“IT IS NOT done!” rasped Zores.

The young savage rounded on the sorcerer. “What do you mean?”

“It slept for centuries here in the dark. We must complete the job.” His voice was ragged and failing.

Ulrem crouched beside the sorcerer, setting his sallet aside. “What happened to you?”

“It was feeding on me. I let it. Needed to raise the third platform somehow. Bring me the jar.” He slapped at the side of the altar.

Ulrem shook his head but obeyed. The jar was surprisingly light. He set it beside Zores. His ancient, knobbled hands trembled terribly as he pried off the lid. Ulrem looked inside. Something within, more liquid than light, emanated a pale blue glow. It seemed to swim back and forth like a startled fish.

“Take it.”

“What?”

Zores coughed, and spittle mingled with blood bubbled on his lips. He gasped for breath. “His soul. Nearly forgotten. Hidden from my master, but right under our feet. Without it, he can never return to life. Smother it.”

“Tell me the truth, Stormrider. Who was your master?”

“He was like you. Dunorr, who rode before the storm, first of my order. Inheritor of Inraela’s ring, Lord of the Storm.”

Ulrem knew that name. Reivers and pirates prayed to the Thundercrow for deliverance from violent storms. Ulrem’s own lips knew those prayers well.

“Is he dead?”

Zores’ face was gray now, the skin papery. He coughed hard and long, and it left him wheezing. “Dunorr fell in battle before even I was born. I was trained by one of his disciples. But others like you walk the earth.” Ulrem touched the ring. An Inheritor. Like himself. “Take it, son of Imaahis. Please. Finish it.”

UIrem looked at the shriveled, headless corpse, at the dying ember of the strange heart. He doubted that the lich was coming back this time. Yet, he had come so far. He had no choice but to finish the job.

He caught the slippery thing within. It was cool to the touch. He held it up before his face. A soul? It seemed a formless, scrawny thing. No more than a little captured breath. Scowling, he crushed it in his grip.

A whistling scream broke through the dark chamber, and only the light of Ulrem’s ring held the shadow at bay. The sepulcher began to rumble.

Zores’ bony hand clutched at him. Ulrem leaned close, looking into the sorcerer’s murky eye, blinded now with cloudy cataracts. “Master yourself,” he whispered, “and master the ring. Seek the truth of the Lion Lord.”

The clamor of the cavern coming down around them grew deafening. He made to haul Zores up by the robes. He reckoned they could make it to the corridor, at least. But the old sorcerer grabbed Ulrem by the wrists, resisting. His blind eyes wept sooty tears.

“You promised me an equal share of the reward, damn you!”

“As I die, so you live. Equal. Ride the storm, Slayer!”

Ulrem growled and fought, but the old man held up his hand. He had seen that gesture before, back in the cavern. A blinding flash of light engulfed him, swallowing space and mind, scribing his flesh and soul into a single streak of brilliant, terrible power.

He hit the ground outside painfully and bounced to a stop. Hissing rain fell all around him, weeping over the ruins of Irom na-Thar. Battered and bruised, Ulrem wasted no time shoving himself to his feet. Of Zores, there was no sign.

Braveblade lay on the smoking scree. Where the bolt of lightning had struck, the ground yet glowed cherry red. By the stars, he thought with a grimace, it was fortunate that he had not impaled himself on the sword. Yet even as he snatched the blade up, he noticed the gravel was vibrating, turning little dances back and forth. The quaking grew worse, and something gave in the ground below.

Pale dawn sliced through threadbare patches of stormcloud. Beneath the struggle of sun and shadow, the dread black spire of the Deadtongue collapsed in on itself like a rotting fruit, showering huge stones and boulders across the field that surrounded it.

Ulrem ran, head tucked low. After a few chancy moments, it was over. The rain guttered and gave.

Where once that wretched place had marked the grave of something unholy and vile, now all was flat, returned to the earth, and silent. A vast column of smoke and dust stood above the devastation.

Ulrem caught his filthy, bloody reflection in Braveblade’s scuffed surface. The job was done, then. He had his freedom, and Zores Stormrider was dead.

He looked west towards where the sea lay, across the lifeless waste of this perished land. Somewhere, his fate awaited him, across many miles and many years. But he would never again know one such as the sorcerer who banished the Deadtongue.

Thus is the price of a warrior. A single echo emanating from the ring, resonating with ancient, leonine pride. He rides forever, now.

Ulrem had nothing to say to that. It was not for him to judge. He knelt and gathered some stones and built a humble pile. At last, he stood back and surveyed his work. The cairn was small, but it would serve.

Master yourself. Seek the truth. The sorcerer’s parting words. There were others like him, out there. Somewhere. Waiting to be found.

Perhaps he would head up the coast towards Akkariath. A great harbor lay there upon the sea, and fighting aplenty, in the lands around the walled city with its scarlet pillars.

Ulrem set forth to find his fortune.