“Why must you insult me so?” Lamar said with a furrowed brow as he sat in the back of Alric’s wagon. Judging from how he wasn't overwhelmed by pain, Alric could only assume that the Lacron knight had been drinking like a fish. “Put me out of my misery, Thestor. This is probably your fault. You told me not to wear my plate harness.”

His legs were both contained by an array of wooden splints, rope and tightly-packed wool to ensure that they wouldn't break any further. Kristantin’s only physician died in the battle against the ogre, so for the time being, Lamar would have to wait until they arrived at the Hospital of Saint Corren for a proper prognosis.

Alric heaved some more sacks of provisions onto the wagon, careful to ensure that they would not tumble onto Lamar’s already eviscerated legs. “All behold the great Sir Lamar De Montefon, reduced to a whimpering churl in the face of slight misfortune,” he teased.

Lamar’s face contorted. “Slight?! Well…I suppose you do have a point. I am still free to bed beautiful women; something that you cannot say. I will not require legs for that.”

“Intercourse is a frivolous pursuit, an unhealthy past-time that breeds only sin.”

“Spoken like a true celebate,” Lamar scoffed in response.

Alric walked around the wagon to Nocht and gave her a vigorous pat. He then grasped one of the reins and started to lead her towards the town gate. Several of the homeless townsfolk walked beside him carrying what little they had left.

“Good people, place your belongings in the cart with me,” called Lamar. “I shall guard them valiantly with what is left of my useless body.”

Smiles appeared on their faces. It brought Alric a bittersweet sense of joy.

They continued heaving their small baskets and sacks filled with personal effects onto the wagon as Alric led Nocht onward. The plaza before Kristantin’s gatehouse was filled with even more refugees and physically maimed. Several horses and mules tirelessly shook about, eager to start moving. Most people gathered were common folk while some were soldiers much too wounded to fight without immediate aid. Alric had used what little faerie tears he had left to keep at least a few footmen from having to leave the city, but they could not heal the more drastic injuries that had been sustained.

Katheryn was there, conversing with…the Mnem’non. Alric’s eyes narrowed. He eased Nocht to a halt then eagerly approached his sister.

There were four of them, so-called 'peaceful' Mnem’non forest dwellers. The druid that Katheryn was speaking to, a young woman, gave Alric a dismissive once over. Like the others of the tribe, her face was lathered with face paint; hers in particular was an earthy brown tone. The skin shell beneath it was a blue turquoise. A deep green cloak covered her body and a slightly darker cowl hung lowly upon her head. Assorted animal bones and other strange materials completely foreign to Alric had been laced across the shoulder of her cowl.

“What is the meaning of this? Why are there witches within the walls?” Alric called as he drew nearer.

Katheryn smacked her lips and glared at Alric. “Calm thyself.”

“I shall do no such thing. This wretched band showed thee only disrespect. They do not deserve hospitality.”

Katheryn crossed her arms. “Alric, please. Thou art not a fool; we are both aware it would be idiotic for thee to embark on this journey without an escort. I do not have any troops to spare, but this Mnem’non foraging group was to travel South-East regardless. Carthei is a friend of mine. She can be trusted.”

Alric sceptically glanced at the staff that the young woman, presumably Carthei, clenched tightly in her hand. “Why assist us in smiting the ogre?” he asked her bluntly.

Katheryn’s face was smoothed by shock. She might not have expected Alric to ask a question that she was curious about as well. Katheryn looked to Carthei, eager for the response.

“Ogres have always been abominations; any creature that only takes from the earth and does not return to it is an interloper in the cycle. They are not usually drawn to stone-walled cities. They dwell in the darkness, in the depths of the Under. You know this, Godslave.”

Hesitantly, Alric nodded. “Indeed.”

“The bloodcrazed fervour with which it thrashed before its demise is also without precedent. The Seers of my tribe believe this mania is an indication that a terrible crime against creation has been committed. The defiling of the kr’tesh.”

Alric was irritated to see that his sister clearly knew what this strange word meant.

Carthei, seeing the emptiness in Alric’s eyes, explained, “The kr’tesh is the body of water upon which all our souls are afloat. It binds together everything that exists on this plane, including beings undeserving of life like the ogres. However, there have been druids recorded throughout our annals who sought to harness the Unspeakable Arts to dip their hands into the kr’tesh. To command other living things against their will, control reality with but a wave of the hand…and to raise the dead.”

Alric’s eyes narrowed.

“As such, since it is a body of water, if someone casts their hand into the kr’tesh, the water will ripple outward…disturbing and displacing the other souls wading it. This wave tarnished the ogre's balance upon the kr'tesh and transformed it into an affront to existence.”

Alric rubbed his brow, eyes fixed on the castle battlements. I am always insulted by the primitive beliefs of savages…but what she has spoken does not contradict the Scripture. Necromancy is an affront to all of the Father’s creation…but is there perhaps even greater consequence to its use? Is the very fabric of existence at risk?

There was one final question the knight needed before he could somewhat trust this woman and her people. “Thou art not in league with the demonist necromancers who caused this imbalance?”

With a sigh, Katheryn rolled her eyes and ran a hand down her face.

Carthei shook her head. “No. The subjects of our worship have been spoken of long before this Devil of yours was written of.”

Alric shifted uncomfortably. “Not demonists, but heathens, then.”

Katheryn shoved Alric with one hand, eyes drilling into his skull.

Carthei raised a hand. “It’s quite alright.” She then turned to Alric. “Our faith does not deny the existence of your God. As a matter of fact, one of our verses states that there are infinite deities occupying the heavens, so one of them must be yours. How does that sound?”

“There is only one God,” Alric snapped sternly.

Katheryn and Carthei met eyes for a moment, and Katheryn visibly exhaled. Perhaps she was worried that her zealous brother would declare a crusade on the Mnem’non. “Give us a moment,” she said to Carthei.

The druid spun on her heels and paced back to the rest of her kin.

The Lady of Kristantin clasped her hands on the front of her belt and flexed her jaw. “Reinforcements came by way of Castle Rochester.”

Alric’s ears twitched. “Sir Olin of Eaglesham sent men to thee? He is a man of virtue.”

“His men spoke of what occurred at Tvatch. That a Knight Thestor ordered them to slaughter unarmed children,” she recounted dryly.

“Do not lecture me, Katheryn. They had been indoctrinated. Did they speak of the innocents impaled on the walls of the fort that I had to see committed to the earth one by one?”

“As a matter of fact, they certainly did not,” she conceded. Katheryn’s brow suddenly sharpened. “Humour me, brother. If only just for a moment. Ask thyself this; what if thou hath made an error? What then?”

“I did not,” Alric replied sternly.

“Ever the stubborn ponce. Speaking to thee is as productive as speaking to a wall.”

Sighing in the face of his sister's relentless attitude, Alric rested his left hand upon the hilt of his longsword.

Katheryn's eyes were beckoned by this motion, peering down at the weapon. A streak of bitterness permeated her mood. “If anything ever happens to that sword, I shall remove that empty head of thine and play ball with it.”

“Yes, engage in a silly peasant’s game with my remains. That will only prove that thou art a poor excuse for a lady. Consorting with pagans. Bah.” He scoffed and shook his head.

The pair embraced, filling the air with the sound of Alric’s plate armour clapping against itself. “Fop.”

“Harlot.”

Once Katheryn departed the plaza, all who were embarking to Phaemslake were ready to leave. Several of the folk who were too unwell to walk, namely the injured and infirm, joined Lamar on Alric’s wagon and the several other carts pulled by horses and mules. Alric once again grabbed Nocht’s reins just as a young mother and her daughter hurried out from the adjoining street.

“Oh thank God, I thought we were late," the woman said to herself.

Alric knelt as the child came closer. “What be thy name, little one?”

She shyly fiddled with her hands. “E-Emma, Brother Thestor.”

“Emma. Thou shalt have the prestigious duty of keeping Nocht company.” He gently lifted the girl and set her upon Nocht’s saddle. Emma’s face beamed as she gently ran her small hands against Nocht's neck, much to her approval.

Emma’s mother smiled.

They trailed out of Kristantin on the dirt road, passing through the gatehouse and under the raised portcullis.

The ogre remained where it fell outside the walls, much too large to be moved by any normal means. Half a dozen druids were pouring over the corpse, tearing it open and harvesting the innards. Portions of the thing’s pockmarked carapace had been wrenched free and thrown in a pile beside the corpse.

Unlike all Godborn life such as mankind and natural animals, ogres were not covered in meat. Instead, their bodies were a twisted cacophony of bone, shell, and arteries. It was this manner of composition that they shared with the valhnid and skeinar. For this reason, the Tritans had no use for the carcass of the beast. The Mnem’non, however, seemed to be revelling in the thing’s insides.

As the travelling group passed by, Alric watched as those carving the ogre gave Carthei and her companions a simple salute by holding a hand in front of their foreheads.

In time, the noise of the city and the ogre harvesters dwindled into nothing. Uneven terrain covered with mushrooms soon overlapped the deep green. The relatively flat forested areas around Kristantin were nowhere to be found, instead hills rose and fell with dangerous pitch and trees were incredibly rare on the horizon.

Lamar called to Alric, a very smug air to his voice, “Other more reasonable knights of Saint Thestus would only don their armour when they need it most, seeing as putting it on means being trapped inside it for hours on end. Some, I hear, opt for less than a full suit of plate for this very reason. Why are you so determined to walk yourself to joint failure, back problems, and aching muscles?”

“Those who look upon the Second Attestation with dread are not worthy of their standard,” Alric replied sternly. “It is an opportunity to prove to God that my devotion outweighs any physical cost.”

Carthei furrowed her brow as she looked about, scanning for danger. “It is wise. Not only do you gauge your faith with pain, but you are eternally vigilant. Such armour is not quick to don.”

Lamar squinted and tilted his head. He didn’t seem to expect the druid to understand…and quite frankly, neither did Alric. He gave the woman a confused stare. She looked back at him, meeting his eyes. He barked, almost in an effort to break the atmosphere, “Now, tell me of thy staff, druid. I wish to understand the nature of magic.”

“So you can better fight against it?” asked the woman, cocking her head inquisitively.

He nodded.

With a curt bow, Carthei obliged. “My staff is a tool, the same as your weapons. The key differences are that it is as old as time itself and it is alive, like you and I.”

Carthei tapped on the housing at the midpoint of her staff. She then folded a small compartment open. Inside was a cylindrical object the size of a clenched fist. A heart.

Alric froze. “B-Blood magic? Such a thing is…evil!”

“Your mind is narrow, Godslave. Far too narrow.” Carthei lowered her cowl as she clasped the staff shut. “For you, when something dies, it becomes refuse. Useless clutter to be tossed away or buried. The druid tribes find new uses for the dead so they are not simply garbage to fill our village yards. Our loved ones, our enemies, animals of the forest, they all serve us in death.”

Anyone close enough could see Alric’s fingers curl shut as Carthei spoke. He retorted, “Thou art showing great disrespect to the customs of the true faith.”

Lamar chuckled. “Easy, Brother Alric. I only hear the fair maiden speaking the truth,” he said, sending a wink Carthei’s way. “Yes, we do have rites and rituals to perform in order to save the spirit, but the bodies are left behind. What purpose do they serve in the ground but to be fodder for the valhnid? Too often do I witness townsfolk taking up arms to push the vulturous creatures away from their graveyards.”

Alric’s eyes settled upon Carthei’s staff. He had sent several of the things to the Nulentt University for study, but he had never beheld the mechanism for himself before. The sapping of a heart for magic…it strikes me as dark. Twisted. Demonic. But do we not rend the matter of God’s creatures to sustain ourselves?

“The power of the staff is finite, then. Eventually, a new heart must be inserted,” Alric surmised, changing the subject from his supposed disapproval.

“Indeed,” Carthei sang in reply. “There are many varieties. The one I carry, we call the thrysteen.”

Lamar adjusted his seating so he could better see the object. Some of the others in the wagon followed. As Alric inspected it further, he realised that he had seen its kind up close once before. The upper shaft was ribbed, but unlike those wielded by the heretics, a fine ashen spear with a tapered steel tip had been tightly fixed to the staff with lines of rope. The shaft of the spear had been seared where it pressed against the thrysteen, perhaps caused by how hot the weapon became when it projected magic bolts.

One of the few weaknesses of this black magic…or magic, rather, is that it is difficult to aim once the target has closed. A blade mounted upon it is quite clever, I must admit.

“I have witnessed the effect of this one. Terrifying instrument,” Alric warned. “It sends a bolt of starlight unto he who is unfortunate enough to be standing in its path.”

Emma was hypnotised by Alric’s words. “Then what?”

“Then…he is torn asunder,” said the knight fearfully.

Murmurs began to course around the wagon. One of the wounded soldiers nodded powerfully. The man’s arm had been badly cut, perhaps from an accidental friendly attack. “You all shoulda seen it yesterday. They made mincemeat of that ogre. Ain’t nothing else like it.”

Carthei smiled. “Quite right,” she said far too cheerfully for Alric’s liking.

Eventually, as the party continued, the grass turned black. Fields of what had been crops had been reduced to charred remains. They passed by hamlets on the horizon blackened by fire. Emma stared across the rubble, not appearing to understand what exactly she was looking at. Lamar and Alric gave each other a solemn look.

Apart from relieving your enemy of their territory by claiming it for yourself, another more devastating tactic was to simply destroy everything. Burn houses, spoil crops, slaughter peasants. Regions could be rendered completely useless; the inhabitants could no longer pay the rents owed to their lords nor produce food or goods. It would also have a secondary effect of undermining the trust of the peasantry in their lords; what good was a noble who swore to protect you in exchange for your service if he sat in a castle and allowed your village to burn to the ground? This was what the Lacron called a chevauchée…and it was a tactic employed in spades by the Tritans. It seems that the Lacron have taken the opportunity to practise it for themselves, Alric thought to himself.

Carthei and the other druid looked especially troubled by the destruction. Alric thought that perhaps living in isolation from the Ruled Kingdoms had sheltered most of the Mnem’non from the horrors of full-scale war. Carthei’s eyes wobbled as she saw bodies left where they fell in the debris. Lamar watched her regretfully.

“I abandoned the life of a noble knight for this reason among others,” Alric admitted quietly to Carthei. “Men of the same faith slaughtering each other is…an unfathomable waste. In my dreams I see all united against the true enemy. How peaceful the land would be.”

Carthei pulled her cowl back up over her head. “I think that you have simply traded one excuse for another. How many druids have you cut down believing them to be witches? How many true witches have you slain? The slaughter offered by your Church is not far removed from what we see here.” She then drifted away from the Thestor.

Foolish pagan. She is as blind as the rest of them. I shall take solace in the fact that my piety will grant me passage into Heaven, and her blasphemy shall condemn her to eternal suffering in Hell. When these rageful thoughts passed through his mind, some other notions took their place. He was taught that those who guided harmful magic, black magic, had attained such power through the Devil. Pagans living in solitude using sorcery as simple tools was not something covered by the tomes at Nulentt. Was it possible that they were wrong? Alric shook his head. Of course not.

For miles, the trail of scorched earth continued. Piles of wooden planks haphazardly thrown upon each other marked what Alric assumed used to be houses and other structures. Empty wagons stood immobile on the side of the road.

Much to the relief of the vigilant knight, the destruction slowly gave way to the Jagged Margin; the marbled grey mountain range that ran in a curve along the neck of Tritania. The natural marvel bowed in from the left, dipped where the road sliced up through it, and emerged once again on the right even taller.

Emma had her head pointed directly upward in order to gaze upon the crest of the summit. Nocht’s footfalls were heavy and slapped the dirt with such an impact that Alric could feel it resonating within his bones. A choir of these sounds, a collection for each man, woman, child, animal, and cart drawing across the countryside, painted the otherwise subdued soundscape.

It was not long before camp had been made. With the sun vanishing behind the line of the horizon, and the refugees physically taxed from the day of travel, it was clear that the time had come for rest. A particularly well-spaced clearing nestled by a handful of trees and pressed against the spine of the Margin was chosen by the Mnem’non.

Once the tents had been pitched, the beds laid out, the fire started, and the food dispensed, Alric found himself grateful for the company. As short-lived as it was, having Kent by his side helped convince the knight that he had grown much too accustomed to being alone.

With many of the refugees off to bed within the tents, Alric wandered off to a desolate corner of the grove with a heavily scuffed wooden chest in his arms and peered up at the sky. The first moon loomed over him with its splotched surface.

He dropped the chest onto the grass, lowered himself onto one knee, and spoke in a hushed tone;

“Mstl aun corunthum,

Io dter en mostera vin.

Alk’er vto jo ter mem,

Qon Dtil mi vo.”

As soon as the final word left his mouth, Alric could feel the immense weight of the Second Attestation lift itself from his shoulders. He then proceeded to disarm himself, starting with his gauntlets and untying his vambraces. After each piece was removed, he tossed it into the chest. His helmet soon followed, along with the padded coif beneath it.

“You could have asked for help.”

Alric jolted and shot his eyes towards the origin of the sound, upward.

Carthei lay on her side upon the limb of a tree that dangled above Alric, with her arm propping her head up.

With a frustrated sigh, Alric eased his posture and resumed the removal of his armour. He grunted as he struggled to reach the straps for his breastplate. They weren’t impossible to reach, just…awkward. “I have been disarming myself most days for the last five years. I believe I do not require assistance.”

“Of course,” she shrugged.

Alric thinned his lips. His breastplate snapped open and dropped onto the grass beneath him. Momentarily, it and all of the armour on his legs had been set into the chest as well. Alric slipped his Thestor surcoat back over his arming doublet and tied his belt back around his waist.

The rustling of grass caused both warriors to snap their heads towards the wood. Alric had his right hand fastened to the grip of his sword. With the grace of a cat, Carthei vaulted off the side of her branch and landed on her feet, thrysteen staff in hand.

A figure emerged from the shadow, running so urgently he was tripping over himself. It was one of the other Mnem’non. He anxiously looked to Carthei and barked something at her in their mother tongue.

Her face dropped. “Come, Godslave. Come quickly,” she urged.

The trio pushed fiercely through the forest, weaved in and out of immense trees, and mounted the base of a hill that overlooked the valley. The light of an inferno bathed the entire bowl of earth in a red sheen. As the campsite was embraced by the hill, this glow was obscured from it.

Leagues away, a thin shape floating in the air hurtled bolts of lightning down onto a dense formation of soldiers on the other side of the plain. The bolts exploded into washes of infinite flame, fanning out and consuming everything in its wake. The airborne shape slowly drifted forward as it continued raining hellfire down on the unidentified force of men. Its wings did not flap, instead the air beneath it shivered and boiled as if it were being subjected to immense heat.

“T-This cannot be,” Carthei muttered.

Alric’s eyes drifted downward and the tension in his face eased for a moment. He was frozen in epiphany. There is no Lacron chevauchée. The torched villages…the acres of land incinerated…it was all set ablaze by dragonfire.