SOW:Chapter 3–What Remains

Spear of The Winds > Chapter 3–What Remains

Another violent shudder wracked Faline’s body, her teeth chattering despite the three wool blankets wrapped around her shoulders. She pressed her arms against her sides, trying to contain the tremors that had plagued her since dawn. The irony wasn’t lost on her—she who had once commanded the essence of winter’s bite now couldn’t ward off a simple morning chill.

Ahead, the High King’s ancient bridge stretched across the wide waters of the Tenoachian River like a gray stone finger, pointing toward the main road that ran due east. To the north, a lesser trail wound toward Keihl through rolling hills dotted with early wildflowers that mocked her misery with their vibrant colors.

“Mistress, shall I fetch another blanket?” Parthos asked, his gravelly voice emerging from the depths of his black hood. The Shatain’s concern carried the weight of magical compulsion, yet she detected something genuine beneath the binding.

“No,” she muttered, pulling the blankets tighter. “Another would make no difference.” Nothing will, until I reclaim what was stolen from me.

Pale sunlight crept across the landscape, burning away the last wisps of morning mist, but it did nothing to warm her bones or lift the weight pressing down on her chest. The column of Drachnorian soldiers surrounding her—barely two thousand men—represented all that remained of the mighty force that had stormed Landros’s walls two days ago. Their faces bore the hollow look of defeat, shoulders slumped beneath battered armor that would never again strike fear into their enemies’ hearts.

Even her infamous Shatain hadn’t been enough to carry the day. The thought sent a familiar spike of rage through her, followed immediately by the exhausting emptiness that had become her constant companion. Without her dark arts, she was another would-be conqueror with delusions of grandeur—exactly what that damned healing had made her.

Healed, she thought bitterly. As if my dark arts power were some festering wound to be cleansed away.

The mountain tribesmen—the Nagun she’d bullied and bribed into joining her cause—had vanished in the night like smoke, taking their crude weapons and what little remained of her credibility with them. She couldn’t blame them. Why follow a sorceress who could no longer weave sorcery?

Her grip tightened on the reins until her knuckles showed white against the leather. The failure at Landros had been a calculated gamble with enormous potential rewards, but now the consequences threatened to destroy everything she’d built in few short months since her escape from the Void. Her army was shattered, Bretagne lay beyond her reach, and that red-haired witch Britta now wore crowns that should have been hers.

The solution had been gnawing at her thoughts for weeks, but now it carried the weight of absolute necessity. Without her dark arts, she was nothing— another pretender grasping for a throne that would always remain beyond her reach. Recovering what she’d lost meant the long, treacherous journey to the Mouth of the Mordwahl, where she could reconnect with the primal darkness beyond the barrier.

Seven centuries ago, she’d made that pilgrimage once before. The memories stirred like old wounds, bringing with them flashes of blood and sacrifice, of screaming voices and the terrible ecstasy of power flowing into her veins. Her stomach clenched, and she swallowed bile.

The ritual would require a sacrifice of significant magical ability—someone whose power could bridge the gap between her weakened state and the vast energies beyond the Mordwahl. Most druids lacked the necessary strength, and Gall, for all his skill with that cursed Mordblade, probably wouldn’t suffice either. A Caretaker might work, but they were nearly impossible to find and even harder to control. A member of the Magi Grand Council, though…

Something flickered in her memory—a face, a conversation from weeks past. Asidaus, the Magi she’d encountered on the road to Tenoach. Her attempt to drain his essence had failed, but she’d managed to tear fragments of his memories away before he escaped. Perhaps those stolen thoughts contained something useful.

She turned to Parthos. “We stop here. I need to rest.”

The Shatain’s head tilted slightly—the only sign of his surprise. “Mistress, we cannot linger long. Our pursuers—”

“I know,” she snapped. “This won’t take long.” Gall is methodical, but he’s still a day behind. I can spare the time.

Shouts rang out as Parthos relayed the command, and the column ground to a halt with the weary efficiency of soldiers who’d grown accustomed to sudden stops and desperate flights.

Faline dismounted and settled herself on the cold ground beside the road, ignoring the way the chill seeped through her clothes. “Let no one disturb me.”

Parthos nodded, his bound loyalty compelling obedience, but she caught the slight hesitation in his posture. Even he could sense how precarious their situation had become.

Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and turned her consciousness inward. The meditation came harder now—another casualty of her diminished state—but gradually the world fell away. Hazy images began to surface from the depths of Asidaus’s stolen memories: conversations in sun-drenched chambers, documents sealed with wax and heavy with import, faces she didn’t recognize speaking of matters she didn’t understand.

She pressed deeper, sifting through the mental debris until something caught her attention. Tamor—the golden domes and marble columns of that slave-trading cesspit by the Gulf of Aruna. Asidaus had recently passed through the city, receiving the honors due his rank by…

Menelaus. The name emerged like a pearl from murky water. The Magi ambassador to Tamor, and more importantly, a member of the Grand Council himself.

A fragment of their conversation drifted past her consciousness:

In a sun-drenched chamber, Menelaus gestured toward scrolls spread across a marble table. His voice carried the confidence of deep understanding: “The binding requires a tertiary focus—most practitioners attempt to channel directly through the primary conduit, but that’s why they fail. The soul’s essence must be filtered through successive vessels, each one smaller than the last, until the concentration reaches a critical threshold. I’ve seen it done properly only twice, and both times…”

The memory fractured there, leaving only the echo of his words.

Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring at the sun directly overhead. Hours had passed without her notice, but the revelation burning in her mind made the lost time worthwhile. Either Ambassador Menelaus possessed dark magic abilities himself, or he knew someone who did. And Tamor lay directly on her route to the Mordwahl.

“Bring me a map,” she commanded.

Parthos unrolled a leather chart on the grass before her. Her finger traced their current position, then swept eastward to where the High King’s road split, one branch toward the High King’s hold, and the other south toward Tamor. For once, fortune seemed to favor her—the coastal city was less than three days’ hard riding from their location.

She studied the city’s mark on the map, trying to recall what little she knew of the place. In the High King’s day, it had been nothing more than a backwater fishing village, but the modern city commanded wealth and influence built on the foundation of human misery. The slave markets of Tamor fed the appetites of buyers across the known world, and gold flowed through its coffers like blood through veins.

“Mistress.” The voice belonged to Banoch, the grizzled leader of her Drachnorian remnants. She looked up to find him mounted above her, his weathered face half-hidden by bloody bandages wrapped around his head. One blue eye studied her with the kind of resignation she’d seen too often lately.

“What is it?” she asked, though something in his expression told her she already knew.

“Are we still bound for Drachnor?” His voice carried no accusation, only the weight of exhaustion and the desire to see home again.

She realized his eye had followed her finger’s path across the map, noting where it lingered over Tamor’s coastal position. Yanking her hand away, she considered her options. The Drachnorians had served faithfully, but they would be a liability where she was going—too many mouths to feed, too many questions to answer, too many potential witnesses to what she planned.

“Why do you ask?” she replied, buying time to think.

Banoch ran a gloved hand through his short-cropped hair and glanced back toward his men. When he spoke, his words carried the weight of someone who’d already made a difficult decision. “My men can do no more. They’re hungry, tired, and so far from home.”

The simple honesty of it struck her unexpectedly. These weren’t cowards or deserters—they were soldiers who’d given everything they had and found it wasn’t enough.

“Then take them home,” she said quietly.

He blinked, clearly having expected an argument. “You would permit this?”

“Make haste, before I reconsider.” She had no intention of changing her mind, but the sooner they departed, the better for everyone involved.

Banoch wheeled his horse around and rode back to his men. Within moments, the Drachnorians let out three whooping cheers—the traditional farewell of their people—and marched briskly across the bridge toward the northern trail and their homeland.

Faline watched them go with a sense of relief. Abandoning the Drachnorians meant abandoning any immediate plans of conquest, but it also meant moving freely without the burden of a baggage train and questioning eyes.

“Parthos,” she called to the leader of her remaining Shatain.

“Yes, Mistress.”

She felt the familiar tug of their magical bond, that invisible chain that bound his will to hers. Sometimes she wondered if the connection caused them pain, or if they even remembered what it felt like to choose their own path.

“Leave two behind to delay our pursuer.”

Parthos sat motionless for a long moment, and she could sense his reluctance rippling through their bond. Not rebellion—that was impossible—but something like sorrow.

“Only two, Mistress?” he asked finally.

“You heard me.”

He nodded with the mechanical precision of magical compulsion, then pointed to two of his fellows. “Littum. Frigus.”

The chosen Shatain dismounted without a word and handed their reins to the others. Their faces, what little she could see within their hoods, showed neither fear nor regret—only the blank acceptance of those who had traded their humanity for immortality long ago.

“The rest of you, follow me,” Faline commanded.

She mounted her horse and led her diminished party across the ancient bridge. Nearly a mile they rode until the road split. The eastward path vanished into the grasslands that had reclaimed that path toward the desolation of the High King’s hold, whereas the southern path to the coast still bore evidence of occasional use. While the morning sun had climbed higher, warming the path beneath their horses’ hooves, she still felt the cold in her bones. At the road divide, she drew up her reins and turned in the saddle to look west, back toward the road they’d traveled.

No sense making it easy for you, my old friend.

Drawing what remained of her strength, she extended her hand west. The magic came sluggishly, her ancestral blood singing with chaotic power that felt wild and unpredictable compared to the dark arts she’d once wielded. Pain lanced through her skull as she forced the spell into being.

“Vestigia celare [hide tracks],” she whispered, and felt something vital drain away with the words.

Slowly, like footprints being swallowed by the incoming tide, their tracks began to disappear. The spell spread backward along their path, erasing hoofprints and any sign of their passage. Now a simple charm. With a wave of her hand, she barked out, “Nullum vestigium relinquere [leave no trace].”

She swayed in her saddle, black spots dancing at the edges of her vision. That may have been a mistake, she thought as nausea rolled through her stomach. But Gall won’t be expecting it.

“Quickly now,” she called to the remaining Shatain, her voice hoarser than she’d intended. “We must reach Tamor before the charm wears off.”

She spurred her mount southward, and the small group galloped down the coastal road, the charm erasing their hoofprints, toward whatever salvation—or damnation—awaited them in the golden city by the sea.

* * *

The High King’s bridge emerged from the afternoon haze as Gall crested the rocky rise, its ancient stone arches spanning the rushing waters below. He pulled up short at the sight of two dark-robed figures positioned at the center of the bridge, standing with the patience of carved statues. Their hands rested on sword pommels with casual readiness.

The wind carried the sound of water churning far beneath the bridge, but all Gall could hear was the steady thrum of his pulse. Clever girl.

Vig growled from beside him. “This can’t be good.”

Gall’s eyes swept the surrounding terrain—steep embankments on both sides, the river cutting deep through the soil. No alternate crossing for miles in either direction, as Faline knew when she chose this spot. She’d outmaneuvered him with elegant simplicity, turning geography into her ally.

“I take it we’re not going to consider riding around these two?” Vig asked, gesturing toward the Shatain with mock hope.

“You know as well as I do—there isn’t another river crossing for miles either way.” Gall’s jaw tightened as he calculated the cost. Every minute spent here gave Faline more distance, more time to disappear into whatever hole she’d chosen. “She doesn’t expect them to kill me.”

“Comforting,” Vig muttered.

“Only to delay me.” The tactical appreciation in his voice carried a bitter edge. “And it’s going to work.”

He dismounted slowly, handing his reins to the dwarf. The leather felt warm from the afternoon sun, a stark contrast to the chill spreading through his chest. Those two figures weren’t obstacles—they were his former brothers, bound by magic and daemon-blade to serve the woman he hunted.

“Try not to take all day,” Vig said. “At this rate, she’ll be sipping wine on the road to Drachnor before we clear the bridge.”

The Shatain watched his approach with the stillness of predators. No shifting weight, no nervous gestures— the absolute calm of those who had long ago surrendered their humanity for something darker.

As his boots struck the ancient stone of the bridge, the nearer figure spoke. “Stop.” The voice that emerged from the hood carried no emotion, no recognition—only obedience to a command given hours ago.

“Did she leave you behind to die?” Gall asked, though he already knew the answer.

Neither replied. Their silence spoke volumes about the futility of their mission and their acceptance of it.

“I suppose that’s a meaningless question,” he continued, his hand settling on his sword’s pommel. The metal felt cold even through his glove. “Seeing as neither of you is truly alive anymore.”

“Nor will you be, shortly,” the second Shatain replied with matter-of-fact certainty.

Both drew their blades in perfect unison, and the afternoon air shimmered around their translucent forms. The Mordblades sang as they cleared their sheaths—a sound like wind through broken glass that made Gall’s teeth ache.

Waves of malevolent hunger rippled outward from the exposed weapons, and the skin on Gall’s arms prickled with recognition. Within the depths of each Shatain’s hood, pairs of crimson orbs blazed to life as their daemon masters awakened to the prospect of battle.

They know they’re going to die, Gall realized as he studied their stance. And they don’t care.

He drew his own blade with practiced smoothness. The familiar weight settled into his hand like an extension of his arm, and immediately the world shifted. Cold tendrils of alien thought crept through his mind as his own daemon stirred, sensing the proximity of its kin. His pulse quickened, blood singing with anticipation that wasn’t entirely his own.

Brother, the creature whispered in his thoughts, its voice like silk over steel. How long since we have tasted our own kind?

Gall’s jaw clenched. Every second he spent here was another second of Faline’s head start, another mile between him and his quarry. But there was no choice—crossing the river elsewhere meant a significant delay and slipping past them was impossible. No, he had to fight and they would do so until their twisted forms could no longer stand.

“So begins the dance,” he murmured, settling into a fighting stance.

The daemon’s hunger pulsed through him like a second heartbeat. Let me feed, it urged. Let me feast upon the darkness in their blades.

“Make it quick,” Gall whispered back, as much to himself as to the creature that shared his soul.

“No,” she muttered, pulling the blankets tighter. “Another would make no difference.” Nothing will, until I reclaim what was stolen from me.

Healed. As if my dark arts power were some festering wound to be cleansed away.

Her grip tightened on the reins until her knuckles showed white against the leather. The failure at Landros had been a calculated gamble with enormous potential rewards, but now the consequences threatened to destroy everything she’d built in a few short months since her escape from the Void. Her army was shattered, Bretagne lay beyond her reach, and that red-haired witch Britta now wore crowns that should have been hers.