“Why did you stop me?” Alysia growled at Lynnabel. “Why did you make him give that ridiculous order?”

Lynnabel took a breath, held it, and let it out as a sigh. Her sister was tempestuous and ...impulsive about the things she liked and did not like.

If asked, the Whites would say, “It’s the Beast in the blood.” Really, her sister was just passionate. Everything she did came straight from her heart without reservation or restraint. If she did not demonstrate the aptitudes for Silver, then she likely would have been sent to live with the Blood. However, she’d shown no proclivities that the Blood shared.

“If I had not, then you would have done something that would have upset me as your sister.” Lynnabel replied calmly.

Alysia glared at her sister in silent response, demanding a further answer.

“I thought you might go renegade for him.” Lynnabel stated coolly.

Alysia’s angry face darkened to fury. “You think-” She began, spluttering. “That I would do such a thing?” She managed to choke out.

Lynnabel nodded. “You have been acting... strangely, of late. Therannia has not helped. You are ...” She tried for a diplomatic word and failed. “Dangerous.”

Alysia slugged Lynnabel as hard as she could.

Her sister staggered back from the blow, knowing her jaw was broken. Lynnabel spat out teeth that she knew would regrow overnight.

“So this is how it is, sister?” Lynnabel growled, and returned the blow with just as much power. Alysia sprawled in the dirt near the river, and struggled to her feet. She spat blood and chunks of teeth. A fistfight with plated gauntlets was brutal.

Alysia lunged at her sister, and they fell to the ground, pummeling each other as savagely as they could.

*****

Daveth crossed the Tems at Tannit, feeling a mild contempt for the two mercenary bands that made the city their home. They were about as deadly as old wolves that had lost their teeth. He could have traveled up the highway to Landeck, and taken the road that led west to Higgenfal, but instead he road through the low brush and trotted across meadows, slipped between trees.

It was a fine day for riding; the sky was spotless, the air clear. The forests were fragrant with the scents of pine and cedar. He had a vague idea of where he was going, and let the horse pick the trail. Near Higgenfal was a river, a branch that fed into the Tems. There was also a lake. Audra had told him of her village that was on the other side of the lake, a small elven town of perhaps three hundred people.

He wondered what he’d say to her family, as he rode. What he should say, what he shouldn’t say. He didn’t even know if she’d left on good terms with her family.

His days were simple: he rode; sometimes he walked through the forest. He didn’t have to lead his horse, it seemed to follow him easily enough. He shot wild animals and pulled up plants that Audra had pointed out to him; wild carrots, a particularly sharp onion and tossed them into his pot.

He muttered to himself as he cleaned the animals; he regarded the plants with suspicion until he ate them.

One night, as he was eating, there was a sense of something incomprehensibly massive heading his way. He couldn’t begin to apprehend its sheer size.

He frantically rolled away from the fire, kicking at it to scatter the embers. He tucked himself behind a tree, jerked out a crossbow and stuck a blade between his teeth.

Whatever you are, please remember I am very very small he thought to himself as he awaited his very imminent death.

The brush across from the scattered embers from his campfire rustled; he immediately fired the crossbow, tossed it aside, and yanked the blade from between his teeth. Audra’s death had killed him inside; Therannia had scarred his soul.

He was ready to die, but he would do it on his feet with a blade in his hand.

The man known to Daveth as Darius Trakker stepped out from the brush, holding the crossbow bolt.

“...wasn’t expecting that.” He remarked curiously.

Daveth leapt at him, the adrenaline turning to rage in a eyeblink. He hurted forward like a comet, arm low, ready for the thrust.

Darius looked up in surprise as Daveth reached for him with his free hand, and then twisted so that his grasping hand caught nothing but air. Daveth followed with the dagger powering forward in a violent thrust that would have punched through a horse, but Darius redirected the strike with a slap of his hand to Daveth’s wrist. He kicked Daveth’s feet out from underneath him.

Daveth bounced back to his feet as if he’d never hit the dirt and swung a massive broadsword that looked like a gigantic metal feather.

Darius leaped back from that with a shocked oath.

“Where the fuck did you get that?” He exclaimed, but tried to catch Daveth’s eye.

“You should know who it is by now, Daveth.” He commanded sternly, which forced the giant to come up short.

“You charlatan. The fuck are you doing here?” Daveth demanded.

Darius took off his floppy hat, revealing a bald head runneled with scars. He examined his hat, and then placed it firmly back on his head.

“Looking for you, actually.” Darius offered. “Care to build up the fire? I’ve got rabbit.” His robes shivered and a handful of cleaned and skinned coneys appeared at his feet as if by magic.

Daveth stepped backwards, the massive feather held loosely in his hand. Several coals crushed under his boots as he backed up.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake Daveth, calm down. I’m not here to kill you.” Darius muttered irritably. “Put that thing away so we can talk, like men.”

Daveth stuck the feather in the ground, where it sunk in like a blade, and gestured to the scattered embers. “As you will, monk.” Daveth offered.

“I am a monk, despite your... unswerving disbelief.” The man complained, using the edge of his slippers to shuffle the coals back into the firepit. He squatted and added kindling and sticks, and then brought out a long, thin wooden spike. “Light for me.”

The pile of kindling caught fire. Darius continued to add larger and larger sticks and branches until a good fire was lit.

“You gonna stand there like you’re trying to decide to take my head off, or you gonna help me with these hares?” Darius asked sternly.

Daveth let out a sigh and sat down across the fire. He sheathed the feather in his pouch deftly.

“That sword of yours... is something unique.” Darius muttered.

“What’re you doing here?” Daveth demanded.

Darius gave him a half-smile. “I’m heading northwest. I have business in Urthan. I plan to... find the highway that runs between Landeck and Aston and make my way along that.”

Daveth rolled his eyes. “I’m heading to a village near the highway.”

Darius grinned. “Seems like we’re trail-buddies for a while, then.”

The Continent of Hesperia was split in half by what the Anglish called the Tems, and what Nauders and the Merchant Cities called The Great Mother River. The Great Mother River was dotted with the Merchant Cities all the way down to Einsamkeit on the ocean coast. On the western coast of Hesperia was the massive capital of the Anglish Empire, the city of Darnell. The coast was dotted with coastal cities all the way up to Aston near the Urthan border. In between these two boundaries there were massive tracts of unexplored, unclaimed forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes where anything could be living.

Daveth and Darius made their way up through the forests, heading north. Just south of the Spine, a road ran from Aston to Landeck, with a number of small towns and cities along the way.

While they traveled, Darius tried to convince Daveth to throw away the feather-sword, gave him a letter he picked up in Begierde aimed at Aldric, argued about the survivability of Champions, Liches, talked about the nightmare of Therannia, eyed the Angel Queen’s armor while rubbing his mouth constantly, and vigorously sparred with the giant every night.

Darius eyed Daveth curiously. “So you’re on leave?”

The giant nodded. “One of-” He paused. “Audra died. I wanted to...” He shrugged. “Honestly, I was hoping her father’ll take up an axe and hack out my heart.” he shook his head. “She died a pointless death.”

Darius snorted. “You know, none of us are going to make it out alive.” Daveth blinked and his body tensed, on guard.

Darius rolled his eyes ostentatiously. “You don’t get it? Everyone dies, Daveth. Nobody’s going to make it out alive. It’s damned hard for Champions and Dragons to die, but they do die. Humans are no different. They’re born, they live their lives, they make babies, and they die. That’s how it is. That’s the Cycle.”

“Even liches?” Daveth asked.

Darius jolted a little. “You’ve run into one?”

“Nothulzoth the Interred.” Daveth replied. “I think we killed it.”

Darius shook his head. “Where’d you fight him?”

Daveth wiped grease from his beard with a rag. “Metzcal.”

“I fought him once, too, but I fought him in Toledo.” Darius answered with a lazy wave of his hand. “Liches are hard to kill, and he’s probably the most tenacious... but to answer your question: Yes. Even liches can die.” He gave Daveth a lopsided grin. “Even Gods die.”

They were silent for a bit, Daveth staring moodily into the fire.

“How’d she die?” Darius asked.

“Pointlessly.” Daveth shot back.

“No, really. Tell me about how she died.” Darius urged.

Daveth shook his head. “It’s a meaningless story.”

Darius cracked a grin on his weathered face. “Meaningless enough to think you need to die for it.”

“Ass.” Daveth replied, but sighed. “We were in Philippa- and yeah, Philippa was a bag of angry cats. There was one, though: The Angel Queen-”

“Angel?” Darius interjected.

Daveth nodded, shrugged, and scratched his head. “I don’t know if she was an angel.” he explained. Darius made a hand-cranking motion, and Daveth continued.

“We sort of accidentally knocked over one of her baronies. That was Audra. The fat bastard made some crack about elves ont having souls, so she shot him.”

“They do, you know.” Darius interjected.

“Huh?” Daveth asked, baffled.

“Elves have souls, just like humans.” darius encouraged.

“Everyone fucking knows that.” Daveth replied with an ostentatious eyeroll.

“Except for this baron.”

“-right. Audra drills him, then the baron’s mages come in and our riflemen open fire and for twenty fucking minutes it’s gunfire and screams.” Daveth replied, continuing his story. “Anyway, we’re like, ‘hey, no big deal’ and then we find out the Fat Bastard was in service to a woman that calls herself the Angel Queen.” He shook his head. “Who the fuck is the Angel Queen? She’s an immortal witch with fuckhuge wings that’s ruled there since just about forever.”

“Who told you that?” Darius asked.

“A couple Wolf Sisters.”

“Wolf... Sisters? Like... actual wolves?” Darius asked curiously.

Daveth shook his head. “They claim they’ve got Wolf beastman blood in their veins, but they mostly look human.”

“Furry? Ears, teeth, claws?” Darius asked, curiously. Daveth suddenly realized Darius was writing it down in a small notebook.

“No. Like I said, they mostly look human. Gold or silver eyes. Fangs. They wear plate armor and they’re wicked strong. They’re from an order, like a sorority: The Order of the Wolf. They told me about the Angel Queen. She’s immortal. She’s got wings. She used fire magic.”

Darius raised an eyebrow at this, but gestured.

“So you fought the Angel Queen.”

“Well, we set up camp outside of her territory, but she came anyway, looking for vengeance against her dead baron.”

“Of course.” Darius nodded sagely.

“I was with Aldric and we were talking about... troop dispositions or some equally inane shit when we hear Audra calling the scouts to shoot straight, so naturally we run out, and the Angel Queen blasts the street with fire.”

“And then?” Darius asked.

“Well, I tore the Angel Queen’s head off, rammed a spear up her ass, and stuck her body out as a warning not to fuck with us.”

Darius gestured, but Daveth shook his head. “That’s it.”

The monk frowned. “I don’t understand. When did Audra die?”

“When she- the Angel Queen- set the street on fire.” Daveth replied. “I thought I mentioned that.”

Darius shook his head. “You said she was shooting at the Angel Queen.”

Daveth frowned in thought. “She was. The scouts blasted her wings to bits, which made her land.” He paused in thought, rubbing his lips.

“She didn’t die a meaningless death, then. Without her, the Queen would never have landed, and you wouldn’t have been able to tear her head off.” Darius argued.

Daveth nodded. “Doesn’t change anything.” He muttered.

“I’d say that shooting down a fucking angel isn’t meaningless. It’s not pointless... especially when you tore her head off.” Darius paused. “I’m not convinced she was an angel.”

Daveth rolled his eyes at this. “I don’t think she was, either.”

“So, that wraps up that story. You still going to visit her family?” Darius asked.

Daveth nodded.

“Well, we’d best get some sleep, then.” Darius announced, and unrolled a bedroll he’d taken out from somewhere.

“You’re coming along?” Daveth asked skeptically.

“A little of the way. I’ve got some business towards Urthan. There’s a road nearby that runs to Aston.”

Daveth frowned at the mention of Urthan, and again when he realized he hadn’t actually told Darius where he was headed.

As they were settling down for the night, Darius asked him, “You ever hear of ‘The Empress’?”

“The empress of Angland? Yeah, I’ve heard of her.” Daveth replied.

“No, no, no. Not that silly bint. How about ‘The Songweaver’?” Darius replied, pointing his finger up at the sky.

“Mmm. I think so. Let me think about it a bit.” Daveth thought back. Songweaver? What was that? There was that girl with the horns... “Ilaria the Songweaver.” Daveth muttered. “A girl with horns said the name.”

“A girl with horns? A beastman?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Daveth replied. “She had a feeling about her...” Daveth shrugged and pulled out the long, sinuously curved dagger she’d given hin and handed it to Darius, who raised an eyebrow and handed it back.

“You’ve been to Yamato, then. An impressive feat. They don’t suffer humans on their lands... and the Oni even less.”

“No, I met her in Montesilvano. She was hunting someone.” Daveth mumbled as he struggled with sleep.

Darius chuckled a little. “Yes, she would be hunting someone, wouldn’t she?” He replied enigmatically.

Daveth fell into a troubled sleep while the stars whirled in a circle overhead, listening to the monk mutter to himself.

He felt strange, slick, chitinous hands spider up his back and a voice whispering malignant promises in his ear.

A woman with sapphire-like eyes, an imperious face and a tumble of black hair glared at him haughtily; he recognized her as Odessa, the woman that had been with Darius in the deserts of Bel-Arib.

A Yamato girl, vaguely familiar, put two fingers to her lips. As she did so, her eyes became lizardlike, and she blew a small jet of flame, igniting a candle. She sat back, satisfied with her work, as her eyes returned to normal.

Eleven spoke with someone he couldn’t see. “The Phoenix has left her nest, it seems.”

A fox with the light of madness carved in her eyes and heart frowned disapprovingly at him. “Your mind wanders far, Child of Man. Hasten yourself back to your body lest you die in your sleep.”

A woman with eyes the color of blood, without sclera or pupil played cat’s cradle with a strand of spiderweb. Seven moons whirled about her head. “I do not wish to fight you, but I will defend myself if provoked.”

The Matron of the Wolf Sisters shook her head. “It had to be done. The rules of our Order are absolute.”

A girl stood in front of him on some carpet. It looked as if she’d been dunked in a river. “You’re looking...” he started, and then smirked. “...moist, daughter.” He shrugged a little. “Are you well?” He asked.

His dreams spiraled, faces, people, places, monsters, friends and foe alike. He stood in front of a Paladin of the Anglish army. “Why does everyone think she’s an elf?” He pointed at a massive panther. “That’s an elf.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

*****

He awoke, cursed blade of the Orgus coming into his hand, swinging out and upward in a savage, panicked arc. Darius ducked away frrom the blade.

“That looks like it would be... painful.” the old monk observed.

“It’ll take your head off if you’re not careful.” Daveth warned.

“Oh, I’m nothing if not careful.” Darius replied. He eyed Daveth. “Where did you go?”

Daveth rolled to his feet. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Darius waved at the fire he’d kindled. “Breakfast?”

They continued traveling.

They passed a clearing, and Darius stopped to take his hat off. Daveth idled for a moment, confused why Darius would stop.

“This place was a killing ground... a long time ago. The Church of Angland couldn’t stand competitors.” His face twisted. “A number of perfectly ordinary people decided ‘You know, the Anglish Empire isn’t right for me. I believe in what it stands for, but I can’t stand the bureaucracy.” so they came out here and built a little community.”

“What happened?” Daveth asked.

Darius frowned at Daveth. “I told you. It was a killing ground.”

After paying his respects, Darius moved on. “There are a lot of places that are drenched in the blood of history. Just south of here, south of Tannit, there’s a valley... It holds a secret power. The echoes of a ritual performed there centuries ago echo there still. Parts of Darnell are uninhabitable; the screams of a dying goddess still hang in the air.” Darius rolled his eyes. “No matter what happens, someone will know that we lived here.”

Daveth frowned again, but said nothing. Darius frequently said cryptic things. Daveth collected them up and tried to figure out what they all meant.

“So what happened with Odessa?” Daveth asked as they traveled.

Darius frowned at Daveth. “How do you- Ah, right. Bel-Arib.” He fetched a deep sigh. “That woman is unbearable. Intolerable. We have never been able to see eye to eye.”

“Then why travel with her?” Daveth asked.

Darius shrugged. “Circumstances beyond control forced us together. Trust me, Kayelinth was a breeze compared to Odessa.”

Daveth frowned. “Who’s Kayelinth?” He pointed out a fallen log and powered over it with his gigantic horse while Darius went around it.

“Kayelinth was someone I knew from long ago. She was somewhat...” He trailed off, and chuckled. “She was a bit of a hedonist. As a monk I’ve forsworn the pleasures of the flesh, but I can understand her motivations. Odessa... is contentious, argumentative, arrogant... and even if she breaks the rules she’ll simply glare at you with that haughty gaze until you give up and let her have her way.”

The two of them traveled across hills, forded streams, and navigated forests until Darius pointed towards a lake. “You said the elven village was across the lake from Higgenfal, which means it’s in that direction. My path is that way.” Darius pointed in a different direction.

Daveth frowned at the monk. “You’re not going to tell me about... these things?” He gestured to the remains of skeletons that lay mostly buried in the soil.

Darius snorted. “Looks like mutants, to me. Someone did their job right.”

Daveth eyed the bones closer, and he had to agree with Darius’ guess. The bones were too long, were shaped oddly, and didn’t look like any particular animal or creature Daveth was familiar with. He eyed them a second time and aimed his horse towards the thin threads of smoke that were coming from the other side of the lake.

*****

The village was small, perhaps half the size of Andersnacht. A number of small buildings surrounding an inn with two stories. There was a small dock with a few small rowboats tied up.

Daveth rode past the fence, aware of every elven eye on him. In his defense, it was hard to miss him; he was seven feet tall on a horse sized to fit him comfortably. He towered over everyone.

He swung down from his horse and went to the inn, still aware of everyones’ eyes on him. Elven children playing in the dirt streets took one look at him and immediately vanished between the buildings.

An elven man approached him, a woodcutter’s axe resting against his shoulder.

“Help you, stranger?” He asked cautiously.

“S’pose.” Daveth replied. “I’m Daveth. I served with an elven girl that called this place home. Her name was Audra.” He paused. “I’m looking for her family.”

Daveth was led to a small house that he had to stoop to enter into, and even then, once inside, his head was dangerously close to scraping against the rafters.

Elves as a whole were slim and considered short by human standards, roughly five to five and a half feet tall, and their architecture took that in mind. Daveth was considered a giant among humans; among the diminutive elves, he was massive.

“We had to take the letter across the lake to Higgenfal to be read by the mayor there, since none of us can read...” Audra’s father began apologetically. “And it was something of a shock to see her body in the condition it was in.”

Daveth sighed and nodded at that. The Yamato had handled the corpses of the Seventh Seal troops after the fight with the Angel Queen, consecrating them, wrapping them in sheets, casting preservative magics so that they’d survive the long road home, but it didn’t change the fact that Audra had been immolated by the Angel Queen. No preservative magic could fix that.

“Could you... tell us the circumstances of how she came to be in such a state?” her father asked. His wife tended the contents of a pot suspended over a cookfire while a young elven girl watched over an elven toddler.

“It’s something I thought long and hard about as I made the trip up here from Tannit.” Daveth began. “I thought... I thought that... rather than telling you about how she died, I thought I should tell you how she lived with us, in the Seventh Seal.”

He told them of the day she’d signed on, how bright and cheerful she was. He told them how she’d assembled their scouts into a proper team before they’d even moved on to their second mission. How well she’d done her job; her courage and self-sacrifice.

Some elves didn’t react well to relationships with humans, so he left out that they were lovers, but maybe that came through as well.

He was introduced to Audra’s younger sister Aliya, who gave him a silent, cool gaze, and the toddler, Seira. He picked up the little girl, and she immediately grabbed his beard with both of her tiny fists and struggled to yank it out.

While Daveth absentmindedly allowed the little girl to tug and yank on his beard as if she needed to pull it off, he explained to them that without Audra’s help, all sorts of monstrous things would have killed the Seventh Seal, and how, in her final moments, she’d blasted the wings off of a flying mutant that would have burned them all to death.

“She grounded the mutant at the cost of her life... and I avenged her properly. She can rest easy in the Cycle.” he finished.

“It sounds like...” Her father began, but shook his head. “There’s not a lot of call for adventure here, and she was always a restless one. You gave her what she needed, and you took her to places ...we’ve never even heard of before.”

Faveth carefully disengaged Seira’s hands from his beard and gently set her down on the floor.

He stood up and went to one of the walls, and from his saddlebags began to pull out maps. He affixed the maps to the wall with pins, and then began explaining as he added extra pins and connected them with a thread.

“This is the continent of Hesperia. Your village is... roughly here.” He stuck a pin in the map and tied the thread to it. “She came to Tannit, which is here, and signed up with us. We moved south to Begierde, and then east to Doran,” He continued adding pins and connecting them with strings. He knew, in his head, that they’d traveled a great amount of distances, but as he explained and connected the dots, it truly dawned on him how far the Seventh Seal- and he and Audra- had traveled, and how big the world was. From Hesperia to Bel-Arib, from Bel-Arib to Nauders, from Nauders to Metzcal, From Metzcal to the Shaper’s land, from the Shaper’s land to the Tower of Cumorah, and then back to Tannit, back down the river to Einsamkeit and then to Philippa, from Philippa to- He stopped. She hadn’t survived Philippa. There, her story ended.

“You’ve given us a great gift.” Her mother praised, but Daveth shook his head. He fumbled out his money pouch and it dropped on the floor, spilling silver, gold, small gemstones and steel rods as thick as the pen Aldric used when he was doing paperwork, and as long as his finger. A fortune in money, enough money for twenty lifetimes, but still not enough to bring Audra back.

Suddenly Daveth couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry. I have to leave.” He muttered in a thick voice and left the elf-sized house, ignoring the pain as he smacked his head on the lintel of the doorframe.

He dashed to the inn, swung into the saddle of his horse, pivoted it around and dashed off.

Audra’s parents- he never even learned their names shouted at him and held up their toddler, but he couldn’t hear them. All he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears and the only thing he could feel was the dull ache in his heart as if it was made from lead.

He’d take the highway that ran from Aston to Landeck, and then head south from Landeck to Tannit. Technically it was longer than the cross country trip he’d made with Darius, but his horse was tireless and the road was well-maintained. It would be faster that way.

Maybe if he rode fast enough, he might forget the memories of Audra that haunted him.