”

Flashing a quizzical look, Tez appeared to be concentrating intently on forming her own speech again. “No…Bear…signs?”

Words weren’t necessary. Sen could only shake her head.

“But…that…means…” Recognition seemed to return to Tez’s mind. The glaze over her eyes was vanishing, the pale complexion of her face disappearing, and a mixture of fear and consternation settled into her brow. “That means…M…Mo…Muh—”

Sen grimaced and slowly turned her head, the battlefield still gripped in the throes of deafening silence. The Invaders had remained frozen, shakily reloading their Deatharms but offering no sign of pressing forward otherwise, while the remaining Tribal fighters huddled about the collapsed Bearsigns, in equal measure to protect those who fell and to stand tall amongst those who remained. Deep within that throng, amidst the mass of shattered minds, Sen could make out the subtle motion of a woman still holding on. Still fighting, despite the state to which she had been reduced.

Clenching her eyes shut, tears welling behind a closed dam, Sen gritted her teeth and slowly walked along the ridge, the red snow crunching underfoot. With one hand clenched tightly around the shaft of her spear, pistol holstered at her thigh, she fished through her coat pocket, hoping and praying that she would still be greeted with the cold touch of carved metal. As her eyes shot back open and the dam broke, she felt relief at the touch of the Illusion pendant still deposited in her pocket, a token of her brief betrayal of her people, a reminder for what she needed to redeem herself.

And a beacon that could save at least one person.

Mother, she thought, not breaking her sight from the image of her mother writhing in the war-torn snow, surrounded by her brothers- and sisters-in-arms. I’m coming.

“Sehhh…Sen…” Tez’s voice just barely carried over the squalls.

Sen stopped, turning her head over shoulder, and saw her sister rising unsteadily to her feet, one foot slipping out from beneath.

Planted in the snow, pelted by the furious snow, Tez reached out her hand as though pleading for Sen to remain.

“I can save her,” Sen said, unsure if she could be heard over the storm. “I have to save her.” She offered a placating gesture with her hand, beckoning Tez to stay put, and immediately turned on her heel and sprinted as best as she could through the accumulated piles of snow, kicking up heavy tufts of white and red with each strenuous step.

Bodies littered the pathway, traitors and loyalists alike. The surviving Wolfsigns along the ridge watched her manic approach, all of them still hunkered down with arrows half-nocked, faces frozen in shock just as they collected ice in their bloodstained locks of hair.

Faintly, a rumbling crack echoed over the howl of the wind, enough to rouse the attention of the surviving parties. Sen’s lungs protested as she forced herself to move faster, unsure of the cause of the noise, but unwilling to stand pat to find out. She shoved gawking hunters out of the way, shouted for others to clear a path for her, surely bearing every image of a madwoman. She cared little for the watchful eyes, regardless of whether they belonged to Tribe or Invader.

The ridge sloped downwards as the valley’s mouth came into closer view, the Land still screaming heavy squalls down upon them in its anguish. Through the dense barrier, Sen could just barely see the attention of those in the valley shift to the west, away from the sight of her. A louder crack beyond the tree line startled her, causing her to lose her footing. Her ankle rolled, her legs falling out from under her. She landed ass-first against the slick packed snow, a jolt running through her as her body slid and rolled down the slope.

Sen grunted in pain, her vision spotty as she stopped rolling. She pushed herself to a knee, grateful she did not inadvertently gut herself with her own spear. As the dizziness wore off, she patted the outside of her coat, feeling the packed snow that had filled her pocket, along with the Illusion pendant that still thankfully remained inside. Using her spear as a crutch, she howled as she rose back to her feet, a fire running through her ankle, though not so intense that she could not put weight upon it. The pain didn’t matter. Nothing would matter if she couldn’t make it to her mother.

Despite the agony, Sen forced a run, feeble as it was as she limped through the snow, some of it already piling as high as her calves. With each step, she hissed in pain. Each hiss became angrier, almost feral, as though only the rage could carry her forward.

Turned backs were all that she saw in front of her. Loud thumps echoed in the woods ahead. Snowbirds fled in droves, braving the storm. Crashes followed snaps followed creaking wood. Dread coursed through Sen, just as the Wolfsigns ahead nocked their arrows, the Invaders aiming their Deatharms. The wall of Tribespeople surrounding the fallen Bearsigns grew so close. She cared little for what was approaching. Damn the pain in her ankle, damn the danger, damn whatever approached.

Voices rose indistinctly over the next blast of howling snow. The Wolfsigns diverted their attention from the woods, redirected their nocked arrows toward the host of Invaders. For their part, the Invaders’ attention was evenly dispersed between the noise growing ever louder in the forest and the arrows threatening to rain upon them. Orders were bellowed over the wind, the stretching of bowstrings near enough to grate in Sen’s ears. The distant thumping grew more rhythmic, falling into a steady meter. Screams echoed over the wind, the roar of battle threatening to return. The Tribal wall was but paces away.

The fire in Sen’s ankle burned and burned and burned, but she pushed through it until she was three steps away, two steps, one. She reached out toward a kneeling Wolfsign, Arrow Tribe from the look of her. “Out of the way!” she screamed. But it wasn’t enough.

Luck surged through her as the sound of the Invaders’ Deatharms cracked the sky, the sound of bullets whizzing past her ears. The plucking of bowstrings answered the call in unison, feathered tufts breaking the path of the heavy snow.

And a thunderous snarling roar silenced all—the Invaders, the Tribes, the very wind itself. The arboreal barrier broke in an explosion of snow and gargantuan splinters. The Wolfsigns nearest to Sen fanned out, knocking her off balance, sending her rolling backwards through the snow away from the impending fray. When she stopped, all she could see past the dense snow squalls was a mountainous blur of dark grey fur blitzing through the air.

Aritz had never seen a beast so massive.

His heart skipped a beat as an enormous wolf perched itself atop the canyon ridge, bearing fangs the length of an Acrarian broadsword. Its eyes appeared to glow against the heavy snow, a glimmer of malicious amber breaking the storm.

The men about him froze in place, all loath to raise their weapons and attack. He flashed a sneer at them all, wordless though all intent of the expression blazing in his gaze.

Wide, cowardly eyes, a sea of them, all met his, the wordless silence speaking all it needed to. Despite him, despite the authority Aritz held over these cravens, they denied him all the same.

The wolf leaned back on its haunches and leapt, descending back to the earth in a wide crescent arc, snow billowing off its grey fur like a cascading waterfall of ice. Its front paws landed squarely atop two lads at the mouth of the valley—two who had elected not to stand their ground against the charging bear who now lay dead at his own feet. The two cowards had no chance. The wolf’s weight crushed them, blood and bone spurting underfoot in an instant, even as the beast itself made no noise upon impact.

Aritz snarled, calmly reloading his pistol, and walked over to the ursine corpse before him. The blade bequeathed to him by Kama still jutted out from the bear’s skull, a makeshift sheath for the wicked weapon. But in this moment, he was willing to use all the tools at his disposal and offer his repentance to the Savior at a later date. This departed beast was the Savior’s will, and Aritz would take up his Lord’s blade no matter how many times he was asked.

He gripped the blade’s hilt tightly and sharply pulled, the steel scraping against dense, reinforced bone. The blade, once a glimmering silver, left the beast’s body a deep crimson, tainted by the taste of heathen blood. Turning on his heel, he held the blade toward the wolf, who silently bared its teeth, its fur standing straight and rigid as icicles, its front paws digging into the ice and stone below, ready to strike. Digging his palm into the blade’s hilt, Aritz drew a deep breath, flashing his own teeth, ready to challenge another pretender god. “One god has been felled by my hand already today,” he said softly, somehow assured that the wolf would hear him. “Dare you to test your own luck, beast?”

As though in response, the wolf shot to the side, swinging its enormous head, headbutting a pair of his men with enough force that they met a bloody end against the valley walls. A tuft of hot breath puffed from its snout as it stalked from side to side at the valley’s mouth, offering no means of passage for Aritz or his men.

The only way out was through.

“Charge.” Aritz’s voice was near to gravel, the rasp of the day’s orders vibrating the length of his throat.

A meek yelp of protest squeaked in his ear. “But-but sir! We can’t—”

Aritz turned on his heel and grabbed the naysayer by the collar. His eyes narrowed, anger flaring through him as he met the man’s eyes. Lieutenant Pock-Face. Who else would give voice to such cowardly insubordination?

Pock-Face’s lips quivered, but he quickly offered a salute. “We need to fall back, sir! The beast will give us no quarter!”

Holding the blade to the lieutenant’s throat, Aritz snarled as though he were the beast. “You will have more to fear of me than of that creature should you disobey my orders again, Lieutenant. I gave an order, and you will obey that order. Do you understand?”

The lieutenant offered only a squeak as some sort of foul smell exuded from him.

“Fouling yourself is not an answer, Lieutenant. Do. You. Understand?” Aritz could feel himself growing red in the face.

Pock-Face tenderly nodded, careful of the steel at his throat. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Good enough, Aritz thought. Withdrawing the blade, he shoved Pock-Face backwards, watching the rigid posture the lieutenant was suddenly forced to adopt. Sneering, Aritz looked back toward the wolf, the beast still pacing along the valley’s opening. He took two steps forward, holding the blade outward, drawing in a breath. With eyes narrowed in defense of the howling wind, Aritz bellowed, “Finish what we started and fell that beast!”

Rifles locked in place as a host of soldiers rushed forward, screaming at the wolf as some measure to exhibit their undying courage. Aritz stood and watched them, fully aware that they were all rushing to their demise, but caring little, so long as he was the one to deliver the killing blow to that monster.

The wolf roared in acceptance of the challenge, pouncing at the charging contingent, its fangs moving faster than the soldiers could fire their own weapons. Steel teeth tore into the front lines, men and women alike disappearing in a mist of blood, bodies thrown apart in pieces, limbs removed from their respective hosts and raining down on the battlefield unceremoniously. Even as the song of rifles and pistols chorused against the storm, the bullets did little more than bounce off the beast’s flesh, much as they did to the charging bear.

From behind the wolf, the glint of arrowheads broke through the snow squalls and fell upon Aritz’s soldiers, felling them before the beast even had a chance at them. A surge of anxiety passed through him as he watched noble Acrarians—the truest followers of the Savior’s will—fall so unceremoniously to these vile creatures. If the bear’s assault was indicative of the savages’ violent rage, then that of the wolf was some measure of their cunning capacity to kill.

Aritz caressed the cold steel of Kama’s blade, the bear’s blood running thick along its length, and drew a deep breath, soaking in the strength it had so recently instilled within him.

He awaited the flow, closing himself off to the anguished screams of his soldiers meeting their end at the jaws of this supposed god. Reinforcements passed him by as he remained at the rear guard, patiently awaiting his moment to strike, baiting the wolf to charge him like the dumb beast it was. But arrows continued to rain down, blood continued to spray, lives continued to be returned to the Savior’s embrace.

And the flow of strength did not course through him.

Furiously, he looked around him, watching the countless soldiers rushing to their inevitable demise, knowing full well the jaws of death that awaited them. He watched plumes of smoke erupt from their rifles as they unsuccessfully attempted to pierce the beast’s devilish and invulnerable hide. Some drew their own blades in an attempt to carve into the wolf’s flesh, but met nothing but their own ends before they were even within striking distance. One by one they all passed Aritz by.

But he could not find Kama among the bunch. Her vibrant red hair should have stood out against all, and yet that beacon did not appear. It was a beacon he sorely needed. A beacon of answers. For there was only one among them who could inform him why this devilish tool no longer worked, and she decided suddenly to desert him.

He snarled, pacing slowly toward the wolf, his face pelted with heavy squalls as they mixed with the mists of departed Acrarian life. Shoving one soldier after another from his path, he held his pistol steady, praying for aim to fire true, and pulled the trigger.

The flight of the bullet was short, the winds pushing it from the intended target of the wolf’s skull, instead leading it to be casually swatted away by its tail as though it were shooing a troublesome fly.

Even as the Acrarian assault continued to rain down upon it, the wolf ceased its own offensive, save for kicking away those who found their way inside its guard. As bullets and steel bounced off its thick hide, its jaws dripping red with Acrarian blood, the beast appeared focused in Aritz’s direction, its amber gaze cutting once more through the storm. It slowly paced toward him, its head lowered, but its eyes not breaking from him.

Soldiers meekly parted from its path, a parting of the blue Acrarian waves, even as they feebly continued their assault only to be pelted by the raining arrows. In a rush, Aritz loaded his pistol and fired another quick shot at the wolf, but the effort did little more than agitate it further. The beast’s pace quickened, snow crunching underfoot, desperate pleas echoing about him in a round, one scream following another as men and women were knocked aside, blood spraying, shots firing, arrows descending, and lupine footsteps growing louder and louder and quicker and quicker.

Aritz met the challenge, holstering his pistol and charging forward with blade extended, ready to pounce in his own measure. He drew another deep breath, hoping desperately for the surge of strength to return, finding none of it remaining, his feet leaping forward in a mighty bound, meeting that of the wolf as they flew toward each other, one assured to meet their end at the end of the arc. O Savior, mighty and true, he prayed, may Your guiding hand see fit to—

A snarl broke him from his prayer, his arm jerked, and in a blur, he was tumbling through a crowd of soldiers who gratefully broke his fall, even if the effort broke them. Dazed, Aritz pushed himself back to his feet, his vision spotty as the immediate effects of whiplash overtook him. A set of hands held him up, but he shoved them away, grimacing and growling all the while. The muscles in his arm protested as he rose his hand again, eager to draw the blade once more.

But his hand was empty.

He slapped the side of his head, quelling some of the dizziness, and gritted his teeth as the wolf turned its gaze back toward him.

In its mouth was his blade.

The size of the steel was almost comically small relative to the rest of the beast’s head, bearing a resemblance to little more than a dinner knife, but the wolf did not seem keen to let it go. It almost seemed ready to use it.

Before Aritz could comprehend that possibility, the wolf charged again, swinging its jaws towards him, the arc of the blade just passing over Aritz’s head as he ducked underneath the strike, the steel kiss instead opening the throats of the two soldiers who had held him upright. Aritz rolled as quickly as he could from the striking beast, searching for his pistol, but his arm protesting the sudden movement. A tuft of gray fur thwacked him in the face, the wolf’s ice-encrusted tail searing his skin with burning ice, blood pouring out from the gashes it drew.

Another set of arms shoved him backwards as a host of soldiers lined up to guard him against the wolf’s continued assault. The lupine god spun around on its heels, the path of its turning head sending the tip of the blade through a series of throats and skulls, blood spraying the snow and ice below like paint spatter. Bodies tumbled together, collapsing in on one another, the wolf glowering upon them all with spite and malice, all the world’s evils instilled in this one beast, this beast these savages worshiped as a god.

Aritz dove for a deposited rifle, aiming and firing just as he withdrew his own flintlock pistol and performed the same. As the bullets predictably bounced off the wolf’s body, a successive hail of arrows pierced the earth, puncturing stone and flesh alike, Aritz’s arms scored by their edges as they grazed through his overcoat. He grunted in pain, sucking in a sharp breath, and steeled himself as the wolf dove for him, the blade just passing him by as he ducked underneath the beast’s enormous frame. Still clinging to the rifle, its ammunition spent, he swung the weapon as he would a war hammer, just like the legendary Sir Satarias of the Second Acrarian Civil War of decades before, hoping to knock the wolf off-balance.

He may as well have been hammering a wall. The force of impact jolted the rifle loose from Aritz’s grip, the weapon flying into the surrounding crowd, and yet the wolf was hardly impeded by the attack. It kicked its front legs back as though it were digging, Aritz evading its claws even as chunks of reddened snow and ice assaulted him. He rolled out from under the beast, but before he could even begin to think what next to do, he was lifted off his feet, sent hurdling through the air toward the mountains’ southern slopes, the icy impact of the wolf’s heavy tail sending a torrent of pain through Aritz’s spine.

Though his landing was cushioned by the depth of the fallen snow, the pain did not forget him. Blood still poured down the gash in his cheeks from the initial attack by the beast’s tail. His limbs felt twice as heavy, a fire burning through his spine. Hapless soldiers continued their futile assault on the beast whilst evading volleys of arrows, and all of them met the same end. Aritz bunched his fists, damning the pain in so doing, and as reinforcements filed in beside him, he growled and uttered words he never believed he ever would.

“Retreat.”

A soldier to his right craned her head toward him, eyes wide with shock—though Aritz could see a modicum of relief in them as well. “Did I hear you correctly, sir?”

Aritz snarled, not even dignifying it with a response. He just turned and walked away.

After a moment’s pause, he heard the cries for retreat echoing behind him, a flurry of movement thundering behind him as Acrarian soldiers—the greatest warriors in the entirety of the Homeland, the arm to wield the hammer of the Kingdom—ran in fearful solace toward the south, some leaving their discarded weapons behind, all bearing wounds ranging from superficial to horrid. If Aritz was not in as much pain as he was…he felt as though he would run along with them.

But instead, he hazarded a last glance over his shoulder, at the bloodthirsty beast who had felled his men with such ease. It gave no chase. It merely spat out the blade and sat amidst the carnage, staring angrily at Aritz.

When it tilted its head back and howled into the storm, Aritz let loose a shudder, disgust and relief passing over him in equal measure. He had never experienced such defeat.

But he still had his life.

A billow of red hair caught his attention as he drew closer to the mountain path, where the hastily constructed caravans began their treacherous descent to the war camp. Aritz growled and narrowed his gaze at Kama as she leaned casually against the rock wall, enclosing herself from the fury of the storm.

Aritz rushed her, pinning her to the wall by the strength of his forearm, but she showed no fear nor regret in her gaze. If anything, there was simply amusement. “I should hang you as a deserter,” he threatened, his voice reduced to a gravely nothing.

Kama smirked, tilting her head. “It was a tactical retreat, Aritz. One you should have taken when the wolf showed its head.”

He looked back toward the valley, where one god died but another still lived. “Your blade failed me.”

“I would say it did exactly what it was meant to do. You are a god-slayer now, Aritz.”

“And yet still one roams this earth.”

“Two, actually,” Kama said, looking at her nails with disinterest. “That blade’s power diminished the moment you drove it through the bear’s skull.”

“And you did not see fit to inform me of this fact?”

“I informed you of exactly what you needed to know. But fear not. This is but the beginning. I still have but more tools to offer the Sword of the Savior.” She flashed a grin and forced Aritz’s arm off of her, shielding herself from the snow squalls as she descended the slope.

Aritz growled, clenching his fists. “Mislead me again and the Savior’s Sword may fall upon you.”

Kama continued to grin as she looked over her shoulder. “You are not the first to threaten me thusly, and yet here I still breathe. Now, come along.”

His gaze widened at being ordered to follow like a pet. But the dogs of war had been loosed, and he would require all within his power to pen them again. He wiped away the flowing blood from his face, flicking the smeared red upon his hands down toward the marred snow, and descended the mountain slope, the weight of defeat disgusting him to his core.

The Arrow Tribe screamed their distinctive victory cries as the Invaders retreated down the mountains, the victorious proclamations echoing amidst the other Tribes’ warriors in short order. For Sen, it was a relief to have the momentary respite while the Invaders, somehow impossibly, departed to lick their wounds.

But it was also relieving to know she could finally shove her way through the wall of Wolfsigns and into the throng of collapsed Bearsigns. The entire ordeal lasted but minutes, it seemed; the Wolf’s sheer ferocity, coupled with the arrow volleys, was more than enough to drive the Invaders back. But they were also an incredibly long handful of minutes while Sen waited for that protective wall to break apart, to reveal the rows upon rows of felled warriors within.

Against the backdrop of celebratory screams, Sen parsed through the frozen faces of the Bearsign warriors. Many of them were faces she did not know, whether from other Tribes or merely one from her own Tribe with whom she never interacted or encountered. It was disheartening to look upon: the very strength and backbone of the Tribes felled in an instant. Alive, but not there. They may as well have joined the departed souls in the Otherworld, for this seemed a much crueler fate.

Slowly, she stepped over the fallen bodies, careful not to step on anyone, despite there being stretches where the warriors had simply collapsed in on each other. It was a haunting sight, to see them still draw breath and yet appear so far gone.

Her mother had been so easy to spot from atop the ridge, but down here, she may as well have been attempting to find a needle in a haystack. The frozen expressions all looked the same after a while, the rasped and pained breaths instilling in Sen a desire to abandon the search entirely and accept the inevitable.

No, she assured herself. It worked for Tez, and it will work for Mother. I have to find her. She patted her pocket, relieved that the Illusion pendant still rested within its contents.

Step by step, she scanned the various faces, finally finding faces she recognized. The great Keeper guardian An Rhan, his weight supported only by his spear still planted in the ground. The Lake Chief Tenazt, once ferocious despite his advanced age, his face now exhibiting a serene calm betrayed by the gaping hole in his throat; and beside him, his counterpart Yhaan, or what remained of the giant man after his face appeared bashed in. She even spotted Hollow nearby, his face matching his name as it appeared a bullet passed through it. Part of her wanted to spit on his corpse. Hard to kill, my ass, she thought. Just a bullet to the brain will do it. Isn’t that right, Ziia?

So distracted she was by her temporary comrade that she tripped over a nearby body, hissing in further pain as her mangled ankle got caught in the crevices of two departed warriors. When she pulled herself free, cursing under her breath, she realized that one of the bodies belonged to Fann. Sen rose to her feet and looked down at him, the feelings welling within her entirely too complicated. He had once been such a close friend to her…and then saw fit to make her life absolute hell. That he was in equally dire straits as Koelhe felt like well-deserved retribution…but it still pained her to see him in such a state.

Kneeling down, she slapped him in the face three successive times, hoping that some external stimulus would restore some of his mental faculties. When nothing happened beyond mindless groans, she slapped his face again and again, each time doing little to remedy the situation until finally she had to stop herself, realizing that it was becoming less about reviving her former friend, and simply more about the act of slapping him.

Sen stood back up, clenching her eyes shut, grimacing in disbelief, until finally she heard to her left a distinctive groan, a voice she would always remember until the end of her days. There was no stopping the tears, nor did she have any attempt to stop them. All she could do was follow the sound, her legs quivering with every step, her ankle screaming with agony, until she finally fell to her knees beside her mother’s body, spear still in the hand of the mighty warrior, but face frozen in the same shock as everyone else.

Her hands trembling, Sen reached into her pocket and withdrew the Illusion pendant, bringing the ornament to her lips with a tender kiss. She whispered a soft prayer to the Wolf and the Owl and whichever gods may still have been listening to her and looped the chain around Dennalhir’s neck. Sen pressed the ornament into her mother’s chest, the tremors traveling up her arms as she pushed harder and harder.

But no matter how hard she pressed, no matter how much she tried to force it…Dennalhir’s expression did not change. It was too late. Beneath the red warrior paint of the Bearsign, the great Dennalhir, matriarch of the Stone Tribe, was gone.

“Please…” Sen murmured under her breath, her tears nearly freezing to her face from the force of the storm. “Please, Mother. Please…”

Her pleas were lost behind her heavy sobs. She reluctantly pulled her hands away from the pendant, its effect lost entirely on her mother, and buried her face into her hands, the snow piling high atop her. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t need to remove her face from her palms to know it was Tez.

They said nothing, for there was nothing that could be said. They just held each other, the storm howling around them, their tears turning to ice, and as the victorious exhalations continued around her, Sen could not help but wonder what was there to celebrate when they had just lost so much in an instant.