Bors quaked with fear, the pain in his shoulder blooming as her nails dug deep into his chin. Licking suddenly dry lips, he spoke in a croaking whisper, “I know, Mother. But for the moment, I ask that you please rest. I will call you forth the moment I—”

The form turned from him, causing his mouth to snap closed with an audible click. Her shawl fell to her mid-back. Her back, as pale as her face, rippled and danced with more muscles and sinew than Bors had ever seen in a woman her size. Her bare skin, the color of pale milk in the weak sunlight, took on a soft glow. She didn’t look back, yet her tone softened. “Very well, my bearer. Yet, I will have my payment.” Her hands stretched out. Dread squirmed through Bors’s belly. He knew what was coming next all too well, wanted to close his eyes to the macabre scene but knew he couldn’t. He had to be her witness.

Red mist started to ooze from the fallen bodies, the rills of mist merging into thicker and thicker streams of vermillion, swirling together toward her outstretched hands, settling on the arms and bare back of the specter of the Soul of the Mother. Bors felt the sword thrum more and more as it fed. After several heartbeats, he blinked and found himself alone. Mother was gone. The bodies of the Sharpteeth and Blue Hand merchants alike had changed from freshly slain corpses to shrunken, desiccated husks that didn’t look out of place in the vast stretches of the dead Northern Ocean. Bone and mummified flesh were the only remains of the Soul of the Mother’s price. One thing had changed with the bodies. All had shifted their eyeless skulls to toward Bors, many with one or both arms outstretched in an inviting gesture to join them in the afterlife, begging him to join them in their eternal rest. He thought he heard a whisper. “Join us, brother. Join us with Mother. Forever . . . Forever . . . Forever . . .”

For several heartbeats, the whispers grew louder and louder. Bors waited, closing his eyes until the whispers and echoes faded to nothing. It was like his dreams of late, since returning from his adventure with Tosh and gaining the Soul of the Mother. A field of dead, desiccated corpses, whispering for him to join them in the embrace of the Mother. “All bearers share this fate . . .” one whispered. “Join us, brother . . .”

Once the voices finally faded, he turned from the dead, able to shake off the dread of the macabre ritual of his sword. It grew easier with each battle to push off the horrors of what his sword did. As it does with killing, he thought with a grim shake. He shrugged on the last of the surviving water harnesses, took the last of the dwindling provisions that had survived the combat, and started walking away from the carnage toward the north and the vast, dead ocean that the Blue Hand had wished to cross. Continuing toward the polar caps and the sparse settlements, Bors hoped to find some solace there.

He didn’t turn south, for he had made a pledge to his brother Tosh to travel a year and a day away from Gods’ Home. Bors believed his journey north a better plan than to return so soon after setting out. He had food for a few days; with the rest of the caravan gone, it would last a week and a half. He’d find someone to trade and travel with within a day or so. Though it was not a well-traveled route, the Blue Hand would not be the only ones traveling to the polar towns for trade. It buoyed his confidence and helped him shake off the horrid things he left in his wake.