A quiet unease settled over Stupan's Reach. The sun was perched in a blue sky and a mild spring breeze blew from the Feudom border to the south. But aside from the lowing of a distant herd beast, nothing stirred in the hamlet below besides Hetman Dejan Brkić's men. His mustaches bristled. For the better part of a fortnight he had led his handpicked soldiers from the Black Legion's Second Army through the backwoods of Kelentia. Six villages had ceased contact with Helodia for almost a season. With the roads now clear of winter snow and mud, the Hegemony's bureaucrats had grown anxious for the levies, wool, and raw recruits of southern Kelentia. Dispatched by Fifth Company command to investigate the half dozen settlements of the once loyal and prosperous region, Hetman Brkić was beginning to doubt tax rebels. The villages had been completely emptied of residents. Not dead. Just gone. Five villages where, from burdei to barn, common house to mill, life seemed to abruptly end. Pottage burned into cook pots. Animals left in the pastures. Hammers and tongs strewn upon benches and hoes discarded in half ploughed furrows. No bodies or fresh graves or evidence of hastily packed belongings. Five pastoral monuments as mysteriously devoid of their inhabitants as the Pathway of the Colossi. And Sergeant Zeslava Ćosić of the Aggressors was trudging up the hill with her great sword slung across her shoulders to tell Brkić what he already knew. Stupan's Reach was the sixth and final ghost town. The veteran soldier saluted the Hetman as she drew near, easing her blade to the ground so she could lean upon it. "Sir, it's the same as Sarorszag and Novkovo and the rest." Brkić's mustaches twitched. "And the symbols?" The sergeant nodded as she took a draught of water from her canteen. "They're there. On the lintels or sometimes at the base of the timber. Almost every building. And where we can't find it, we probably didn't look hard enough." The Hetman grunted. He was about to admonish his sergeant when she waved her hand off to the side. Brkić followed her raised hand to see another figure approaching, draped in heavy black cloth like an ill omen. Geier, the company surgeon, was coming up the other side of the hill from a barn just outside of town proper. "Mirna, report." The War Surgeon lifted the nose beak of her mask and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Dead ewe. Maybe a yearling. Slit along the belly with its guts pulled out. They used the blood to daub a rune on the wall. A two pronged fork pointing down. Rounded at the top. Sharp at the bottom. Nothing else amiss about the place except that it's only half mucked out. Like they stopped cleaning to kill the sheep." "What's caused this?" Brkić gestured broadly. The company surgeon looked down at her coat, vials of poisons, ointments, and tinctures clinking as she smoothed her hands along the thick black leather. "I don't know of any poxes or fevers or biles that can make a man disappear, let alone a village or half a dozen of them. I don't believe in superstitions but if you told me that half a county in southern Kelentia was sucked up into the sky one day I would have a hard time disputing it with science." Brkić’s mustaches fluttered as a curse escaped his lips. The better part of a fortnight and they were no closer to an answer. There were only more questions. "Record the runes in your journal. We will return them to Helodia and send copies to the House of Memories and the College of Magic in Arkhadja. Perhaps the scholars will discover what the soldiers could not--" "My Hetman," Brkić was cut off by the approach of his adjutant for the expedition, the young Corporal Bogdan Branković. The sandy haired youth raced up the hill to meet them, something in his hand. The young man was fresh out of officer training and eager to make an impression on his commander. He came to a stop half out of breath and held his hand in salute. Brkić let the lad linger at attention a moment too long, forcing his sergeant and surgeon to stifle their smirks. "Well? Out with it." "Report, sir!" Branković relaxed somewhat, and proffered up a worn ledger. "We found this while searching the magnate's offices. He must have been writing mid-sentence when--the quill was stabbed upright into the page." The corporal faltered a bit when no one seemed to follow. His face flushed as he caught his comrades' eyes but he held his composure and started again. "The magnate was writing an entry about a croft south of here used by local bandits--poachers that prowled the Wildwood of Estellän and looters trying to make forays across the border into the Fields of Mamoas. They had been plaguing the area for some time but he was writing, he wrote that they'd vanished some weeks before the final entry. No word of a fight or patrol that could have rousted them." "And you think that may be where this... phenomenon began?" The Hetman's words ruffled his mustaches. The corporal swallowed but held his ground. "It's the only lead we have left, sir. Otherwise, it's the same as the other villages. Nothing to report because there's nothing left." "A half league south is practically on the Feudom border. What do you think Duke Alban's retainers will make of the soldiers of the Black Legion marching towards his border?" Corporal Branković stiffened. "It's still our side of the border, sir. And if a Feudal dared cross it to interfere with the Hegemony's internal business, we'd toss them back over on their asses. Sir." The young officer's face flushed with ardent sentiment. Brkić knew that if he'd been given the choice, Bogdan would have taken assignment in Bakhalia to repel the Northern Tribes' invasion of Grjotgard. Bravery was a fine asset in an officer. Underestimating the foe, however, made it more of a liability. Yet it was their side of the border. And their only lead. The Hetman looked up at the sun as it approached its zenith. They could finish with Stupan's Reach and still make it to the suspicious croft before nightfall. "Very well, Corporal. I'll review the ledger. Gather up the men and build a bonfire. Put the village to the torch like the rest.” Brkić didn't need to explain his order, to warn the men to purge the strange carvings and blood painted runes so as deny whatever malevolent force that had taken the villagers some succor of its power. The Black Legion was content to follow orders. And no few superstitious hearts were eased with the cleansing flames. Branković saluted and was about to turn on his heel when Zeslava coughed and shot him a look. "Ah, one more thing my Hetman," he said, holding the salute again. "It is said that the mutton of this region is particularly tender. With all the untended sheep--a good meal would improve the company's morale after what we've... not seen." The Aggressor sergeant was all too quick to agree. "My uncle is from these parts. Loved to talk about how he hadn't had a lamb shank as good as the one he had on the day he left for Arkhadja," Her face darkened and her hand twisted around the grip of her sword. "He probably had some kin down this way. I hope we find someone at that croft who can tell us what happened here." "I can handle the slaughter and butchery," Mirna said softly before Brkić could object. "I've mostly finished my sketches. If they can spare me room for a spit by their bonfire I'll have it roasted before they've finished with the town." But for her skill with sutures and saws, Mirna Geier would have excelled as a quartermaster. Seeing himself outnumbered and outflanked, Hetman Brkić grunted his assent. His senior staff snapped off crisp salutes and marched off to ease their misgivings with fire. ~ Thick black smoke filled the air for miles after Stupan's Reach. The wet spring wood burned heavy and thick, shrouding them as they marched through the Estellän Wood. The forest seemed to shake with the footfall of the legion–their clanking curaisses, scabbards banging on legs, muttered curses as they trudged through the thick undergrowth that had sprung up between the trees. The late day birdsong was smothered along with Stupan's Reach. Any fragrance of new growth cut with the tang of acrid soot. It seemed as if they were marching out of Kelentia into a liminal territory, not the border between the Hegemony of Embersig and Kingdom of Feudom but the threshold between waking and dreams. As they went deeper it became clear that the forest had taken a nightmare turn. For every tree in bloom they saw the were four more unleafed, their bark riven and sloughed, bulbous cankers warping the growth, which seemed to end not with verdure but in jagged pillars, like long crooked teeth in the open maw of some dread creature. The ferns and foliage gave way to dead leaves and clusters of brown fungus which crunched underfoot as the Fifth Company advanced under the stern gaze of their Hetman. Even the air had changed, smoke fading into a mist without moisture like a desiccated cloud impaled on the withered limbs of dead trees, the haze tinged red from the retreating sun. Zeslava saw the croft first, hefting her blade over her shoulder and pointing towards a distant silhouette just beyond a clearing. The company came to a halt. Sound seemed to return for a moment. First a breeze. Next the gentle lapping of the waves of a nearby lake. Then the sloshing, soppering sound of something–some things–emerging from the lake. More silhouettes appeared in the distance, hunched and lumbering but man shaped. Corporal Branković broke their mute disbelief. "My Hetman, you should take the Bulwarks as an escort. Zeslava and I can lead the Aggressors to an advanced position while you and the Bucklermen seize the flanks." "Bogdan, I already have an escort," Hetman Brkić patted the pistol in his belt. "Take the Bulwarks and hold the center. Zeslava will lead her Aggressors as the hammer to your anvil. Mirna and the Bucklermen will act as support. This croft is Hegemony territory. The native soil of Kelentia. We will not yield to any foe." "Aye, my Hetman. Rodaz! Form the men around me and prepare for an advance. Ranseurs towards the enemy." With his orders given, Dejan Brkić's mustaches parted into something of a smile as he raised his falchion and commanded his soldiers to charge. ~ The Dyers had kept their word, leaving the offering by the shoreline for her small but growing family to claim. The Architect's Breath had started to roll in, covering their emergence from the lake. But the gifts of the most Fog-touched of her brethren were never simple. Or freely given. "In-ter-lo-pers," Saimer wheezed as he leveled his scythe towards the distant shapes marching towards the shoreline. Vanth-Ondaz, the Echo of What Is To Come, smiled beneath her mask. Even after all these decades, her consort continued to impress her with his multi-syllabic renderings. She looked along the shore to see the regimented lines of men approaching the lake. Maghar. The word echoed from the depths of her memory. But where are their horses? Their weapons and armor clanged as they marched towards her family, like the bells that the children of a Sculptor’s family often wear. Her smile twisted into a sneer. Even at the pinnacle of their power, they are mere herd beasts. Domesticated, having traded their freedom for a pasture, mistaking their servility for safety. Saimer gurgled next to her as a growl slithered through his rotten vocal cords. Vanth-Ondaz reached out with her second left hand and stroked the simple mask he wore, a vanity to hide the grotesque and festering meat underneath. "Worry not, my pet. Think of them as... future children. Once we have liberated the flesh from its mortal concerns, they will become just another part of the family." ~ “Steady,” Corporal Branković cried out as much for himself as his soldiers. “Hold steady!” The first wave had been men, once. Clad in worn gambesons and tattered cloaks, they looked like the poachers and looters that once called this croft their hideout. Something had happened to them in the depths of the Estellän Wood. Gaunt faced and glassy eyed, their skin pocked with dozens of small rotting wounds. They lumbered forward with jerky movements as if pulled along by strings, black tar seeping from every orifice. Branković had ordered them to halt, but they instead charged his Bulwarks, smashing into their heavy shields with rusted swords and broken bows in a demented flurry. The heavily armored legionaries held their ground, using their tower shields in close formation to repel the frenzy of the twisted men. They counterattacked with discipline, spearing their polearms into the torsos of the mob. Yet the enemy remained upright and unfazed, only beaten back by the tenacity of the Bulwarks’ defense. As they pulled their ranseurs free of the rebuffed bandits, a sticky black ichor coated the blades. “Bastards won’t die right,” Rodaz muttered next to him. “Hold positions!” Bogdan shouted, letting his words smother the unease growing in the ranks. “Rank up and prepare for another charge. We hold the line!” He took his own buckler and slotted it between Rodaz and Gintautas’s great shields, hefting his falchion up to rally the soldiers. Then the second wave came, a tangle of flesh and limbs seeming sewn together by the same black tar that oozed from the poachers, but rather than bind the muscle and organs taut it continued to flow through sinew and bone, over rotten skin and beneath the roiling orb of energy that hovered where a head might have gone. Bogdan felt the bile rise in his throat, the memory of fresh roasted lamb shank curdling in his stomach. The creature, if it might be called that–more a motley of corpse parts than a coherent thing–bounded towards them in a stampede of mismatched limbs, leaving puddles of dark sludge in its wake. It clattered into their shields like a thunderstorm, like a startled Togrul taking flight, like the fury of a leviathan as it cracked the hull of the ship to drag forlorn the sailors down into a murky death. Whatever Bogdan might have said to assure his soldiers was drowned out by the battering of claws upon shield. The sheer bulk of the thing threatened to fracture their line, the blows against his own buckler rattling in the back of his teeth as skeletal hands scrabbled over the rim, swiping at his face while another talon tried to tear the shield from his grasp. The Bulwarks responded with desperate thrusts of their ranseurs, the polearms seeking any purchase on the beast. But what could be vital or vulnerable between the exposed bone and suppurating meat of a faceless creature? Spear tips pierced its withered skin only to cause more black tar to weep from its wounds, coagulating into dark scabs that neither pained nor slowed the frenzy of stitched together corpses. The Bulwarks barely held. The shambling poachers and their black blood had unsettled them, but they were man sized things that could be cut down with discipline and persistence. But this creature was a thing beyond their ken, parts out of order, impervious to their blows, stinking of fetid rot and flowing with forbidden magicks that would have blanched even the most heartless of Aides. As it flailed upon them it shed black tar like a dog shed fleas. Bogdan’s skin crawled and he could feel the composure of his soldiers starting to reel like a horse about to buck. “Soldiers of the Black Legion,” Hetman Brkić’s voice boomed above the din, “Our strength comes from neither blade nor shield nor the nikkrom alloys that armor on your chests, but from spines of steel and the privilege of serving the will of the Hegemon. Let no backwood rabble or foul beast turn your hearts from their duty and honor. For Embersig! For Gabor Vinyadi!” Bogdan could not be sure whether the exhortation of their Hetman calmed the Bulwarks or put the fear of dishonor ahead of the fear of the creature. But the Black Legion held the line. ~ Hetman Brkić surveyed his soldiers in the dying light of a cursed day. Despite the rawness of his adjutant, Corporal Branković and his Bulwarks held the center of the field between a copse of trees and the half fallen perimeter wall of the croft. Drawing the focus of several husks and the golem allowed Zeslava and Mirna to lead their units along the flank in preparation of a swing charge that would smash the enemy–if their nerve would hold long enough to engage. Dejan’s eyes scanned the shoreline. Through the fog he could count more shambling silhouettes, some close enough to recognize as peasants, both Kelentian and Feudal in origin, as well the more exotic shapes of Orc and Elf and Varank and some whose armor he could not place among the nations of Lindwurm. To counter the Black Legion’s tactical superiority, one mob was on a slow march to out maneuver the Bulwarks and catch them from behind. He gritted his teeth. Though these creatures themselves were mindless, the Hetman recognized the dark intelligence behind them. The red tinged fog, the black tar and twisted magics that could compel the dead to walk again–he had enough years in the field to recognize the signs of an ancient foe whose very idol made even the Rector of the College of Magic shudder with fear. Yaldaboath. The evidence of the dark-minded had closed on him like a trap. Missing peasants, strange glyphs, the dark wooded places that even a Sÿenann wouldn't dare. Brkić wished, not for the first time, that he had a Frostfire Herald with him. Wished that he hadn’t sent the Pioneers back after Novkovo to deliver their initial report. Wished even that he had accepted the offer of the purported Aide from the Third Auxiliary who delivered the orders to investigate, her orichalcum signet ring glinting in the candle light of his office. Perhaps Brkić had been a fool to refuse the Aestari, but there was something about the elf, the way she seemed to know so much and share so little, armed with introductions that opened doors and commanded favors that not even a Hetman of the Black Legion could expect… Dejan had always preferred the enemy to the front of his line rather than at his back. It was an instinct that had served him well, or so he had thought. From the other side of the wall section a figure strode into view. An elf, perhaps, haloed with the Yaldaboath glyph forged from tarnished metal, held aloft by thick strands of pure tinge. It glowered at Brkić from behind a smooth mask, its wet robes hanging limp around it like the dead banner of a lost empire. “I’ll see you to hell, abomination,” his mustaches twitched. Brkić was reaching for his pistol before it even raised its scythe. Too late, of course, for to be seen by this monster was to be slaughtered. It moved impossibly fast. As it swung its blade it caught the light of some moon on the reaping edge. A Feudal would have recognized which one. Hetman Dejan Brkić only hoped that his shot would find its mark first. ~ “To arms! Rally to the Hetman! Sell your lives dear!” Zeslava cried to her Aggressors as she broke into a run towards the crumpled form of Brkić. She had watched the scythe draw back. She had heard the thunder of his pistol shot. She knew in her bones what it meant for that elf to be standing while their commander lay still at its feet. But where training and tactics reached their limit, hope and courage prevailed. She leapt out ahead of her soldiers who struggled to keep pace, her great sword poised to strike a blow mighty enough to fell a tree. The elf turned and watched as they charged him like boulders rolling down a mountain. An avalanche of anger. An eruption of vengeance. The damned elf was fast. Their great swords whistled through the air as it danced through their slashing blades, swinging its own scythe in a riposte that cleaved Kurt in twain at the waist in a single blow. As they reeled from their companion’s sudden death, the elf attacked them in earnest, paring one of Micaslaw’s arms at the shoulder and burying the scythe in Daša’s chest. As it plucked the reaping blade from her corpse, it turned towards Sergeant Ćosić and dared her to step forward. Zeslava dropped into the ox guard and the two began to circle one another, sizing each other up for a weakness. The elf looked shriveled, its peeling skin taut over its ribs to the point of cracking, its rangy arms dripping with black tar and seemingly ill-fitted to heft the heavy blade in its hands. But it moved with an unnatural grace stepping between the dead and screaming wounded with preternatural ease as it locked her gaze. She tested its measure with a half thrust but the elf didn’t flinch. Its sodden robes, muddied and now freshly blood spattered, hung limp as it circled her. No feint seemed to tease an opening. She committed with a half-hew aimed for its head. The elf caught her blow on the chine of the mower and pushed her strike wide, countering with a strike of the butt of the snathe to Zeslava’s midsection. Her cuirass absorbed most of the blow though it still almost doubled her over. A high pitched whistle split the air as the elf followed up with a killing blow. Sergeant Ćosić stumbled back just in time to escape the arc of his retribution. Something gurgled and she wondered if she had been slashed or if one of the wounded were trying to warn her. Zeslava’s eyes quickly scanned the ground before fixing on the elf again. The noise was coming from behind its mask. She wondered what words this corruption could offer until the realization struck her like a blade to the chest–it was laughing. A fool. It thought her a fool. Her comrades were dead and dying at its hands and she still held her ground in a fight that she couldn’t possibly win. The elf didn’t need to speak in her tongue to convey its contempt. The way its dead robes rustled as its frail chest shook was enough to betray its glee. If it thought she was a fool, she’d give the bastard a fool. Zeslava let her sword fall to her side. “Well, come on then. Time to reap what you’ve sown.” The elf became dead still. It held out the scythe and with a casual sweep of the blade it ended Micaslaw’s groans before snapping it back suddenly into a two-handed guard, flicking the blood from its tally across the grass. It then marched towards Zeslava at a measured pace before breaking into a full sprint. She held her ground, sword almost touching the ground, eyes locked on its blank mask. Its shoulders twisted as it wound up to cut down the last remaining Aggressor. At the last moment Zeslava pivoted with her weak foot and stepped with the arc of the elf’s scythe, raising her great sword in a quick under-hew that cut the elf at wrist and tang of the mower and swinging the blade around her head to deal the second blow at the back of the neck, severing the head from the elf’s body and it hurtled past her. The broken scythe blade whipped past her in a broken arc, raking across her cuirass and biting deep into the metal. A warmth bloomed across her ribs that staggered her, but it was no matter. The elf was done. A terrible keening pierced the sky, like a blade scoring glass. Zeslava fell to her knees and clapped her hands over her ears. She twisted her head towards the cry only to see hands scrabbling over the crumbling wall. A pair at first. Then a dozen. Lifting up a twisted mass of stitched together bodies with a floating orb of heatless fire where the face should be. The thing pounced towards her. She snatched up her sword just in time to deflect the first blow, twisting into a guard position and trying not to stumble backwards again as she fended off its snatching claws with hard parries and quick blows. Yet each time she struck its mass with her blade or lopped off an arm, black ooze weeped from its wounds to harden into something stronger, more terrifying than the simple tangle of half rotten corpses. Zeslava choked on the smell of it, stagnant water mingled with rancid sweetness. Memories of the slaughtered lamb flooded her. The frightened bleating. Mirna butchering with quick, precise strokes. Hocks turning on the spit as flame licked the charring meat. The the orb seemed to leer with hunger, not for the flesh, not precisely. The strange countenance of the thing seared itself into her mind. It burned along her scalp and shivered down her back. It reached for her again and she understood. It did not crave her life or death. Only union. She hacked the offending appendage off before turning and fleeing back towards the woods. Better to be damned as a coward than absorbed into that grotesque. ~ Vanth-Ondaz howled and even the trees shuddered before her wrath. Bark peeled and the boughs shattered into a rain of splinters. She could feel as they felt. From the lowest husk to the transcended Faceless–every slash, every barb, every wound, though bound and blessed by Tinge, stung as if it had pricked her own flesh. Even so, the Vanth-Ondaz could abide these affronts. Such was the burden of a Weaver. To surrender the illusion of self and embrace the gift and burden of multitudes. To craft from what is discarded. To transcend the spectre of death itself and thus hold their art in the fine balance between made and unmade, that which was and all it could become. The narrowmindedness of humans could never grasp the sublime beauty of the Father-Mother's disciplines. They react in fear and fear is cured with knowledge, not hate. Thus, it was better to dispense quick forgiveness to the beknighted creatures and to raise them up from their low station into penance paid with eternal service to the Architect's followers than to bemoan their violent outbursts. But the wretched man-things had not just befouled her domain and brutalized her creations, they had desecrated poor Saimer. Vanth-Ondaz swept past the soldier-things towards her fallen consort, the Faceless chasing off his attackers. She picked up his still masked head in her first arms while her great arms cradled his broken body. She could see his pleading eyes from behind his mask. Feel his disjointed jaws as he tried to conjure words from his bisected throat. “Bar… barbar…” “Shh,” she rocked him gently, dipping a hand into Tinge that welled around her and daubing it on both ends of the severed neck. The dark purulence was like dough in her hands, forming a black fibrin as it stretched between her fingers. “Save your curses for these ill-bred vulgarians, my sweet. Pannonica will help stitch you back together. Stronger than before.” One of the fingers of Saimer’s remaining hand twitched. “Yes, yes. We will cull the impudent Maghar and heathen Widhta and remind them of their rightful place–on their knees and at the feet of the favored servants of the Aster and true disciples of Yaldaboath. But not today. We are meant to ascend together, my sweet. And we cannot do that if you fall to pieces in a rage.” She stroked Saimer gently and whispered the glories that were to come as they awaited the arrival of the Needle. The Architect’s Breath swelled around them, blotting out the obscenity that was the humans. It would give cover to their retreat, aided by a few husks that hurled themselves into the desperate blades of the Embersigians. It was not a victory. Nor a defeat. Merely a delay. A glorious return to Semyzza was coming. The Withered Step had promised and Vanth-Ondaz would not be denied again. ~ They saw strange things in the Fog. Blasted nightmares that no man was meant to see. Illusory, perhaps, but also somehow tangible. The cries of things that were not birds rang in their ears. The smell of rot that was not dead suffused the air. The lapping of the waves surged before ebbing into a mere shush of a lake shore returning to sleep. What Bogdan could not perceive, however, was the rest of the company. They, along with the enemy, seemed to melt into the red threaded mist, evaporating like the memories of an ale soaked night into a morning hangover. Rodaz and his Bulwarks were still with the corporal. They flanked him with ranseurs at the ready until they were more than sure that the shambling corpses would not return. “Strike a torch, Rodaz. We need to signal the rest of the company.” The lead Bulwark hesitated for a moment before stowing his polearm and taking a stave from one of their supply packs. He quickly wrapped it in a strip of fat soaked tow. It took but a few strikes of the flint to light the wick. The sudden smell of lamb made Bogdan gag. Another reason to miss the Ghents’ lamps. Rodaz lifted the torch aloft and the Fog around them seemed to refract and contort in the light, as if they were no longer between the edge of the wood and the ruined croft but in some pocket of space that stretched without horizon into an eternity. A screaming wind threaded the splintered trunks and guttered the torch, threatening to plunge them back into darkness. Corporal Branković sucked in a breath, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword. When the torch spurt back to life they were in the Wildwood of Estellän, at the sight of the battle, surrounded by dead trees and broken walls. All was quiet. Bogdan looked around once more for evidence of either comrade or foe and found nothing save large furrowed tracks that slithered into the woods. He crouched near the gouged earth. In the center of the trenches, tiny rivulets of black tar gathered. “We have to find the others,” he muttered. Then, standing– ”My hetman!” “Are you mad?” Gintautas hissed before remembering himself. “I, uh, sir. There could be enemy still in the woods. Our position.” Rodaz stepped between the corporal and the soldier as Brankovic took a step towards the man. “What Legionnaire Gintautas meant to say, sir, is that not all caution is cowardice.” “Corporal Branković?” A husky voice called from the Fog. Feminine, but rough. Muffled. They grabbed their weapons and hefted their shields. Rodaz held the torch defensively. Bogdan held up a hand. “Who goes there?” The torchlight caught a shrouded figure approaching with more dark shapes waiting in the wings. She stepped forward into the light, lifting the mask from her face and wiping her brow. “War Surgeon Mirna Geier, reporting,” she gave a half hearted salute. “Mirna. Glad we’re not the only ones. You and the Bucklermen faired well?” Bogdan offered her his canteen. The company surgeon took it and quaffed some water before handing it back. Behind her, the shapes in the mist formed into Lind’s unit. They seemed wary but unwounded. “If you call cutting down Husks in knee deep pond scum fairing well, then I suppose we did.” “You’ve seen these things before?” “So I have. Dead men and worse brought back through dark magic. The type of sorcery that would make an Apaster shit himself so bad that the Periaster would feel it in her skirts. Tinge for the sake of Tinge.” The young corporal shook his head. “I don’t understand.” “No sane person does, really. And the dead that come back, mind you, aren’t really returned. They’re vessels for another’s will. Usually some moons-addled elf with delusions of grandeur. You don’t see that kind of thing except on the far frontiers,” the surgeon paused thoughtfully, as if seeing the forest for the first time. “Well, here we are.” A vision flashed before him of a figure, hooded and masked, screaming as they rose from the earth. Wrath and mourning. Sorrow and threat. In a blink it was gone. “Hetman Brkić? Zeslava’s Aggressors?” Bogdan spit the words out as he remembered them, not really as questions so much as exclamations. It was the War Surgeon’s turn to shake her head. “We wandered in the dark for… a while. Lind thought she saw some bodies several yards back. We dare not approach in case they were the enemy lying in ambush, but it was close enough to hear you shout…” They let the words linger in the air, the silence saying what they would not. After a moment, Geier cleared her throat. “If Legionnaire Rodaz would be so kind as to lend us another torch, I’ll assemble a detail. We’ll tend to who we can and recover those who gave their all for the Hegemony.” Bogdan hesitated for a moment as if there was another who might speak. But there was not. So he gave the order that was now his to give. “No more than an hour, Mirna. Rodaz and the Bulwarks will set a picket but I cannot risk us in these woods any longer than that.” “And where are we going after that? Stupan’s Reach is cinders now.” Bogdan looked along the furroughs. They still had no answers but, at least, they had a trail. “We’re going west, Mirna. We’ll make camp at the first defensible site. Move quickly. I don’t want to find out what happens to those who tarry in this Fog.”
