Some hours earlier, Haldrych Ameldan sprinted through a tunnel as the mountain shook around him. Some terrible impact had rocked the stones in his wake and he thanked his own quick wits that he had retreated from the mess in the arena. Giddy from life, he could not feel his body as he sprinted for the mouth of the tunnel. He emerged, panting and wet - from sweat, he surmised - into the moonlight, blowing snow, and roaring wind.

He felt as though he were within the eye of the world’s end, and he paused on the natural balcony where he and Adelmar once plotted to avenge poor Marctinus. Now he was alone, but alive. So delighted was he that he failed to notice the cracked stone of the gallery - which Adelmar had warned him of - beginning to give way as the mountain shook.

Crack!

When it began to collapse, it was too late.

“No!” the young poet screamed as he fell among the boulders.

The world became a blur.

Rocks tossed this way and that as he tumbled down the avalanche. Several times, he thought himself dead, but luck preserved him. He crashed into the snow with a groan and curled up to protect his head.

Thmp. Thmp. Thmp.

Stones rained down around him and though some struck his body, all were so small they merely left bruises. When the mountain’s wrath at last quieted, he found himself whole amidst the wreckage.

Cautiously, Haldrych pulled himself to his feet with shaking hands clutching a nearby boulder. He was on the plateau, just before the lonely stand of trees. The snows were dying down. The tunnel had collapsed behind him, but left an incline of rock that he might scale to another part of the mountain.

“I…I lived!” he cried. “I survived your foolishness, Adelmar! I survived your petty wrath, mother! I survived your idiocy, holy alpha! And I survived you, Rat!”

He had come to it at last: survival. No, not mere survival, but victory! Two battles that claimed so many lives, yet Haldrych Ameldan had lived through them by his quick warrior’s wits! His body surged from excitement, even as the sting worsened in his side.

Already, inspired words rose in his mind: the epic poem he would pen would make him famous! “I shall call it…The Wolves of Laexondael…no, no, The Eye of Radiin for that is how this bega-No, no. It should be named after its hero: The Triumph of Haldrych Ameldan Against the Barbarous Hordes! Yes! Perfect!”

He began to laugh, but found his breath short. Well, he had run a long time.

The young poet sighed, beginning to shiver against the cold. It was time to find his way back into the mountain. It would be warmer there, and he could wait out the night. Perhaps he could find some clothes to change into as well: his robe was very, very wet. He reached down to touch the distasteful wetness while drawing the Eye of Radiin from within.

He paused. Within the folds of drenched black fabric was a slit in the side of the robe.

When had that gotten there?

He moved his fingers to examine it.

Splsh.

His heart went dead.

Red.

Touching the wetness, his hand had come away dripping in red.

Thmp. Thmp. Thmp! Thmp! Thmp!

His heartbeat quickened in his ears, drowning out the wind and rustle of trees. He struggled to open the rip in his robe.

Scrrrp.

He forced the torn cloth apart with trembling hands.

“Ah! Aaaaaargh!” he cried in horror.

He had been wrong.

The sting in his side was no burn from exertion.

The silver sword had found its way back to him.

Point first.

A long cut ran the width of his torso, so deep that he thought…no, were those entrails? His entrails?

“Aaarrrrrgh!” he screamed, despairing, and collapsed into the snow clutching his side.

Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp!

His heart pounded in his ears, pumping more of his precious lifeblood through his fingers. With dawning horror, he looked behind him. The slope was stained red where he had fallen. How much blood had he lost?

“N-no,” the future warrior-poet moaned, his lips quivering as his eyes and nose ran. “No, I…I need to dress the wound.”

His delicate digits - used only to touch reed pens, hoist wine cups and caress women’s skin - fumbled clumsily to tear a piece of his robe free. If he could dress the wound then he would…he would…

He would do what? His trembling fingers held his blood-soaked robe helplessly.

“I…I don’t know what to do!” cried the champion of legend in the making. Some of his tutors had sought to teach him how to dress a wound, but he had found those lessons tedious, and preferred not to be bothered with them.

“H-help me!” His desperate eyes sought anyone within the trees or alongside the mountain. “S-someone help me! Help me! Haldrych Ameldan is here! I’m here!”

Even were anyone about, his voice had grown so weak that he could barely hear it above the thundering of his own heart.

Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp!

“Ach!” the would-be legend coughed, and a sudden weight shifted in his small clothes. Heat and warmth spread between his legs. A foulness touched his nostrils.

He had soiled himself.

Humiliation shuddered through him, but it was the least of his concerns for when he had coughed, a crimson mist had sprayed before him. His fall must have ruptured something precious within the core of his already wounded body.

He sunk into the snow. “Aaaargh! Aaaaargh!” the proud heir to House Ameldan wretched like a dying bird, wailing his despair. He began to crawl in desperation. “N-No!” he moaned. “Not like this…not like this. I have a destiny…I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp!

His heart continued to scream as it shed more of his lifeblood.

His soft body crawled on all fours beneath the trees, croaking out his sorrow. A long path of red lay behind him in the snow.

Thmp! Thmp! Thmp! Thmp… Thmp…

His heart slowed. His eyes began to see strange images in the trees: shadows that slipped between places in the dark. Eyes that seemed to watch him. Familiar faces that swam before his dying gaze.

“Help me…” he moaned. “Adelmar, Adelmar help me…"

His fading voice called out for his oldest friend - a friend that would never come.

Haldrych Ameldan had abandoned him to save his own life.

Thmp…Thmp…Thmp…Thmp…

His heart slowed further.

“S-someone. Anyone….holy alpha…Berard…Jairus…”

His ‘pack brothers' would never come. He had abandoned them to their fate as well.

Thmp…Thmp…Thmp…

Terror consumed him.

An image flashed before his eyes: he had been young, bleeding and crying from a scrape after falling in the garden. Even before the servants had come to him, and even before his father, a small woman had rushed to his side, pressing a handkerchief to the scrape and asking if he was alright. Her voice had been both small and tender.

“M-mother…” he croaked.

Thmp. Thmp.

“H-help…”

His words froze.

She would not come to help him. She never would again.

He had ensured that himself.

A final image rose in his mind: a pair of eyes. Eyes that watched his animalistic features as he killed them. Eyes that never filled with outrage or horror. Eyes that bore only confusion in the end. He looked up, perhaps wondering if he would see those eyes one more time before his own closed.

He did not. She had not come to take him to the after-world.

Only those ominous shadows awaited.

They surged toward him like a pack of starving wolves.

Thmp.

His heartbeat stopped.

Haldrych of House Ameldan - patron of The Lovers’ Paradise, middling poet, peddler of delusions, fool and kinslayer - fell forward onto the snow.

A final sigh - choked in blood - hissed out between his teeth.

In the end, his grand tale of heroism had ended thusly:

Two battles fled.

A friend abandoned to die.

And a single life taken by his delicate hands: that of his own mother.

She had been asleep in her own bed, and he had not even done that unaided.

In the months that followed, a stir rose in Laexondael. Rumours flew of a death-cult that had coiled around the city’s elite, one put down by the cult of steel. Duke Kirinius set forth his battalion to catch the rest; many traitors were sniffed out among the ranks of the city. Others went into hiding, and bronze wolf-bracers were soon found abandoned in alleyways alongside shattered masks.

In time, a sense of normalcy was restored.

Paradise rebuilt and its patrons returned to find a new shrine in its foyer: one that honoured those who fell during the cult’s invasion. The Hawk began again his thrilling burglaries, catching the hearts of the city’s poets and song-makers. Aristocrats and merchants found themselves nervous during the night and not only for fear of the master thief: one does not take the revelation that their neighbours might have been werewolves lightly.

They began to hire proven warriors for protection, and those who had survived the wolves’ fighting pits were among the first they sought. Saxa, Gannicus and Agron - among the others - quickly found comfortable positions. Though they still bore scars from the pits - some physical and some mental - they could begin anew.

The cult of steel was honoured by the Duke and its presence grew greatly in the city. As for Jeva, he continued in his beloved pleasure temple…along with other things best left unsaid.

Kyembe, Wurhi, and Cristabel stayed in Paradise until spring and - for their part in the cult’s destruction - never again did they have to purchase their own drinks. They spent many more nights passed out beneath tables in the common room. Ku-Hassandra, Ippolyte and Thesiliea soon departed for the City of Glass, but not before the wizard reminded Kyembe of his promise one final time.

Sword found he enjoyed life under the sun, moon and stars. He was well-fed and merely had to walk beside Wurhi when she was about town to look impressive. He was incredibly well suited to looking impressive. Part of him craved the thrill of combat once more, but his instincts told him that would come in one form or another.

Yet, it was not a glorious time for all.

The House Ameldan quickly fell into chaos: their heir had been assumed to be another victim of the wolves in the mountains. None who knew the truth cared enough to tell it. Affairs fell into disarray, and successorship was called into question: the last of the Ameldan blood had dried up with its final master.

Duke Kirinius declared their lands returned to his protection, and the servants quickly found the manor shuttered and left to gather dust. Adrift, they were forced out to seek lives anew. Some would prosper. Many would not.

All of them cursed the name of Haldrych Ameldan.

They were among the only ones who did.

No other cared enough to think on the fate of one mediocre poet lost among so many lives. In the end, Haldrych Ameldan had burned away every blessing of his privileged life for a dream he had not understood nor truly wished for. More than anything, he desired to be like the heroes of his favoured epics - to walk that imperial road of glory and riches. For that, he had slain the one person who loved him with all her heart, sold his soul to a demon god, and abandoned the truest friend he had ever known.

In return?

Spring found the mouldering corpse of a single young cultist prostrate on a mountain, stilled in its own dried blood and filth. Imagining himself to be a great warrior poet, the coward had sought legend and glory. Instead, he had died in terror, humiliation, and loneliness.

And he was quickly forgotten.

The only eye that would ever lay upon him was the Eye of Radiin.

The jewel sparkled; its darkened ‘pupil’ fallen to fix on the body of the last in the line of the man who had stolen it. If anyone were to witness it, they might have sworn that some satisfaction lay in its stony gaze.

The End

Afterword

And with that, we at last finish the first step that we began together during The Dreaming Sceptre. Thank you all for reading, it's been great walking together in this journey.

And now? To quote the T-800 in Terminator 2: "I need a vacation."

I'm going to take a break while I finish grad school. Juggling both has been a challenge, to say the least, and especially as life has gotten busier. I'm going to be taking this time to write at a more measured pace and to sit back and plan how, what and where to take the series. As such, I'll say that this fiction is complete as it marks the end of this leg of the journey.

Kyembe, Wurhi, Cristabel and now Sword are far from done, and I will be taking the time to...try a few things and see how they return.

I thank all of you: anyone who's ever read, who's ever made a positive comment, pointed out errors, left a kind review or rating or just encouraged me through different methods. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

It's been an honour.

Now, for the last time - for a while at least - I want you all to take care of yourselves.

After all, there's only one of each of you.

On some road, we'll walk together again.

Farewell for now.

- Traitorman