Chapter Fifty-Three: Vandrhind

“Contrary to popular belief, the Apocalypse Knights are not immortal. They are very, very strong, but not so strong that they cannot be defeated.

“The illusion of immortality rises from the emblem of the Oathbreaker. As long as the Eye and the Crescent Moon strikes fear in the heart of man, the Apocalypse Knights cannot die—for the death of one simply means the rise of another to take its place.”

—Turnis Hibernon, Fact or Faerie Tale? A Study of Faengard’s Folklore

“Ein! Are you okay?”

Rhea wiped her hands on her apron and came out to where Ein lay flat on the grass, panting. His wooden sword was covered in chips and cracks and had been tossed to one side.

“Yeah.” He managed to sit up, wincing as bolts of pain ran through his body. His mother bent down beside him, taking in the fresh bruises that were beginning to form on his skin.

“I’ll kill him,” she seethed. “How dare he…”

“No,” Ein said. “Don’t worry, mother. I was the one who asked for it.”

“This fencing business has gone too far,” Rhea said, running her hands across his skin. They felt soft and cool, and yet firm.“There’s no need to put you through such intensive training. Who are you going to fight here in Felhaven? The scarecrows?”

“No, Mother,” Ein said again, pushing her away. He picked up his sword and stood, brushing the stray grass off his back. “I want to learn how to fight. Father may be harsh, but he’s a good mentor.”

“Is this the whole Hero of Faengard business?” Rhea asked, standing a short distance behind Ein. The sun was setting, casting a crimson glow across the rear yard of the forge. “You’re being silly, Ein. In a few years, you’ll look back on yourself and think of how silly you were. Playing pretend with your friends is all well and good, but when you start getting hurt, that’s when things have gone too far. Besides, you hardly need to be a master swordsman to impress the village girls. You have a pretty face; I’ve seen the way they look at you.”

Ein flushed. “It’s not about that at all, Mother. I’m doing this for myself. I don’t want to live a boring life as a blacksmith. I want to see the world, rescue damsels in distress, fight dragons and meet wise old men. I don’t see why you and Father are so against it.”

Rhea’s expression darkened. “Do you really want to know the reason why?”

“Of course I do,” Ein said hotly. “I don’t understand any of this. And if Father was so against the idea, why does he continue to teach me?”

“The skills he teaches you are useful to have,” his mother said. “But what matters is how you use them. I think he wants you to come to the conclusion yourself, rather than be told what you should and shouldn’t do. In either case, I’ll show you why your Father is so against you venturing outside of Felhaven. This Friday evening, once I’ve put Cinnamin to bed, we’ll go for a walk. Not a word about this to him, okay?”

“Okay,” Ein nodded.

“Now, be a good boy and go get cleaned up. Dinner is almost ready.”

The Worgals barked excitedly when they found Ein washed along the river, soaking wet in the dead of the night, sodden clothes and armour as heavy as lead. They grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet, causing his brain to rattle painfully inside his skull. Anger boiled inside him as he smelled their rancid breath.

He could fight, definitely. They hadn’t touched his Rhinegold blade. He could kill two of them in the blink of an eye and maybe a third before the rest of the pack noticed. But what then?

Find out everything you can about your situation before you act.

Alend’s words calmed him, washing away the red mist. He allowed them to bind his hands, counting the glistening bodies in the rain as he waited. There were ten or so of the wolfmen lumbering about in the pitch black, yellow eyes glinting. Rough tents had been set up along the river, quivering beneath the downpour while their occupants feasted and conversed in low grunts. Some of the Worgals worked quietly in the corners, carving up meat, sharpening tools and weapons.

As they led him through the camp, Ein decided he’d made the right choice. Breaking free of his binds would be child’s play—he could snap them as easily as stitches—but fighting his way through twenty Worgals at once would be a challenge, even in his superhuman state. It was better to wait and gain an understanding of what was happening before he tried anything. Besides, the camp was too dark to see. It was a camp made for relict eyes, without fires or sources of light. The shadows were not his friend.

They tossed him in a barred cage somewhere, out of the rain. Ein wriggled into a more comfortable position and waited for them to leave. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized he wasn’t alone.

“Bhava sa catan sur?” a voice asked him.

Ein frowned. “What did you say?”

There was a pause, and then the voice cleared his throat. “So they got you too?” He spoke the common tongue with a light accent.

“I guess so.” Ein peered into the darkness. There were three other figures in the cage with him. Two of them lay on their sides, sleeping. The one who’d spoken was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a moustache like a comb. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere in Nanak Tur. The hell if I know where exactly,” he grunted.

“And what’s Nanak Tur?”

“Just the name we have for these mountains. You probably know them as Lauriel’s Spine.” He leaned forward, peering at Ein’s face. “What’s a foreigner like you doing all the way up here?”

“We were going to Darmouth to find someone,” Ein answered carefully. “But I was separated from everyone else.”

“A little young to be on the road, aren’t you?”

“No younger than any boy working in the fields.”

The man nodded. “I won’t pry any further. But I’ll say this; you must have all the bad luck in the world to be caught up in this mess.”

They watched the Worgals, their slick shapes shuffling around the camp. The best avenue of escape would be to wait until late morning, when the relicts settled down to sleep, and then break free and run.

But what about these men?

Guilt gnawed at Ein as he studied the other captives. It didn’t feel right, fleeing by himself and then leaving them to die. He was a Kingsblade, wasn’t he? He had the power to save them.

That’s what a hero would think, he realized with a start. Ein Thoren, Hero of Felhaven, Fateweaver, Reyalin Reborn. Already the Winds of Fate were blowing against him, dragging him further from the quiet life he’d yearned to live. An ember flickered inside his chest, a remnant of the bright-eyed youth he’d once been.

“We’re not the only ones,” the man continued, snapping him from his thoughts. “There are other captives as well.” He pointed through the bars to the opposite side of the camp. Ein brought his face close to the wall of the cage and squinted into the night.

“They’ve been coming down to our village for a while now, the relicts. Every child you see has been taken away from their family, offered as a sacrifice to keep these ‘mountain demons’ away for another day.”

Ein swallowed. There were three cages in total, each housing a handful of small figures. The youngest was barely an infant, the oldest perhaps his own age. They sat gloomily, the shadows cloaking their faces.

“You see that Worgal carving meat over there?”

The man pointed again, and Ein felt his stomach lurch.

“You can’t be serious…” He knew Worgals ate human flesh, even relict flesh. It didn’t come as a surprise that they slaughtered children for food, yet he refused to believe it. The cleaver came down again and again in the rain, blood splattering across the chopping board. The Worgal lifted the leg of meat and pulled it apart with a loud crack, separating the two bones at the joint.

“We of Darmouth who were not frightened took up arms,” the man continued. “We tracked them to their camp. But we were overwhelmed and caged, left alive to watch our children die one by one.” His eyes burned with a silent fury. “The demons are sadistic, it seems. They derive pleasure from our pain.”

Ein forced himself away from the bars. Pain jolted through his palms, his hands clenched so bone-tight that his nails drew blood. He closed his eyes and saw the Worgal with its cleaver, coming down repeatedly across the child’s limb. Blood splattering, organs spilling. Voices screaming. He opened his eyes and saw Cinnamin on the chopping board, looking to him for help. He saw Cinnamin lying weakly in the cages, saw Cinnamin sitting with a haunted look in her eyes.

“You’re back! You were gone for so long…”

“Working on a farm is so boring.”

“You told me you were the best, though. Or was that a lie?”

“I’ll be twelve in a few weeks.”

“Come home safely.”

The man was looking at him, waiting. Ein loosed a breath through his teeth. To hell with escaping. He just wanted to murder the relicts, murder them all, free all the children and bring them back to their mothers and fathers.

“...no hero dies of old age, in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by friends and family.”

To hell with that. If it meant even saving one of those children, he would gladly give his own life.

The ember inside his chest flickered and flared to life.

I’m sorry, Father. It looks like I’m going to try my hand at being a hero after all.

“You’re not an ordinary boy, are you?” the man asked.

He was at a severe disadvantage. It was night, and the Worgals could see as clearly as day. There were twenty of them and one of him. He had the strength of a Kingsblade and the training of Garax and Alend. He had a Rhinegold sword. He might just be able to pull it off if he divided them, maybe into two groups of ten or three groups of six. He would need something else though, another factor to help him.

“Tell me this, boy. Is that sword by your waist made of gold?”

He could remove one of the disadvantages by waiting until daylight. Maybe if he asked the man and the other adults, they’d help him. But they were unarmed and most likely unskilled. Without a sword of Soulforged steel, they’d need fire or salt to be a match. Fire wouldn’t work. They couldn’t start one in this weather, even if they had the materials. They didn’t have salt either. He could use the men as decoys, but he wouldn’t. Their lives were worth just as much as the children.

Someone touched his blade and unsheathed it a fraction. Ein reacted instinctively, grabbing the man’s wrist with an iron grip.

“What are you doing?” he asked, pushing it away before he could snap it. He left a dark mark around the man’s forearm, one that would bruise in the morning. I’ll have to be more careful with my strength.

“I thought as much,” the man said, rubbing his arm. “A blade of gold and a storm. You are Talam.” He was smiling.

Ein pushed his sword back into its scabbard. “You. What’s your name?”

“Tushar.”

Ein nodded. “Tushar. Tomorrow, when the Worgals stop to rest, I will kill them. Make sure you take everyone and run, okay? As far away from here as you can. Don’t help me or you’ll die.”

Tushar closed his hand into a fist across his heart. “I will do as you say. Mandi se’bhava, Talam. May the mountain watch over you.”

Ein was already testing the strength of the bars, squeezing them as hard as he could. He loosened his grip and nodded at the grooves he’d left with his fingers. They would snap like twigs come tomorrow, like the bones of the Worgals he would destroy.

The night passed painfully slowly. Ein drifted in and out of sleep, catching glimpses of limbless children, a village in flames and a half-burned face looking down at him from above. All the while he felt her presence, heard her voice in the patter of rain and the smell of the storm. Lady Reyalin was watching him, waiting to be loosed.

He woke when the first rays of dawn peeked out from behind the mountains, curled up into an uncomfortable ball on the floor. The children regarded him from the cage on the other side of the camp, hollow eyes devoid of emotion. In front of him were two Worgals, eyeing him intensely.

Ein stared back, resisting the urge to glower. Though Worgals couldn’t understand the common tongue, body language was universal. Surprise was an element he could use to his advantage, something that might help him overcome the odds. If the Worgals deemed him a threat, they would treat him with caution and he would lose that advantage.

He must have failed, because the two wolfmen took a step back and adjusted their stances to face him side-on—an instinctive reaction for a bipedal animal when threatened. Alend had always told him that dogs and wolves possessed a sixth sense. They could tell when someone was frightened or when they were happy or sad. They must also be able to sense killing intent.

The Worgals left, and Ein returned to plotting their downfall. He spotted a group of Celadons tethered to a nearby tree, beasts of burden to pull the cages and carts, another factor that would tilt the odds against him. He observed them for a while until the Worgals came back, talking to each other in short grunts and growls. They brought with them the Bloodmane.

It had been a while since Ein had seen one up so close. In fact, he hadn’t come within an arm’s reach of one since the duel in the burning house at Felhaven, something that seemed a lifetime away. Even though he’d won that duel, it had ultimately come down to the fact that he’d had fire on his side, one of the three weaknesses that relicts possessed. Out here in the cold, even with the strength of a Kingsblade’s Vow behind him, there was no telling who would win.

The creature stopped before Ein, breathing clouds of smog from its nostrils. It was a white Bloodmane, a creature of the snow, but its eyes and mane remained red like that of its brethren. Its Boneblade was sheathed by its side.

“Greetings, Fateweaver,” it hissed, and Ein shivered. It spoke the common tongue so well it could have been a man. “How fitting we meet here, where the demon wolf awaits the Day.”

He felt the gaze of Al’Ashar through its eyes, all-seeing, as heavy as the world. A shot of fear ran though his veins. Every inch of his body wished to yield to the creature, his natural instinct screaming at him to flee. He was the prey. It was the predator.

“Are you the one in charge of the relicts?” Ein demanded. He wouldn’t show weakness. Not in front of a servant of Al’Ashar, the one who’d been responsible for the attack on his village, the death of the Children of the Wind, the massacres occurring all over the country.

“That is indeed me. Among my brethren, I am known as Vandrhind. It means ‘Winter Lion’ in the Old Tongue.” Vandrhind gestured to the Worgals on either side. They slunk back towards the camp, tails between their legs. Tushar and the other men from the village had woken up and were watching fearfully, gathered in the corner opposite Ein.

“The time draws near,” Vandrhind continued. “The Protector will die soon, and when she does, the fabric between dimensions will wear thin. Already our Lord’s servants gather outside your capital, readying themselves for war.”

“What are you doing here, then?” Ein asked. “Shouldn’t you tell your dogs to piss off to Aldoran?”

Vandrhind laughed. “Ah, Fateweaver. Powerful as he is, our Lord cannot bring about the Twilight by himself. We serve Faenrir, Vard’Atar, the One who will Swallow the Sun. When it breaks free of its bonds, it will plunge the world into eternal darkness. We must be ready to answer its howl.”

The mountain trembled, causing the cage to rattle on the spot. The Worgals raised their heads to the sky and howled in return, their voices echoing like a thousand screams. It lasted for a brief moment, a mere hiccup of the world, before all was quiet once more.

“It stirs,” Vandrhind said. “Very soon, it will wake.”

“What do you want with me, then?” Ein demanded. “I’m not going to join you, not on my life.” The image of the cleaver came back to him and he kept it in his mind, drawing strength from it.

“I must admit, it was a surprise to find you here. My brethren searched long and hard for the blood of the Thorens. Imagine its surprise when it found not only he, but three Fateweavers as well. Imagine its disappointment when all three escaped its grasp.” The Bloodmane laughed. It was a deep, throaty sound, a cross between a snarl and a cough. “Oh, our Lord will be pleased to have you—but there are things that take precedence over an insignificant Fateweaver such as yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” Ein growled. A sinking feeling settled inside his stomach.

“Aldoran is where the End will begin,” Vandrhind breathed. “The home of Aedrasil. Where the Thorens and the Uldans reside. Where the other two Fateweavers from your village are.”

Ein paled. Merrill… Evaine… oh gods, no…

“I will leave you to my servants,” the Bloodmane continued. “I must ride to war, now. To Aldoran, where our Lord’s army gathers. Your City of Twilight will be the first to fall, your two friends the first of many to bend to His will.” It drew closer to Ein, breathing heavily. “Perhaps if you somehow manage to survive, I will come for you. But as you are now, untrained in your Wyrd, you are the least of our Lord’s threats.”

“You bastard,” Ein said. “I won’t let you. I’ll kill Faenrir, and then I’ll return to Aldoran and save Aedrasil. Mark my words, Bloodmane.”

Vandrhind laughed. “If you can kill my servants first, Fateweaver. Even with the strength of ten men, you would be hard-pressed surviving a battle with a pack of Worgals.” The Bloodmane turned around to the mountain as it trembled again. “It tastes freedom,” it breathed. “It will not be long now. When the World-Eater finally breaks free, we will have razed your cities to prepare for its coming.”

He barked at the Worgals in a harsh, commanding tongue, and they loped to his side like guard dogs.

“I will leave you now, Fateweaver. I do hope you somehow survive. It is no fun to hunt a prey that is too weak.”

Vandrhind stalked away, taking the Worgals with him. Ein wavered, but he kept his chin up. Heads turned as the relicts left the camp and disappeared into the rain. The Worgals, the children, the adults, none dared say a word. Only when Vandrhind was gone did the camp breathe and Ein allow himself to fall to his knees.

“What… was that?” Tushar asked. His coffee skin had turned as pale as snow. He reached a trembling hand to the cage wall to steady himself.

“A Bloodmane,” Ein said shakily. “A commander of the Worgals. A servant directly under the command of Al’Ashar.”

Tushar’s face paled. “No. You must not say his name.”

“You know him?”

“He is the Lord of the Night, the father of Mandara. An entity whose name even the Prophet Muamed feared to speak. You must not speak his name or bad things will happen.”

The ground rocked again, sending great ripples across the puddles. The Worgals were packing, binding the cages to waiting Celadons.

“They’re preparing to leave,” Ein realized. “So that was why they set up camp. To wait for their master.”

Tushar spoke to the other two men in the carriage in their own tongue. They had watched the whole exchange without saying a word. Now they seemed to be arguing, making violent gestures, raising their voices above the rain.

“What are they saying?” Ein asked.

Tushar spat a curse. “They are getting cold feet, so to speak,” he said. “They are not willing to follow you. They wish to wait for help—help that will never come. The Bloodmane has scared the piss out of their pants.”

Ein looked at the two men in turn. There was nothing special about them—they were just ordinary villagers, farmers and shepherds, like the Masters back in Felhaven. Men who’d been pushed to take action, even when they lacked the ability to make a difference. Of course they would be scared, having sensed the taint of the Oathbreaker himself.

“Tell them they can do what they want,” Ein said. “But I won’t stand around doing nothing as more people die.”

“I agree with you,” Tushar said. “I’ve told them you are Talam, but they are still uncertain.”

“I don’t know what this ‘Talam’ means. But in our tongue, there are people we call ‘heroes’—and I’m going to become one of them.”

Ein grabbed the bars on the cage and pulled. They bent like a hunting bow before snapping off in his hands. On the other side of the camp, some of the children had seen and were whispering to each other. Hope returned to their eyes, like the flickering candleflame in his heart.

He tossed the two rods of iron to Tushar. The other men stared, wide-eyed.

“Tell them to take the children and run,” Ein said. “I’ll take care of this myself.”

He set to work on a third bar. Once that was done, he would have a hole large enough for a man to fit through.

Vandrhind’s arrival might have taken away their morale, but he had also taken away something else. He’d taken six Worgals with him, and now the odds were stacked in Ein’s favour.