Rounding up the venatores’ horses took the most time. Fortunately, most of them were tired, too, though three looked at Shade with big, white eyes, mistrusting this man who’d butchered their owners. He spent precious time calming them, hoping the storm wouldn’t come back before he could get off the damned Bridge.

Loading the five dead bodies back onto their mounts took less time, even though he had to retrieve the one head he’d removed. He secured each to the saddle, tied the horses off in a line, and remounted Vic. The gray craned his neck to give Shade a disgruntled look but didn’t otherwise object. He was tired, too.

Shade didn’t want to know how long he’d been awake. It was day, now. A stormy day, but daylight all the same. That meant he’d gone over eighty hours, two full days, without sleep—unless one counted abortive naps snatched in the saddle, which he didn’t. No wonder he felt drunk.

Vic’s heavy footfalls as he trotted through the Bridge’s last miles said the same. Finally, they neared the head of the Bridge, where trees started encroaching, and the causeway grew wide enough that Shade couldn’t see either shore.

He reined Vic to a halt. “Far enough,” he muttered.

Vic just dropped his head to nibble at the grass underfoot as Shade dismounted. Only long years of experience kept his knees from buckling; he leaned on the horse for a moment before pushing away.

There would be time for fatigue later. Pulling a collapsible multi-tool out of his saddlebag, Shade unfolded it to reveal a hatchet. The blade was short but sharp, well-oiled and part of a seventeen-piece multi-tool developed centuries earlier by the Evendarian army. Such things were hard to find these days; Shade spent a year trying to track one down before a fellow Night Rider gave one to him.

Multi-tool in hand, Shade stalked towards the tree line. With the small hatchet, he started hacking branches off trees, sawing the large ones and cutting the smaller ones right off. He could have used his schiavona—she was sharp enough—but it felt wrong, so he only resorted to that when he ran out of easy-to-acquire branches.

Finally, he assembled enough wood to build a pyre large enough for the five bodies. Most of the wood was wet, which meant it wouldn’t burn well, but wood from deeper in the pocket of trees was drier, so Shade positioned that on top.

Returning to the grazing horses, he pulled each body off their backs, hauling them one by one to his makeshift pyre. Shade laid them side by side, careful to fold each venator’s hands over their chest. He contemplated the placement of the one removed head for a long moment before deciding he had not the energy nor the desire to remove four other heads. Should he burn their heads at their feet like traitors? Perhaps.

Were they traitors? Not under Olorian law, for sure, but Shade cared not for Olorian law. In an Evendarian court, assuming one still existed, a savvy lawyer would’ve argued that their actions didn’t properly constitute knowing treason...and Shade was tired of seeing his people turned against one another.

He hated this world. Hated what his nation had become, hated the Olorians who turned a once-proud people into animals fighting over scraps. Fifteen years ago, Evendarians would not have hunted Evendarians so openly, not at any price.

Now he had five of his countrymen to burn. Whether or not they deserved it, he would treat them with respect.

Returning to Vic, Shade pulled a firestarter out of his saddlebag. It was one of the few magic items he was willing to carry. Shade hated magic and didn’t care who knew it—but magic was useful for some things. It sure as shit beat standing there for an hour trying to get wet wood to light on fire, particularly with his limbs leaden and still soaking wet.

Shade glanced at the sky. That, and another storm was coming.

The firestarter was a brown stone about the size of his hand, polished and smooth. Shade didn’t know what kind of rock the thing was and didn’t care; he knew enough about magic to know that magic was based in the earth, and mages needed stones to work magic. A potent enough mage could magic a stone to work for anyone.

Shade had as little ability to use magic as your average Evendarian—which was to say none. But he could tap his fingers on the stone in the required pattern, touching it against the wet wood of the pyre. Sparks flew, and within moments, the fire raged.

The bodies caught quicker than the wet wood, which smoked profusely, filling the air with a musty, earthy smell. Shade resisted the urge to step back from the pyre. Instead, he tugged his hood up to cover his head, kissing his knuckles and offering that obeisance to the Lady by casting his hand away from his face, palm facing upwards.

For a proper funeral, there would not be mud and blood caked under his nails, and his clothes would be clean...but he would do what he could.

Glancing at the fire one more time, Shade bowed his head and spoke in the old tongue.

“Verenda Legata, vel quodcunque nomine mavis, mater, domina, et aperitor viae, tuam gratiam voluntatemque rogo ut venatores domum ad te ducas. Dona ei tuam clementiam et tuum lumen. Suum finis principium sit et Suum legatum dignum suae vitae sit.”

It was an old prayer, more complicated than the ones practiced today. But the words rolled off his lips as easily as they had in the days of his youth.

“Were you a priest?”