Wheel of Time MUD

Chapter Sixteen
“Power is not ownership; it is stewardship. To wield it without responsibility is not freedom, but slavery to one’s own appetite.” Excerpt, Chapter 2, Philosophy of Natures and Power. Scholar Elan Morin Tedronai. Year unknown.

The next week on the road passed in uneasy quiet. Each of them carried their own ghosts from the Sleepless House, and every mile seemed to stretch the silence thinner. For Jena, her body slowly mended, but her mind still struggled to adapt to the events of the Sleepless House.

Each night, when they made camp, Lord Inquisitor summoned her for what he called a debrief. But for Jena it felt like a cross between a trial and an inquisition.

Lord Inquisitor questioned Jena carefully, making her repeat her tale in the Sleepless Mansion. His gaze was unreadable. His usual lazy amusement was gone, replaced by the cold gleam of a dissecting blade. This was her first experience with a true Questioning.

He did not move, except the constant clicking of his finger-armor, the noise hanging over Jena’s neck like a swinging guillotine.

“How can you not remember more?” Lord Inquisitor’s eyes were unblinking.

“It do be hard to put memories into words. They do blur together ” Yet he did not pause his impossible demand, and he continued to force her to recite over and over, drawing out the finest details that she did not even realize she remembered, peeling the memories back like old bandages.

While Lord Inquisitor crawled over her memory with a fine-tooth comb, it was regarding the end of the battle that he took the most interest.

“What happened after you stabbed the witch?” Lord Inquisitor asked again.

Jena swallowed. “All my strength do left me. I blacked out until I woke up here.”

His eyes didn’t leave her face. “No. Again. No summaries. Every detail. Don’t leave out the small things. Walk me through it.”

“I was on the table—it was knocked over, and the jolt… stirred me. Shrike do be in my hand, as if it wanted to be there. I could barely move, steering my arms like they were dangling on strings. The room was in flames. I couldn’t see you. But I saw the Lord Knight in the air—dying, crushed, bleeding. And… and she was there. Right in front of me. Her back to me. Vulnerable.”

“You were near death.” he asked, his voice quieter now. “What pulled you up when your body was finished?”

“I don’t know. Instinct. Shrike found my hand somehow. I stabbed her. I hoped but knew it wasn’t a killing blow. But it was all I had. And then I couldn’t see or move. But, I felt… peace.”

His eyes narrowed. “Peace. In that place?”

She faltered. “…Yes.”

“And then?”

There was a weight in the question, as though he was asking about more than just a sequence of events.

“I—” She frowned, pressing at the fog in her mind. “There do be … a feeling. Urgency. Heat. Light, maybe. Then nothing. I woke up outside.”
Lord Inquisitor leaned forward slightly. “Describe the light.”

She blinked. “I’m not sure it was light. Not the kind you see. There do be an almost painful heat. It was more like—” she broke off, unsettled. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” he said. “Again.”

And she did. Again and again, a dozen times over the next hour, he pulled the memory apart, made her circle back, made her scrape at the edges for anything she’d missed. His questions needled at her brain, making her itch to remember, to give him something. She didn’t know what he was looking for—only that he would not stop until he found it.

Eventually he leaned back, apparently satisfied. It felt like an eternity to Jena, she could feel her back soaked in cold sweat. But it seemed to be over. Lord Inquisitor had shifted again, returning to his mask of careless detachment. The transition itself was terrifying—how easily the predator became a jester again.

After the first interview, Jena thought that Lord Inquisitor was done but he made her sit again the next night. And the third night. And the questions seemed to be always the same. It almost seemed to become a routine to a point where Jena rattled off her answer as if memorized. She had gotten comfortable in the Lord Inquisitor's gaze. That is until the fourth night.

“And did you notice anything about Meria’s face before you struck her?” He asked, the first time diverting from his script.

Jena went to answer automatically, when something inside her seized her jaw and froze it for just a second. She had gotten too comfortable. A bead of cold sweat formed on her neck. She had never mentioned Meria’s name to him before– had she? It was possible Lord Inquisitor had learned it while Jena was unconscious, but in that case, wouldn’t Lord Knight know the name as well? Lord Knight had warned her to not let Lord Inquisitor know about the Lady’s memories, and his word held a dire truth. But then how would Lord Inquisitor know? Jena felt like she was caught in a badger trap.

Lord Inquisitor looked inscrutable, offering no clues about the nature of this deviation. But somehow Jena’s lips moved, hiding the rattling of her heart. “Meria do be the Lady’s name?”

The questioner simply nodded without a blink or a gesture. Jena felt an ominous aura settle around Lord Inquisitor, and yet the interview flowed forward again as if practiced. And that seemed to be the last night of questioning. She felt as if a balance had slipped. Either she had passed an unknown test, or she had fully stepped in the snare.

But such was the relationship that Jena had developed with the Lords. Though she had some experience with their presence, it was still like living on a dangerous edge. She could sense the darkness of their presence, and had seen personally the violence they were capable of. She had no doubt that to them, she was still ultimately a disposable tool. To be used and to be cast away at the earliest inconvenience.

After the darkhounds and the Sleepless House and her near death experience, she could feel the rational part of her telling her to just abandon this clearly suicidal quest. And yet she knew that her personal fate was tied up to this pair of men fundamentally as broken as her. There was never going to be a return to Troias. She was too changed.

Yet Jena could sense a shift in her relationship with the Lords since Sleepless. She could sense a tenseness with Lord Inquisitor despite the completion of the interviews and the keeping of her secret.

She wanted a return to before. She had considered giving her precious knife Shrike to Lord Inquisitor. His armament was depleted, and it would without a doubt be more useful in his hands, no matter her attachment to it. She did not want to give up Shrike dearly, but she felt perhaps the offering would serve her purpose. But to her relief, he gave her explicit permission to keep it.

“I cannot take your knife now, hound slayer.” He said. “It belongs to you and you to it. You are bound in promises of blood that I shall not break. In fact, it may even be considered a relic now by Children of Light tradition, almost a trifold blooded blade, blessed in the field and not the forge. First drink of three, blood of shadow. Second drink, blood of witch. Shrike is now twice blooded, something only a dozen Children of Light can claim and two of them are here. You should be proud, houndslayer, for one to have claimed to drink twice, that is a mark of a generational talent.” Though his voice was emotionless, the rare words of encouragement stirred a sense of pride in Jena.

“What is the third blood?” Jena asked. The Lords had dropped her daily questions limit.

“Perhaps one day you may find out.” Lord Inquisitor says, his voice seemed oddly sad. Jena did not push this further, but there was a pride now in holding her knife.


Her relationship with the Lord Knight was also different. One of Jena’s jobs was to help Lord Knight’s dressing, especially with his arms. As she unwrapped his dressing, she saw the lacerations covered with black scabs, but the wounds were starting to get weepy and angry with red streaks crawling up his skin.

“Does it hurt?” She asked, concerned.

“They don’t bother me, Jena.” He grunted, staring into the distance. She applied the dwindling poultice on the festering wounds. He didn’t flinch, didn’t even breathe differently when she touched him. The calm frightened her more than the blood ever could. She tried to avoid touching the wounds directly, because they made her skin crawl. But she continued on with her duties quietly, wrapping them carefully like she had been taught by the goodwife loris and praying to the Light they would heal and whispering the Litany of healing.

She paid more attention to Lord Knight’s tomes now. Once, she found them tedious and dense. She would read the same paragraph multiple times and still not make sense. But now she felt drawn towards them, especially the black bound book of Philosophy of Natures and Power.

When she read it now, it felt like a book was finally revealing its core secrets. Initially, it seemed to be a wandering diatribe about the abstract understanding of Power. But now, its words resonated with the new, burning hunger she felt since her near death. It spoke of strength as burden, of the world as something shaped by will alone.

And there was something more that she had held back from the interrogation besides Meria’s memories. She had resisted revealing it to anyone simply because it felt so personal. That when she had her near death experience in the Sleepless House, she had experienced something transcendental and indescribable. She had felt something vast and infinite. She knew in her heart it must be the Creator, a red light of almost painful heat and blistering intensity. And when she woke up, she knew she had changed. There was a purpose of spirit and hunger for life. Without it, she would have been a catatonic mess.
When the Knight noticed her reading, he only nodded. “I was hopeful you could make it further than me,” he said. “The one who taught me claimed that book would change the world.” And with her heart, she knew that to be the truth.


The mountains of the peninsula to the capital rose over the marshes, and they picked their way carefully through the rocky mountain passes. The ground here was more travelled. The mountain passes and the fort chain here would be the last barrier to Illian downcountry, where lies the capital city of canals.

Jena has never been this far. She made small trips with her family or with the Goodwife Lordis, but the shield wall was far from her experience. However, she picked the right paths, driven by memories of Lady Meria. It was unnatural, yes, and unsettling, but it allowed her to lead around most of the common patrol paths of the Illian army. It was hard for her sometimes to sort out what was her own memories. It would be ironic if the Lords of Light knew how much they were guided by the psychic ghost of a witch.

They made good time here, even with their meager supplies that they supplemented with foraging. Jena’s abilities to hunt served them well, but as they got up in the mountains, the game became scarce and their stomachs lean.

To get past the mountain passes, one would have to navigate through the network of Illian forts. One of them rose in the distance too, perched in the crevice of the past, chiseled into the mountain with battlements reigning over, ready to shower any invading army with oils and boulders.

Jena gazed at the fort as she felt the pit in her stomach drop. Even though she was guided here by instinct, she could feel a deep engrained terror yanking at her. Her memories from Meria were incomplete. There were no discrete details, but raw emotions and fear that her subconscious associated with that mountain fort. She knew what waited there was beyond death.

“This is the one. The home of the Winnika.” She said more to herself.

Jena could see Him in her mind’s eyes through the ghost. It was like the eyes of a predator. It was the same eyes of the creature wearing her father’s face on that winter cold. She had locked those memories behind a cage, but whatever the Sleepless Lady –- Meria had done to her had left her old memories drifting and mixing with a life she had never lived.


They were halfway up the mountain pass when a lone figure stepped into the trail. Jena had begun to notice the silence of the forest, the way the wind seemed to avoid the place. Then a figure stepped onto the trail ahead.

He wore armor that had once gleamed, now dulled and flaking like old lacquer. Six more men rose from the brush with crossbows raised, cutting off any escape path. The motion was too smooth, too practiced, even in their ragged state.

“Lovely,” Lord Inquisitor muttered, raising his hands with exaggerated slowness. “If you’re selling souvenirs, I fear we left our coin in a fire. Large fire. Very tragic.” His voice was light, but Jena saw how his eyes never left their weapons. Lord Knight’s hand had drifted to his sword hilt.

“If you’ve got no silver,” the leader drawled, there was a hint of a strange accent. “then leave your horses and your packs, and maybe we’ll spare your lives.”

Up close, they looked half-starved—beards grown wild, eyes too bright with hunger. Yet even broken, there was discipline in them, the sort that came from years under command.

“You’re Seanchan,” Lord Knight said, hand casually resting on his sword hilt. “What are you doing waylaying travelers on Illian soil?”
That got a reaction—muttering among the men, one of them spitting in the dirt.

Seanchan. Jena had heard of that term before. Tales of a savage army from across the sea, murdering and enslaving women. Jena had only heard of them in stories. But what she heard was that they were monsters, and rode beasts of nightmare. This ragged bunch of bandits did not look very legendary to Jena.

“Don’t draw, soldier,” the Seanchan leader warned. “You try anything and we’ll bury you here. You may look like beggars, but you ride those warhorses like you know them. You’re not fools. Don’t act like them.”

Before Lord Knight could reply, a distant sound rose from the valley. Heavy hoofbeats. A plume of dust crested the far hill.

“Illian patrol,” one of the Seanchan scouts hissed. “Big one.”

The leader clicked his tongue and gestured sharply. The crossbows vanished into the brush as quickly as they’d appeared, likely down a hidden path. Moments later, the trail was clear—save for faint footprints and broken branches.

The Inquisitor tilted his head, smirking. “So. Shall we vanish too?”

“Wait,” the Knight said. “We follow.”

Jena blinked. Follow them? The Seanchan?

Lord Knight turned his horse off the trail, into the undergrowth. The Inquisitor gave a long-suffering sigh but went after him.

“What are you doing?” Lord Inquisitor hissed. Jena echoed the same question in her own head.

“We need allies,” the Knight replied, his voice low and certain. “Weapons. And answers. Desperate times call for desperate allies.”


They found the deserters again in a hollow below the ridge. The Seanchan rose from their crouch, crossbows trained, expressions hard.

“Mad dogs,” the Seanchan captain spat. “You had your chance to walk away. Now you follow us? Why?”

“I wonder the same thing,” Lord Inquisitor murmured. Jena agreed as well silently, eying the sharp arrows aimed at them.

Lord Knight stepped forward slowly, hands open. “Because we have a common enemy. And perhaps a common past. Judging from your armor, you were stationed at the coastal outpost.”

That gave the deserters pause. One or two lowered their bows slightly. The captain hesitated, then nodded grimly.

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “What’s left of it.”

“Tell me what happened.”

A moment passed. Then the captain spoke.

“They came in the night. Armor like the Illian Companions—but wrong. Silver, but traced with red sigils that glowed like molten iron in the dark. They broke over the walls and tore through plate armor like parchment. Our damane lit the field with fire—but it didn’t stop them. Whatever they were, they were not humans.”

His voice turned hoarse.

“Nothing could stop them. I saw them tear the heads from sul’dam and deathwatch with their bare hands. No mercy. No quarter. Our supply ship tried to flee with the camp supporters. I couldn’t see what, but something formless rose up from the black sea, writhing and seething. Dragged the ship down below the waves. Screams carried all the way to the cliffs.”

Lord Inquisitor gave a slow whistle. “And you? You ran.”

The Seanchan’s eyes narrowed. Arrows rose again.

“Just saying, it’s a bold look for the Ever Victorious Army.”

Lord Knight raised a hand. “You lived. That matters now. The Light has given you a second chance. Your enemies are our enemies. Fight with us. It’s not too late to reclaim your honor.”

“Children of the Light.” The Seanchan Captain shook his head. “No. You don’t understand. Did you not hear what I just told you and saw with my own eyes? They weren’t men. They weren’t right. We live on their scraps here, but we still live. To fight them is walking to sure death.”
He pointed in the distance towards the mountain fort. He leaned forward slightly, eyes haunted.

“Don’t think we didn’t try. We did retreat to survive their initial attack.” His voice was harsh. “But I gathered what was left, and we followed them and their captives. We had no choice. That bloody fort is where we tracked them to.

“We prepared an infiltration. We thought just like you. But when he got close, what we saw.” There was a murmur in the ranks of the Seanchan. “They knew we were coming, because all the captives were lined up on the lowest parapet, nooses around their neck. And they were screaming, crying for help, obviously trying to bait us close.

“But as we drew close, hesitant, they were tossed over the parapet, to hang. But that was not the worst part. Even with their necks obviously broken, their screams never stopped, and their body jerked in an impossible way. One of my sharpshooters got close enough to fire an arrow to put a mercy arrow through the skull of a screamer. It did nothing. The screams continued through the night. Whatever was done to them kept them moving and screaming for a week. When the screams finally silenced a week ago, even the vultures left their bodies alone. Each of us can still hear those screams now. I lost two good men who tried to go in to silence them. Never again.”

“That place is a pit of pure evil. They bring prisoners. Mostly Illianers. Some even willingly. Once a week. Taken to that Fortress and beyond. But no one ever returns. The locals won’t go near it. The few that remain.”

“We’ve seen worse,” Lord Knight said quietly. “ You faced something you couldn’t understand—couldn’t defeat. I don’t blame you for surviving. But you have seen the evils of that tower.”

The Seanchan captain’s jaw tightened. He didn’t speak.

Lord Knight pressed. “Your armor may be broken, your ranks scattered—but your name is not gone. We have fought the evils of this land, we have won. We have paid for it, but we have won still. There is a reason you have stayed around here. You know in your heart that you cannot leave without justice uncorrected. I think the land has cursed you to stay here. The Light has connected us for a reason. Help us. We need to know the truth of that fortress.”

Silence. The crossbows didn’t lower—but they didn’t fire, either.

One of the younger deserters shifted. “We could—”

“No,” the captain snapped, silencing him. His voice cracked like frost underfoot. “You don’t understand until you have stood at its threshold. You will see. We will not go anywhere next to it again.”

Lord Knight’s jaw clenched. “Then you’ve already surrendered.”

The captain looked away, as if ashamed. “I’d rather be ashamed and alive than be turned into those things. Leave us. You’re madmen. You’ll wish we had just cut your throat here..”

He turned. The others followed with hesitation—vanishing into the forest like ghosts.

Lord Inquisitor stood silent a long moment before he spoke. “You almost had them.”

Jena had felt it too. The Seanchan wanted to agree, but Lord Knight’s words tugged at something fundamental. But visceral fear had won in the end. And she understood it too well.

Lord Knight nodded. “Almost isn’t enough.”

“I’ve seen their look before. They’re broken. Might as well be ghosts.”

“Then let’s make sure we don’t break the same way,” Lord Knight said, looking toward the mountain. “Our plan doesn’t change. We will investigate the Fortress.”

Those words drew cold terror in Jena from memories that were not of hers. But, she had sworn to Lord Knight that she could keep up. Her stomach quashed at stepping into that realm, to face the terrifying visage of their nightmares. She opened her mouth, fighting with the two halves of self, “Lord Knight, i do not…. I do not…”

Lord Knight cut her off, as if knowing her mind. “Jena, we do not expect you to step in there. There is clear danger and you physically have not healed. You have been involved in the terrible fighting, but that was never your purpose. In your physical state, you will only slow us down.” He says, despite the edges of his exposed bandages fluttering in the wind. He softened his edge, “And you will need to be witness to our deeds. If we do not return.”

It was a solution to her decision paralysis, and yet it still left her uneasy to be left alone on the hillside. But what other choice did she have? She wanted to protest, but yet the clenching of her heart lightened.

By dusk, she watched them climb the path toward the mountain’s heart. The wind tugged at the Knight’s bandages and set the Inquisitor’s cloak snapping like a black flame as they faded into the shadows of the path.

Jena found a hollow where the grass was soft and the horses could graze. She built a small fire, not for warmth but for the illusion of safety, and waited in the shadows of the mountains. And she would wait a long time.

Chapter Sixteen
“I tried to speak to Loria again. My old maid. She just shook her head and wept. Later that night, she was gone. I hear her sometimes beneath the floorboards. Scraping. I think I’m forgetting how to talk to people who aren’t afraid of me. Or who don’t look at me like I’m already a ghost.”
-Illian journal. Author unlisted.

Doubt. It has been time since Halhand felt true doubt. Faith has always provided him clarity and purpose. Since joining the Order, he has not felt his faith shaken thus.

He had acted with Jena with impulse and emotion and now the voice of Light had abandoned him. This was on him. A failure as a Knight and Acolyte.

He flexed his hand of sacrifice and felt it as it truly was. A physical deformity of a cripple. His price for his abilities, but just a reminder of weakness.

But when he looked upon Jena, he could not say he regretted it. Even in the pain of his doubt, he still felt in his core that it was the right thing to do.

But no, he must move on. His soul was just wounded, he decided. Torn. It will heal. There was nothing else that would make sense to him. To drag his heavy beaten body forward into his quest again with or without his abilities.

It was a day’s meager reprise before they were packed up for the journey again. Packing was not hard. Their belongings were significantly lighter than when they started their journey.

Viellain had lost all of his hard ordinances in the battle with the Levianthan, but he still had a apothecary’s worth of medicines, which he emptied out on their extensive wounds. Both Children were slathered in pungent unguments and balms, and almost every surface wrapped in bandages. Jena seemed to have escaped with the least of the visible wounds. Viellain had stitched her lacerations with catgut, bandaged her wrist tightly and prescribed her two weeks of iron pills. Her clothes were still most intact and just required a rinse in the river. Meanwhile, Halfhand and Viellain were now dressed in a hodgepodge of piecemeal clothes barely covered by their ragged traveling dusters. They looked and smelled like a troupe of vagabonds.

Viellain released their last messenger pigeon. It flew off north in the direction of Murandy, where it will hopefully find the Child of Light reporting station. It carried their last potential message from this forsaken land, a cry for help into the void.

“Where’s the houndslayer? ” Viellain asked as he watched the pigeon disappear into the gray. “We too should leave soon.”

“I saw her by the Sleepless carcass. I will fetch her.” Halfhand went.



Jena was kneeling by the charred foundation of the Sleepless House, arranging the last stones of a simple cairn. The wreath she laid on top was woven from stalks of purple lion’s mane—wild, delicate blooms that seemed almost too gentle for this scorched ruin.

“Her favorite flowers,” She explained quietly.

Halfhand approached, frowning. “Whose?”

“The Lady. Her name was Meria.”

He stiffened, instantly alert. “You know her name. And why build a grave for her? She killed you. Almost.”

“She was sick,” Jena murmured, eyes still fixed on the flowers. “Sick in the mind. Poisoned by the land itself and its people. She too is a victim of Him.”

Halfhand’s voice turned hard. “Her poison killed countless men and women. Don’t romanticize madness, Jena.”

“She didn’t mean for me to see it,” Jena said, softer now. “But when she drank my blood, she took my memories. And... I took some of hers.”

“That’s dangerous,” Halfhand snapped. “Mind-hazards aren’t truth. Whatever you saw, it was bait for corruption.”

“No,” she said, eyes haunted. “There was honest purity in her pain. Raw and unvarnished.”

She stood slowly, voice steady, but laced with sorrow.

“She was married off young. Too young. Barely older than I am. They called her strange, fey-touched, but she was beautiful—beautiful enough to catch a lord’s eye. Lord Steeples.”

Halfhand wanted to interrupt her but her words flowed with a relentless cadence that could not be stopped. There was something compelling in her voice.

“He was a monster. But clever. Handsome. Charming. He never laid a hand on her—not directly. She wasn’t his toy. She was his trophy. A rare bird in a gilded cage, watched, displayed, and never allowed to fly. Anyone who got too close to her—maid, guard, servant—they vanished. Into his dungeons. Into his cruel games.”

“Isolation,” Halfhand said. “A torture of its own.”

“Worse than that. The people began to fear her as much as him. She was the monster’s pet, the only one untouched by his wrath. A curse in human form. She was blamed for things she never chose. Her only true companion was the weaver spiders in her empty opulent room, the ones who seemed to spin for her.”

Jena’s fists clenched.

“But she wasn’t blind. She wasn’t broken yet. Over the years, she gathered evidence. Names. Schedules. The truth. And she smuggled it out, piece by piece. Eventually, it reached the capital. The army came like the stories said.”

“And the Lord?”

“Dead before they broke the gates. Poisoned himself in his study. The coward’s way.”

“And so she was free.”

Jena shook her head. “The army left the estate to her. Her freedom. But the servants didn’t see her as their savior. Only as the wife of their tormentor. His curse. And they turned on her.”

Halfhand knew what happened next. He knew enough of the base psychology of the masses.

“She had delivered them from evil. And they made her pay for it.”

“Everything the Lord did to them, they did to her. Fivefold. For months. And she endured it. Silent, alone, believing she deserved it.”
Her voice cracked.

“She repressed those memories. Tried to forget. But they’re still there. Gnawed and mangled, but alive. You can’t imagine the things I saw.”
Halfhand looked away, not able to meet the pain in Jena’s eyes.

“She was... shredded. Not just in body, but in soul. Torn down until there was nothing left but instinct. And then—at her lowest—she reached out. And that Power reached back.”

“She channeled?” Halfhand asked, quietly. “Better she had died there.”

“She awakened. Not from training, not with guidance. Not through joy or need. Through agony. Her first weave was a scream of her sundered soul.. And when it was done... the manor was painted in the blood of tormentors and innocent alike.”

Jena’s voice grew quieter.

“She didn’t run. She stayed. With her spiders. The only ones who understood her. She lived with the broken silence. For years.”

“But she wasn’t alone forever,” Halfhand guessed the rest of the tragedy.

Jena nodded. “She never called him by name. But he came like a whisper through the rotting halls. He came like Death. His skin was thin as paper. His voice—like dry leaves. Eyes glowing like starlight. He traveled in the company of another who was masked in leathers.”

“She tried to kill him the moment she saw him by reflex or by recognition. Her weaves lashed out—but he didn’t even flinch. He snuffed her strongest attempts like candlelight."

Jena’s gaze turned hollow.

“Even in her broken state, she tried to refuse him. But he was persuasive. His will was indomitable. He filled the broken cracks of her psyche with his poison. He told her the world had stolen from her. That she had bled for it. That it owed her. And he taught her how to take back.”

Halfhand whispered, “Blood curse.”

She nodded. “He taught her to drink the memory of blood to quench her emptiness. To draw strength from others' pain and take their humanity. He called it justice. But it wasn’t. He twisted her, stitch by stitch, until she wasn’t Meria anymore. Just hunger in silk. He took the last pieces of her and made them useful to him. The same as her prior Master.”

She looked back at the cairn.

“She wasn’t a monster until He came.”

Halfhand was silent for a long time.

Jena continued, voice low. “I think he’s why the darkhounds never came here. I think he’s the Wendigo. The one that feeds on the flesh of grief and ruin.”

She stepped back from the cairn, brushing dirt from her knees.

“She died long before we met her. But no one else will mourn her. So I will.”

Halfhand stood quiet next to her. He did not grieve or mourn for a dead witch, but he gave her the moment of silence. As the two turned away to the horses, Halfhand simply said “Do not tell Viellian” and Jena simply nodded.

Behind them, the ruins of the house still smoked, the ashes carrying the last remnants of a broken soul into the wind.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I do not come to you lightly. I am no revolutionary. I am not strong. But I am not blind. Enclosed is a ledger. It contains names. Records. Rotting secrets. It is the only thing I have managed to smuggle out piece by piece over the past five years. I do not ask for justice. Only for light. For someone to see. If nothing else—let my name be cursed, let it be forgotten—but please, let the screams stop.”
Witness name redacted. Sealed court proceeding on Lord Eramus Steeples. 985 NE.


The boy tugged weakly at the ropes biting into his wrists. Every inch of him throbbed from the beating, but it was the ribs that screamed the loudest. Sharp pain flared with each shallow breath. He slumped in the corner of the barred wagon, staring through the wooden slats with sullen eyes.

Abruptly, the wagon creaked to a halt. There was an exchange of distant words ahead from his captors.

Boots approached with a crisp thud. The reason for their stop wore a cloak so white it seemed to glow in the gloom. Steel polished to mirror brightness gleamed on his shoulders and chest. It must take him an hour each day just to keep it that spotless. The boy squinted. That face... Exodio? Yes—Child Captain Exodio. How did he know his name and face?

“You stand accused of grave crimes, boy,” Exodio intoned, voice as cold and precise as his armor. “They tell me you assaulted a Child of the Light. A crime punishable by death. And yet... you are young. And already bloodied.” His gaze lingered on the bruises. “Repent, and the Light will surely forgive.”

“I repent nothing, my Lord,” the boy said, chin lifting despite the pain. His voice was brittle, but his eyes flared with defiance. That gave Exodio pause.

“There is mercy in the Light for those who seek it,” the Captain said, his tone sharpening. “I offer you a path to redemption. Will you not take it?”

“I understand, my Lord,” the boy said. “But I have no regrets. I struck no man without cause. Your Child was threatening a younger boy—barely ten. It was a child’s game, nothing more. But your soldier took a naked blade to it. I stepped in. I stand for the weak. Do the precepts not say ‘The shepherd must tend to even the runt of the flock.’”

Exodio’s brow arched at the audacity of this boy quoting scripture to him. His jaw flexed. “You may not know the full story, child.”

“What more do I need to know? I was there.” the boy snapped. “The Child drew steel over a game of make-believe. He didn’t ask a question, didn’t give a warning. Just swung. Who else would stop him?”

Exodio was silent for a moment, parsing what had not made it into the reports. Convenient omissions, no doubt.

“You overstepped,” he said at last. “A civilian intervening against an officer—it’s reckless. And dangerous.” He gestured at the boy’s battered frame. “You could have been killed.”

“These bruises aren’t from him. I gave him better than he did.” the boy muttered, forcing himself to stand despite the pain. “They’re from the others. His friends.”

Exodio’s lips thinned. “Some among us are... overly zealous,” he said, almost grudgingly. “Sometimes, innocents are caught in the blaze we call justice. That is not the Light’s will. I’ll speak with the Child in question.”

The boy bowed his head, just slightly. “As the Lord wills. Am I free to go, then?”

Exodio studied him. “You’re not from this town. What brings you here?”

“I came to join the Children of the Light.”

That caught the captain off guard. His brows rose, lips parting slightly. “You came to join us—and your first act was to brawl with one of our officers?”

“Yes, sir.”

Exodio folded his arms, his tone suddenly more curious than cold. “Why?”

The boy didn’t hesitate. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

For a long breath, Exodio was still. Then—unexpectedly—he laughed. A dry, rasping sound like iron scraping leather.
“Well,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Perhaps we do have a place for you after all.”




Halfhand awoke to silence.

For a fleeting second, he believed he was dead—drifting in that liminal stillness between worlds as his life flickered before his eyes. But then the pain came, dragging him back like hooks in his flesh. Burning ribs, a twisted knee, the raw ache of muscles torn and bruised. He gasped.

The memory struck like a hammer.

The battle. The witch. Jena’s dead eyes. The flames. The void.

He tried to rise, but agony surged through him. His arms shook with the effort. He pressed a hand to his side and stifled a groan, bracing against the sharp stab of broken ribs. With a ragged breath, he forced himself upright.

And then he saw her.

Jena.

Alive.

Sitting just feet away.

His breath caught in his throat. No. No, that couldn’t be right.

He remembered her body on the ground.. He had felt her life flicker and vanish like a candle in the wind.

But here she was. Breathing. Pale, yes—gray-lipped and sunken-eyed—but undeniably alive.

He stared at her, uncertain if his own blood loss had finally cracked his mind.

She met his gaze. Her expression was blank for a moment, then curled faintly at the edges. “You look awful, Lord Knight.”

His throat worked. He swallowed the lump. “You should see yourself.”

Her laugh was thin. Hollow. Her voice was distant and strained.

Halfhand looked down. His armor was gone, stripped away and left in a twisted heap beside her. His body was a mess of cuts—long, clean lines where the shattered steel had carved through flesh. Jena must have peeled the armor off him while he was unconscious. They looked like metal scrap now.

How long had they been lying here?

He searched and saw Viellain sitting slumped near the horses. He didn’t look up, but his head inclined slightly to acknowledge Halfhand’s awakening.

“The House is gone,” the Inquisitor said quietly, nodding to the smoldering ruins on the hill. “Burned through the night. Even the pine bones. Nothing left.”

A black scar now marked where the Sleepless House had once stood, coals still glowing in the daylight like the last embers of a funeral pyre. Smoke clung to the landscape, sour and greasy, as if the place itself had resisted being unmade.

“I’m out of weapons,” Viellain muttered. “Out of tricks. We lived. All of us….somehow.”

There was no victory in his tone. Just exhaustion.

Viellain stood slowly, revealing the eschar of burns on his body. He looked down and then commanded Halfhand. “You need to check my Cage.”

Halfhand approached. The familiar haze of burnt flesh and scorched fibers lingered heavily around the Hand of LIght. Halfhand brushed away the soot caking the man’s back. The hard black ink was still there—twisted runes and iron-black lines, etched into flesh like chains. Despite the battle, the flames, and the force that had nearly killed them all, the Cage remained whole.

Halfhand’s finger traced the pattern over the angry red flesh. No interruptions.

“It’s unbroken.”

“The Light blesses and curses me,” Viellain said, moving stiffly towards the horses.

Jena watched from where she sat. Her voice came soft, uncertain. “What was that?”

Viellain didn’t answer.

Halfhand did. “A soul-cage. Inked deeply with founder’s iron. It's meant to keep things out. The Power, possession, corruption. For those willing to pay the cost.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Does every Hand of Light have one?”

“No. Only the ones who’ve seen too much. The ones willing to give up their place in the Wheel for a sliver of control. It works just as well as keeping things in.”

She looked disturbed at the implication. “If he dies, his soul is trapped?”

Halfhand nodded. “Bound. Rotting alone in eternity. No hope of rebirth. It’s... a permanent end to their thread in the Pattern.”

Jena turned away, visibly shaken.

But the mention of souls twisted something in Halfhand’s gut.

Because he remembered.

He remembered the moment Jena died. The clarity of it. Her breath failing. Her chest still. Her soul departing like a thread severed. He had felt it—known it.

And yet... he’d done something.

Instinctively. Desperately..

He had placed his hand on her and called—not with words, but with will, with the silent scream of his conduit. Something passed through him—his life, his flame, his essence.

And something had answered.

She had drawn breath again.

Now she sat here, quiet and pale, like a reflection in still water.

Alive.

But how?

He didn’t know. No one in the Children of Light could be trained for that. The soul was sacred. Resurrection was heresy—blasphemy. The Light gave and took in its time.

But Halfhand had... broken that.

And he didn’t know how.

He studied Jena’s movements, each blink, each breath. She looked like herself. Sounded like herself. But still, something within him crawled. As if she cast two shadows when no one else did.

And deeper still—beneath bone, beneath thought—he knew something in him was gone.

He reached down, touched the earth, and reached with his will through his conduit.

Pain exploded through his chest. Blinding. Raw. He gasped, staggered.

The conduit of his soul was severed. Dead. His link to his inner Light’s flow had been burned away.

The cost of what he had done was starting to manifest.

He had given her a second life.

But at what price?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“The goal of this commission is to tap the inherent power of the soul. What was the rationale from the Nightsister when she drilled the Bore? Have we learned no lessons from [Redacted] and [Redacted]? Do we really know what we are connecting to? The Creator have mercy.”
-Inquistor Halock Merin, recovered fragment, Project 12S, date unreadable


Fighting a Leviathan is akin to fighting a natural disaster, an overwhelming force of nature, like an ant challenging a thunderstorm. And yet there was still a flaw that can be exploited. Although wielding the powers of Creation, it was housed in the case of a human body and controlled by a mortal mind. Through that runs the faint trail of survival.

Fighting through the deluge of assault, the two beleaguered Children moved to opposite sides of the hall, forcing the witch to split her attention, to always have an assailant at her back.

Black ichor drenched his hair and armor as Halfhand flung off a severed carapace from his body. He felt the soothing comfort of his Regalia of Light through his sword as he slashed at the never ending flow of monstrous spiders. His first swings took a limb off, cleaving clean through easily like butchering chicken. There was no sense of discordant justice through the sword in slaying one. Despite their terrifying appearance, these titanic arachne were not shadowspawn, just distortions of nature. Yet, his Regalia kept the sword from dulling and light as air for the exhausting killing floor. A normal sword would have chipped and cracked by now.

A pincer came down to bite at him but it could not pierce his tempered armor. He plunged his sword up through its torso and with a twist, the spider toppled, its legs contracting in a death spasm and a nerve-rending chittering cry. Two more spiders replaced it, clawed pincers stabbing against his armor. His body rattled from the blows, but his armor held. He pierced one in the head with his silver gauntlet blade and shoved it back into the other.

It gave him just enough breathing room to see Viellian across the room. Pouches flew from Viellain’s hand, and where they fell, black choking smoke blossomed and obscured lines of vision. Crack-snap! A razor whip danced from his right hand, cutting and pulling arachnid legs, as he dodged in and out of visibility in his smoke screen. From his off hand, flashes of razor projectiles shot through the air in quick succession towards the Lady, but they seem to bounce off invisible shields inches from her. Glass shards exploded next to her face and a few splinters left shallow cuts on her face. Viellain mixed in glass blades that are nigh invisible in flight, but the witch maintained her barrier against the worse of it.

With Viellain drawing her current attention, Halfhand seized this turn to attack, as he pushed off his scrabbling attacker and charged. She pivoted as if sensing his approach, as the air solidified in front of him, and he slammed abruptly against the barrier. He sidestepped just in time as the invisible wall as dense as granite flew past him to crush against the wall. A piece of chair caught in its path flashed into a spray of splinter and wood dust.

Meanwhile Viellain was getting the lion’s attention of the spiders as they swarmed over him despite the smoke screen. His whip cracked sparks in the air, as spiders flared into blue bonfires. A canopy of acrid black smoke began to form in the hall as the smell of burning carapaces permeated the air. But even as two more spiders flared into conflagration, a large one tagged the slippery but flagging Questioner, and he was lost in sight by an avalanche of chattering spider bodies.

It seemed like it was all over for Viellain, when the spiders upon him blew off from steam pressure with smaller bodies flaming like moths on a flame. The Questioner stood up slowly like a spirit of vengeance, his entire body aflame wreathed in blue flesh-melting flames. He has pulled his last card, his Inquesitor’s Maelstrom. He has used the last of his naphtha to light his cloak on fire, pulling his hood up at the last second that covered his face from the noxious fumes. He relied on the silica inner fiber to protect him from the unnatural fire. But, it would only partially protect him from the heat and the smoke that would debilitate most. He had a minute at most.

Wreathed in fire, the Hand of Light strolled forward through the curtain of smoke, his burning whip scorching spiders too slow to flee. It was the sight of Wrath that few in the Westlands have the fortune of surviving their witness. The same vision seen by the howling cultists of Amarai Tai in the flaming tomb. His steps were ponderous and unhurried, with the patience of an executioner. But, Halfhand knew this was not purposeful. Viellain was injured and could barely move faster than a shuffle now. His leather armor would not protect him any close to Halfhand’s plates. To his last breath, Viellain was putting a bluff, and even with his proverbial wings clipped, he still had fangs. His whip snapped out and carved a blazing laceration through a leaping arachnid.

There was fear in the Lady’s eyes. But yet she held her ground, and maintained some shield as near invisible glass flachettes shattered mere inches from her. But Halfhand knew she could not maintain complete barriers all around. She was still only human, right?

This was his chance. “Lux Aeternae!” Halfhand charged forward, sword in his right hand in a wild swing. There was a keen of sparking light, as a weak barrier shattered before him, as he barreled forward, his inner light charging his blade and gauntlet. He slammed through a second barrier with only a lost step and he was in sword range just as she turned.

His swing came as a sure strike against her neck, but it felt like his right arm was encased in a block of ice as his swing slowed down, the charmed steel blade drifting to a stop merely inches from her throat. He punched with his left gauntleted silver blade, but it too felt like it was entering molasses until his left hand was frozen as well. He was close face to face with the witch, piercing green eyes staring back at him, both in a struggle of will and strength.

Just past her face, he can see Viellain collapsing under the weight of remaining dozen spiders including the massive one that guarded her throne, sacrificing their blackened bodies to bog him and smothering him in a dying pyre. There would be no more cards to play from Viellain.

Halfhand’s muscles bristled and struggled against the invisible barrier. Sweat drops beaded on the witch’s forehead. The force around Halfhand began to strengthen, immense pressure around him. His visions sparkled and darkened as he struggled to breathe but no air moved. He was caught in the inexorable coil of the Leviathan with her undivided attention. The armor began to buckle and crack like an eggshell. His helmet splintered down against his skull until the edges of armor cut lacerations into his skin, warm blood dripping into his eyes, stinging them. He finally found despair. It was all he could do to hold out against the choking force on his body and what he had left was dwindling. This was the end.

Fighting futilely against the final crush, he saw a flicker of movement next to the Lady. She gasped, as a dagger –Shrike – appeared from her abdomen and crimson blossomed into the gown. Jena released her hold on the dagger and collapsed weakly, where she had found a last strength in her drained body to crawl to from the overturned table. Jena’s eyes were still open, imploring. It was not a killing blow, driven by a frail dying girl, but it was a weighted coin on the scale of fate. She was Da’vat. Just one. One common human raised in tragedy, with amateur training and no special abilities, at the end of her mortal coil. But yet she did not give up, spitting into the face of the hurricane. Halfhand felt shame, but then an ember of hope as well.

Despite the wound, the Lady still held Halfhand tightly, but her concentration laxed just slightly, and he sensed a subtle weakening in the pressure. He sucked in a breath enough to hold off oblivion. He raged against the corrupted forces crushing him, and channeled his righteous rage into his left fist, to force enough strength to twist his wrist. The spring mechanism clicked and released, sending the silver blade exploding from the gauntlet forward like a javelin into the skull of the witch.

Her head snapped back with an audible crack. Her body crumpled bonelessly to the ground. The wicked heaviness that crushed Halfhand disappeared. Immediately, the Child gasped for precious air as he fell to his knee, hot blood streaming from the cracks of his ruined armor.

When his vision returned to him in full, he could weakly stand to take in the chaos around him. Blue and red flames burned heavily all around him. The last of the giant spiders skittered into holes fleeing the burning atrium.

There was a groan and movement under the charred mound across the hall, and a charred body dragged himself from under the corpse of a massive spider. The Questioner tore at his blackened cracked cloak, and it simply just disintegrated, revealing a burnt body covered in red blisters and soot. “Go. Now.” His voice was hoarse and faint smoke appeared from his lip with every word.

“Wait. Jena.” Halfhand stumbled to the girl. Every movement was torture as his slivered armor cut deeper into his wounds. Ignoring the hot pain, he grabbed her and lifted her over his shoulder. She felt so light and limp without a measure of resistance. They stumbled out of the hall as burning debris began to collapse from the ceiling.

The escape through the original hallway was a daze for Halfhand. Only the last of adrenaline kept him going. The pain from the countless lacerations and small fractures seemed to be the only thing keeping him conscious. The hallways seem to melt and distort in his vision as smoke followed them down the eternally long hallway until they stumbled into the stables again.

Viellain opened the stable door as they and the agitated horses pitched out into the yard. The risks of Darkhounds did not even enter Halfhand’s mind at this point. There was no point in even worrying about it.

He fell at this point, and Jena tumbled to the ground, but ominously, but even the fall did not seem to elicit a voice or movement from her.

He crawled to her still form and turned her over. Her face was ashen and her hands were bone cold now despite the inferno from where they had escaped.

He felt her silent wrist and then her neck and then her chest, seeking her heartbeat. There was just the lone rapid beat of his own pulse. Her eyes were open, pupils dilated and fixed, yet still held in a regard of defiance.

He has seen plenty of deaths before. He has given plenty of deaths before. He was no stranger to death. And they had only known this girl for a week. But this one could not happen. This one will not happen.

He unlatched his gauntlet from his hand of sacrifice. It was covered in a glove of clotted blood mixed with ichor and sweat. He laid it on her chest and seeked deep to find a resonance. To find something. In the deep vessel of stagnant life, he found a whisper of something. A ghost of a hint of a whisper. An empty furnace that remembered heat.

“Live.” He shouted through whispered lips. He poured himself into it entirely, and it answered hungrily, swallowing and pulling him in. He was falling in, threatening to lose his entire self. He felt fear. What was he doing? And yet he was in too deep. He did not question what was right or wrong, truth or blasphemy. “Live.” his voice disappeared into the coldness of the abyss, after an eternity, it found an echo. He could not stop. He let the furnace take from him, his heat, his life.

And he felt a terrible pain, a tearing pain in his chest that radiated to his back. His hands and feet felt numb. He could see a flicker of candle in the darkness as he toppled unconscious.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The heart of the manor was a fading monument to forgotten excesses. The massive hall had vaulted ceilings that rose through three stories of stained glass windows. The stained glass depictions were of pastoral scenes but years of warping and yellowing of the glasses gave them an unsettling alien tint. The walls themselves were reinforced pine that peaked out from frayed seams of once plush velvet now the color of dried blood. Tarnished sconces in the shape of snakes rose in pillars at the sides of the room, casting stellate shadows that met in the center. Set dining tables covered in dust sat unused like spokes in the great hall.

A central platform rose up where Lords and Ladies once held court here. There were two severe thrones draped in various furs and skins next to a table set for a feast. Jena was the centerpiece on the table, her unmoving body tied down by white silk material.

Lounging on one of the thrones was a slender woman, her black hair twined and braided like a nest of snakes, her dress of fine red crimson that clung to her curves like a glove. Even at a distance, she exuded a sense of femininity and attraction that was stark against the decay of the hall. She was no doubt the Lady and Master of the Sleepless House and the ultimate human survivor of the ruin of the mansion.

But this was not time to court, as Viellian pivoted, drawing a dagger to face the penumbra of the pursuing swam, and to also avoid turning his back to the lady. Their pursuers poured into the hall behind the two Child of Light. They were oversized arachnids, dozens of them, ranging from sizes of dog to cattle. But instead of attacking the two Children, the spiders instead scrambled up the walls with their pinsirs and spread out around the hall, perched like gargoyles, their multiplex strange eyes watching and studying. Two massive specimens of spiked carapace warded the entrance with obvious intention. This was not natural behavior of wild-type arachnida. This behavior was more akin to trained dogs, no doubt connected to the siren on the throne.

The Lady of the house stood up from her throne, and then the most massive of spiders crawled up over the backing of the throne, perched attentively behind her like an overgrown butler.

Viellain did not hesitate. There was a time for questions and a time to act immediately. He snapped his dagger hand at the Lady’s face, but a second before the dagger could leave his hand, invisible bands secured his hands like iron shackles, freezing his momentum. The dagger clattered to the ground like the bark of a bell. A split second later, the invisible shackles fully wrapped his body, and Halfhand grunted next to him as well, caught in the same trap.

The Lady gestured and the two Children of the Light were yanked forward, their boots scraping the ground below. The spiders skittered in anticipation on their perches, like the sound of nail scratching on skin.

Witch. This confirmed Viellain’s suspicions. Her effortless use of the Power while maintaining control over a dozen sapient arachnids. In his guts he could intuit her level of power. She was without doubt a Leviathan class. The best way to take a Leviathan down was with a dozen sharpshooters backed by a full readied hundredman, to make success a coin’s flip.

The power differential between them was akin to two flies trapped in a spider web. Inevitable and fatal. Viellain’s blood boiled. This was classic Halfhand. What was wrong in the head of that self-important preacher. Always involving himself in flacha that he had no business sniffing. As he faced his impending mortality, Viellain's lips stretched into an ecstatic grin and his pupils dilated in anticipation. How wonderful. He couldn’t ask for more.

He flexed slightly against his shackles. He knew enough of the One Power, knew it intimately of all his enemies. In his decades of witch hunting, he has known the caress of a dozen of them, none of them pleasant. The invisible shackles are likely weaves of air, stronger than steel. But each wielder can use it just a bit differently. He rolled his shoulders and hips slightly testing the laxity. With a dislocation in the right joint, sometimes he can slip out. But the bindings feel dynamic, tightening against his subtle movement. She was good, as powerful a non-Tower trained Levianthan could boast. Most importantly, Viellian knew, the weaves of Saidin could be both actively held by the wielder or tied off like a parcel. Both would be strong enough to hold both physically, but still each had its own weakness that could be exploited. Which one was this?

With him being effectively muzzled, Viellain patiently studied the lady of the house, as well as Jena.

The young houndslayer laid corpselike on the table, her exposed skin pale nearing green, her lips almost frost. But upon further study from his practiced eye, she still had weak signs of life. Her chest still rose, but shallow and slow. Occasionally her eyelashes fluttered as if she was struggling with a nightmare but her body stuck in sleep paralysis. Her right hand lay within a jeweled chalice.

The Lady lounged on her throne as if there was no effort in restraining the two Children. On being dragged closer, Viellain could see disturbing details on the throne. Upon first view, it had seemed to be simply upholstered in cowhide. But each patchwork piece of leather appeared to be much too small for a cow. At longer look of the upholstery, on the field of mismatched hew of skin, stretched out the horrifying faces sutured in the seams, stretched as if in the rectus of their final screams.

The showpiece was her two armrests, where two flayed skin with horrified faces, with only the hair pattern revealing one male and one female donor. Draped over them was a silk gown and a green cloak that seemed to fade in and out of visibility, a fancloth cloak of which Viellain was also quite familiar.

The witch noticed Viellain’s gaze. “An Aes Sedai and her Warder. Strong furnishing. Beautiful. And bristling with power. They were entertaining to their last breath, but I do fear they did put up more resistance than you.”

She stood up slowly and unhurriedly glided closer to study them. Her eyes gleamed on them. “What are you?. It’s been a while since I’ve had cattle with so much bite.”

“Release your hold, witch, and we will show you plenty of fight.” Halfhand rumbled.

“That arrogance. Whitecloaks without a doubt. But skulking around without your virgin whites.” She showed her teeth hungrily. They were pearly white, gleaming, but her mouth seemed too wide, and too many teeth. “I have wanted one for my collection. And now I have a pair.”

She leaned over and sniffed the air at Halfhand. She was close enough for her smell to surround them, something like lemon and musk, intoxicating. Viellain could feel an urge take him, compelling at his body. Only his mental fortitude resisted the witch’s guile. Her hand hovered over their body without touching. “Silver dagger. Steel blade. Quicksilver, salt, and aqua fortis on the shifty one. Not ordinary whitecloaks at all. You have come dressed to play.” She sniffs them again, “Stinking murderous intent. Your essence will be delicious. Your memories…” There was an intense hunger in her eyes.

The Lady stood up from her perch, a crooked smirk on her velvet lips. She had a hungry look in her eyes like a predator. She casually walked over the table, and picked Jena’s wrist from the chalice, shaking a few more drops of blood before casually tossed the hand aside.

The Lady smelled the chalice and took a deep drink. She touched the top of her teeth with her tongue, cleaning the blood from her pearly enamel. She shudders slightly. “Oh, it has been too long since I had a good offering. Mmmmm. This one was claimed already, which adds such a hint of sweetness.”

“You can cut it with this swamp witch drama.” Viellian sneered, pressing and provoking her. “She was a vermin-ridden whore that will give you runs for days.”

Her eyes seem to glow ever slightly red as she cocked her head slightly at the two trapped Children. “The Halfhand, she calls the Knight. And you are the Witch Killer. Oh how she had built you in her mind. All her hopes. And look at you now dangling so helpless in your silent arrogant fury.

“Nonetheless, watch your tongue. You are still guests, and should act it.” She rebuked them as if they were children who tread mud. “If I wasn’t starved for a bit of company, I would’ve slit you and drained you like the swine you are. Oh, the scraps that He has left me with.” Her red lips curled in a grimace. There was anger in her voice, but also a tinge of fear. Viellain was curious who she was referring to. Surely not the owner of empty throne next to her, the purported Lord that died in Jena’s tale. Was there someone stronger yet? He needed to find out more without revealing his interest.

“Surely you are in want of nothing. In such lap of luxury with such…refined retainers. With the Council of Nine offering its people away to the dark on a platter, who would dare oppose you in this cradle of civilization.” Viellain spoke mildly, almost obsequiously.

The Lady’s eye twitched slightly. “I have seen Kings and Councils come and cross the ages, and survived the reign of once Lord here. But what rules Illian now would curdle your feeble minds. He and his kin drain the land with their flesh train. You should fall on your knees and give thanks to your Creator that you were lucky to meet your early end with me. The pleasure and sweet pain I will give you will be a wonderful dream of ecstasy, a mercy from the fate that awaits you past the mountain fort.” She leaned closer to the two.

Her words wrapped around Viellain like a soft smoke of seducing narcotic. His eyes were drawn inexorably towards her supple red lips as she spoke, like a pillow to a wearied traveler, and the occasional flicker of her tongue pressing against her teeth as her words slid languidly through his ears to ravage the limit of imaginations. In his mind’s eyes, she was pressed against him with her receiving warmth and softness drawing him into a desperate embrace. There was an almost imperceptible click as she tripped Questioner’s steel trapped trap, and the psychic impression of the Lady was now shrieking as Viellain pressed a hot metaphysical poker against her incursion, over and over until her tendrils of invasive glamor burned away from his mental vault.

Viellain gave a side-eye to Halfhand, who seemed to be quiet with lidded eyes. Whatever psychic defenses the Child of Light boasted, Viellain hoped it was enough. Children did not receive the same brutal mind training as Questioners. Regardless, he could only trust himself for the plan now. A conduit’s abilities were of little use against a practitioner of the One Power. Viellain still had at least one card left to play.

Ignorant of her failure to enrapture the Hand of the Light, The Lady moved back towards her table with a lightness in her step. She replaced her chalice underneath Jena’s wrist, as she massaged the girl’s arm if she was milking a sow. Her hand drifted over the unconscious girl’s face where her eyelashes fluttered to struggle to wake from her vivid dream. From the look of her skin’s pallor and her bradypnea, Viellain could tell the girl does not have long in the world.

The Lady smirked, “Don’t worry. I know your young companion has some meaning lest otherwise why storm in like a bumbling mob instead of burning my house down like your cult’s fame. She is in the climax of an ecstatic death. Soon, I will know the two of you like the closest lover before your own sacrifice for me in turn. Your flesh will interned in eternal beauty, and cherished deeply by me, and not abandoned in one of their numberless refuse pits or become one of his abominations, cursed and in rigor for eternity. I am the most graceful Mistress.”

Villain listened to the droning rant from the Witch. Her luster and glamour now gone, showing the rotten facade of true nature. Her glowing smooth skin was sallow and pale from sunless days, her eyes sunken and fraught with madness. Her voice was a thinned out baritone, hollowed impression of forgotten beauty.

Her rant punctuated the low rhythm of blood dripping into the chalice. It was too bad. The girl had promise, but at least she bought them a precious few minutes with her lifeblood.

Viellain barked a laugh. “What an amateur.”

“Excuse me?” Her lips creased, as anger flashed in her eyes.

“Your work. Like a yearling girl learning to stitch for the first time. Look at the skin, it looks like it was butchered with complete ignorance of the fascial planes or basic anatomy. Even from here I can see you didn’t treat most of the subcutaneous tissue, it’s going to go rancid in weeks. Don’t you dare get close to me with your needle, you hack.” He attacked her vanity, probing and needling.


She hissed in anger. The band around Viellain tightened, hyperextending him as if threatening to break him. His back cracked in a less than pleasant stress. Beside him, Halfhand grunted as he too twisted in the restraints, his steel armor grinding under the strain. But Viellain grinned at the rictus of pain arcing up his spine. He knew he won the battle of wills. And it also told him the weaves were held.

“Don’t test me again, whitecloak. ” Her voice was strained. She let the restraint fall back to normal, and Viellian could take a breath again with pain. Two ribs were likely broken, although they do not feel displaced. Acceptable cost. Escape was still an option.

Viellain quickly worked his tongue against the seam on his lower gum, teasing open his surgically created pouch. He milked the thin hollow needle from his pouch, cushioning it with his cheek, before holding it steady between his incisors, careful to not stick his own lips and wasting the precious cargo. But he needed an opening. If only Halfhand could–

“You cannot hold us.” Halfhand’s voice boomed from gritted jaws. “Not by force, not by this stolen power, not even by force of will. We can never be broken by the likes of you. You a coward and thief; a child wearing your parent’s castoffs, an irredeemable pretender. Witch, I name you, guilty as charged, sin from birth. By the rights of the Light, I condemn you. I sentence you to the final death.” Halfhand’s right gauntlet and sword both began to glow red-white with His Regalia of Light. The air around him rippled with an aura of heat distortion. An impressive sight, but Viellain knew this was all theater but it had no use against Saidar. But theater was what Viellain needed. Well done Fradis.

The Lady turned to regard Halfhand, her face masked with surprise and fear. Not even the knowledge from Jena’s blood would have prepared her for this. Fear overruled her indecision, as she instinctively stepped back away from Halfhand, turning her back to Viellain. And for that instance, her attention was off the Questioner.

Perfect. Viellain spat the needle at the Witch, striking her right in her exposed neck. Too bad it was not filled with a fatal poison. It was too risky to carry an actual lethal dose in a needle in his gum. What it did contain was concentrated clevata ant venom. It was the most potent pain analogue that Viellain could find that was shelf stable for a human mouth. What it provided was one second of excruciating and paralyzing pain. Viellain had tested it on himself before (as he does with almost all his poisons), and he could only describe the sensation as his entire body being lit on fire, and it took him an entire day to recover.

The Witch screamed as the venom flowed into her neck, back arching as the poison lanced through every nerve in her body, burning contrails of pain. Her held weaves snapped like overwrought strings. The two Children dropped to the floor, briefly free from their invisible bonds.

She was only two feet away in range of a killing strike, toppling to her knees and catching herself with her hands. Viellain had a dagger in hand before his feet touched the ground. Viellain and Halfhand lunged forward to her, but was met by a blast of blind force erupted from her, sending the two spiraling away through the air. They landed heavily on the ground meters away. Halfhand crashed through a table.

Viellain rolled to his feet, and sidestepped to a run. The only way to survive was to keep moving unpredictably before the witch could seize them again.

Viellain sent multiple flachettes flying as he ran, but they bounced against an invisible wall a foot away from the witch. Furniture and ground shattered around him to invisible blades. The witch was on her knees on the podium, but her hateful eyes continued tracking them. Even though she was suffering the after effects of the clevata ant venom, she had regained her concentration and her combat reflexes were still sharp. Her trophy of the Aes Sedai and Warder skins were not for show.

Then she gave a guttural shriek, as her giant arachnids from the wall sprang down, swarming down at the Children from all sides with driven abandon.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Viellain rests, but he never sleeps. Especially in a haunted manor. So even with the waif on watch, he merely laid, lids relaxed, but always observing and monitoring. The girl did pass his tests so far. He has tested her with the elemental of iron and silver, as well as the salt and forkroot compounds. It was almost certain that she was at least human. But he was a natural skeptic, there was no one that received certain trust from him. Not even the Halfhand meted more than ninety-five percent trustable. Although he did not trust the girl, he did like her. She had a certain mettle and resilience, a diamond in the Illian rough. A bright ore that would make a sharp weapon one day, if she survived.

So while his body slept in his way, he watched Jena through lidded eyes as she began her night watch. And he watched her investigate the walls, and approach the manor doorway.

So when she was pulled up by the limbs silencing her strangled scream, Viellain was already on his feet, dagger in hand. He sprinted to where she disappeared, snatching up the fallen lantern and facing the murder hole. The grate was gone, but only stillness remains. He was expecting a spectre, but the wafting smell was not sulfur but a tepid earthiness. There was an echo of scrabbling movement quickly dwindling through the opening. The Hand placed an ear against the cold steel of the door and he could hear the same scrabbling movement fading into the distance.

He turned to see Child Halfhand, now wide awake and holding his iron warhammer, a grim facade on his face. “What happened?”

“Something took Jena.” Viellain pointed to the open murder hole. He only had a brief glimpse of the long spiked limbs that seized the girl. His mind grinded through his mental encyclopedia of creatures. The speed and reach of the limb spoke of a predator. There were five possibilities, none of them good.

“Move.” The Halfhand raised the warhammer as the Inquisitor retreated. He slammed the weapon against the iron door, but its ancient steel held. He switched his stance and grip, and targeted the hinges with practice strikes. The solid iron warhammer cracked the rusted hinges, and the door toppled to the ground with a cloud of dust.

The hallway behind it was like the long throat of the house. There was a brief breath of damp air that emptied into the atmosphere of the room, like pungent night soil after a rainstorm. The hallway seemed to go forever, beyond the light rim of the lanterns. The foundation of the house groaned slightly too at the violation of its threshold.

To go in there would be unwise. Viellian knew this without needing to do the calculations. An unknown haunted domicile that limited mobility, blind ambush points, and too many unknown. The best thing would be to sacrifice the girl, barricade themselves in, and leave at first light. To enter further would be nigh suicidal.
“It stinks of deaths, but none fresh. She is still alive.” Halfhand said, his jaw tense, staring into the black maw of the Sleepless House. “Do you have my back, brother?”

Viellain shook his head wryly, “You are insane, fradis. But, I knew what I signed up for. Five minutes. We have five minutes to find her.” He was already at his travel packs. He stored away his traveling duster, and pulled out his assault vest. A black hardened leather cloak, personally chemically treated for sharp and fire resistance. As he buckled it on, he could feel the tight leather around him. The material did not breathe and he hated wearing the smothering second skin for any amount of time. But it was the best protection for the close quarters of the house, and the best chance for his survival.

With a practiced hand like a concert pianist, he deftly stroked his vest with the assault loadout from his pack, as flasks and projectiles clicked securely into their prepared pockets.

As he stood up armed for melee, he saw Halfhand was already ready as well. He had affixed his gauntleted dagger, with his sword in the other hand. The iron warhammer would be too unwieldy in the hallway of the manor, he would have to rely on just silver and steel.

Viellain tossed a wax wrapped package to Hafhand, containing a tabac concentrate resin that the Child chewed immediately. Viellain took a swig from a small flask himself, filled with alcohol dissolved stimulants. He barely felt the burn of the liquid. Both of them were physically exhausted after the darkhound fight and the horseback flight, enough to wear their bodies down for a week. They would be both going in at half strength, propped up by chemical crutches. The liquid strength would be temporary and there would be a heavy physical price that would still need to be paid.

Gazing into the mouth of the Sleepless House, Halfhand gives a brief nod, “Smash and grab.”. His sword in hand and a torch in the other, Halfhand entered, with Viellain reluctantly behind.

The hallway was grand enough to allow a horseback rider through, but yet still claustrophobic. The walls were faded, leaving a faint memory of once opulent design. The once vibrant royal red walls have darkened to the appearance of dried blood. Paintings still lined the walls in their ornate frames, which remained oddly unlooted. There was a contradiction of polish on the frames against the thick cobwebbings that lined the ceiling and corners of the hallway.

Open doorframes filled the hallway leading to cavernous rooms that could conceal any matter of malicious hunters and ambushers.

But most ominously, tiny spots of fresh blood drops stained the wine-dark carpet trailing down the hallway.

Halfhand led the way, his light dancing across the hallway and past doorways. Standard operating procedures would typically call them to clear out each room to avoid being flanked. But, right now, precious time was against them. The golden five minutes trickle down with every breath. If they could not find her in five minutes, her survival plummets to zero, and their chances as well.

They raced past the doorways filled with potential threats, forging into the heart of the manor. Perhaps a hundred paces in, Viellain could catch sounds behind them, initially soft but soon undeniable scratching movements. He swung his light back but whatever trailed them kept just out of the range of light. But with his honed eyes, he can see movements in the darkness, furtive lurching movements from creatures with too many limbs. The more rooms they passed, the amorphous size of their flankers seemed to grow as the noise grew to a restless rumble of skittering limbs. Yet, they never tried to overtake the two Children of Light, seemingly happy to block them from retreat the same way.

Strategies raced through Viellain’s head as they continued forward, the trail of blood (or was it bait) getting more and more sparse. They had no choice but to forge ahead, find Jena, and circle around.

Light appears at the end of the hallway. Halfhand and Viellain gave each other a half-nod, their weapons ready. Feeling the pressure of the pursuers behind, they burst into the white light of the heart of the Sleepless House.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jena of Troias held on for her life. The anemic sun was rapidly setting behind them, casting a veil of shadowplay to the swampy woodlands around them. The only light was held by Viellain, a sputtering torch that casts frantic shadows. But even shrouded in darkness, the presence of the chasing Darkhounds left no doubt. Jena could feel them as if their cold dead breath was breathing down her neck.

She clung hard to the Child of Light, gripping the hard armor as the only lifeline against the keening beasts that were leaping and snapping at the air. They fled down the rutted Illian road just a breath in front of the pack of Greater Darkhounds.

The Shadowbeasts’ presence was oppressive like a heavy cloud choking her mind. She couldn’t breath, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think. Her body was frozen into a state of self preservation. She was no longer in terror. She had reached terror in the flight from the proto-darkhound. Now she was beyond that. She had retreated to her Safe Place. The cage of necessity that sheltered her mind against the terror. She could not be a prey again.

“Hang on, child.” The Halfhand shouted as he swung the iron warhammer out behind him. The momentum twisted both he and Jena, but her gripdeath kept her in the saddle. Her body was in autonomic self preservation, her mind hidden and protected behind her psychic walls.

The hammer met the leaping snarling darkhound with a collision of unnatural green spark. Jena could feel the explosive force through her walls as just a dull vibration.

The concussive force coursed down the entire spinal column of the darkhound, with enough compressive energy to shatter every canine vertebra. The darkhound tumbled to the ground, heavy and unmoving, its head twisted in an unnatural angle. The warhorse stumbled and its riders nearly unhorsed, but the trained steed recovered without turning its ankle or unseating its passengers.

The Child of Light afforded a brief look at the felled hound which twisted like a snake with a rhythmic cracking of every joint popping, as its subluxed head spun like a cogwheel, springing back up to rejoin the back of the pack chasing its prey.

All around them the dark shadows sprang in unpredictable speed that seemed to confuse the eyes. Halfhand held his hammer in his numb arm. That was a lucky hit, and yet it bought them only a second respite. He could smell the acrid sulfur that steamed from the shadowbeasts’ breaths.

He could see the mass of the pack behind him, but also the hazy silhouettes racing far to the sides, likely an attempt to pin them from turning, to herd them to a slaughtering field. Their horses were some of the fastest in the southland, but Darkhounds’ undead bodies knew no exhaustion. His warhorse would wear down first, and Halfhand and Jena would likely be swarmed within seconds.

“Running water, Jena. No matter how shallow.” Viellain shouted. His voice was like a whisper. Jena knew the words, but they had no meaning in her safe place. The Inquisitor shouted again, but the words were even more distant. She was safe in her own cage, warm and protected against the howling winds of the outside world. A place beyond fear, and her own terror that was scratching weakly against the strong walls. She would be safe even if her physical body was chewed to bloody sinew.

There was a sting against Jena’ s right thigh. She barely registered it in her cage. It was not painful but there was a warm rush through her body immediately, a wave that seemed to melt through Jena’s mental walls. She was suddenly hyperware of her body, of her rapidly galloping heart, and her fast breathing, and that warm sting on her right. Her body moved again under her command, and she reflectively swatted at her thigh and pulled out the feathered dart that was embedded there. It was one of Viellain’s.

Outrage rolled through her, then shame, in a dazzling storm of emotion until everything washed in at once, dragging her psyche forcefully back into the world, cushioned in a blanket of artificial euphoria. The howls and roaring of the Darkhound around her, the lathering warhorses under her, and the pain in her knuckles and hands from clinging on so tight. Her tense joints shrieking in pain. Everything felt real again. And yet the terror of the prey, it was dulled and kept bay by an unnatural ecstasy of a cocktail of stimulants and anxiolytics.

“Running water! Jena.” Viellain’s screamed again, tension tightening his normal emotionless voice.

“Turn off the road after the next hill, and drive hard.” The knowledge came easily to her now, out of her mouth. Why was she so afraid in the first place? From her studies, she knew the rapid chemicals were flogging her brain, yet it felt like velvet in her bloodstream.

When they passed the next hill, they turned hard, off the road into the short field studded with trees. The right flanking Darkhound cut immediately, red eyes glowing with rabid anticipation at their prey’s approach. Viellain deftly threw two bags at the feet of the approaching darkhound, with an explosion of red dust. The Darkhounds skidded to a stop around the cloud of dust, losing their momentum as its body smoked, as it stumbled into a skid.

It is unlikely Viellain would have much more brick dust on his person. All their hopes relied on Jena’s intuit direction. The main pack continued behind them, braying and snapping, closer and closer.

Then suddenly the woody land collapsed under them. The horses jumped instinctively, fueled by both training and desperation, and they splashed down into a current of running water with their knees deep. The horses struggled onward through the water almost to their belly. The other side was thirty yards away, and they forged on through the cold water.

The Darkhounds stopped behind at the edge of the water, almost merging together into a dense cloud of black aura. Red eyes stared ravenously at the lost foe. As their prey struggled back onto land on the other side, they sniffed the ground and seemed to separate, intelligently following the river edge in both direction searching for a path to their prey.

They took a much needed breather on the other side, but Halfhand finalled asked, “Where are we?”

Jena’s hands clung to Halfhand like they were vices and she had to command her contorted fingers to relax. There was a long pause as her breathing slowed. She still craved her safe place, but she forced herself to face the world, no longer pillowed by the transient euphoria of Viellain’s vile concoction. “This do be the estate of an old manor. There do be a n natural moat that run a square mile around it. There is a bridge, on the north end.”


“Does the water continue under the bridge?”

“I don’t know… I think so.”

“Be certain.” Viellain turned his horse towards her. “If there is running water all around, we will have a sanctuary. If not, we must continue to flee to the risk of them ambushing our crossing.”

“I think so.” Jena replied her voice soft, but the bone of her spirit was finding its back.

Viellain’s lips were drawn tight, but he gave a look at Halfhand, turning his head. “That must be the manor you speak? No one lives there now?” Up on the rise was a two-story grim structure with precipices that cut a forbidding silhouette in the night sky.

“Abandoned.” She said simply. But then she added “Haunted.”

“We will have to risk the ghosts then. Better them then the hounds.” Viellain thumped his horse, and Halfhand followed as they followed the overgrown hill upwards until the structure loomed over them.

As they drew closer, it looked more like a large fort than a typical manor with walls raised with reinforced towers. There was a road that led up to the main entrance which was an arched overgrown gate. One corner of the mansion was crumpled with debris overgrown with weeds. The visible windows were all barred and unlit. The once well kept black pine walls were now faded and covered in the scars of the elements.

As they rode close, Halfhand could see that the gate was covered in thick cobwebs. They each dismounted at the entrance. Halfhand assisted Jena, who held her knife tight in her hand so tight her knuckles were white.

“Odd. It does look like there was wheel tracks in and out probably a week ago.” Viellain touched the dirt on the path.

Jena gazed up over the manor with slight dread. She knew it well even though she had never been here before. It was the Sleepless House. It was in the dreadful children’s rhythm that every Illian child knew by heart.

Ten Nine, mind your spine
Don’t sleep in the House of Pine
Eight Seven, I so reckon
The Lord to come to hear confession
Six Five, poke the hive
Leave by sunset to survive
Four Three, kiss your knee
He will drink your blood for tea
Two One, need to run
Bone to dust your life be done

“What is this place, Jena.” Halfhand says. “This place is steeped in violence.”

“The Sleepless House.” Jena found her words. The euphoria has slowly leached away, but the unnatural horrors of the Darkhound now seem a recent nightmare. It just left her in a sense of mundane numbness and exhaustion.

“Never heard of it.” Viellain grimaced.

“There was a duke. Lord Steeples. This be once the seat of his power. There was always rumors. Tortures and murders for pleasure. Eventually, enough that the King could not ignore. But somehow the Lord knew. When the Companions finally arrived, all his staff and workers were already dead. Steeples himself hung himself from the Tower, rather than face the King’s justice. Yet they say since, he do be still wander his estates. There is a dare amongst the children of Illian. To stay in the Steeples house over a night. No one has been able to do it. They call it the Sleepless house. “

Viellain examined the main manor. “If the hounds are able to cross the bridge, we will need defensive position within the next hour or two. We can not risk being caught on open ground in the night against a pack. However, I do not want to stay in the house if we can afford it. Legends and myths are based on some kernel of truth, and we do not have time to investigate and clear the house of whatever spook haunt it, as well as risk the dozen of access points. “ He points at a slim structure abutting the house. “That looks like the stables. Our best chance would be to barricade ourselves there for the night, with limited egress points.”

“Agreed.” Halfhand grunts, “Risk the night there, and if we are not sieged the darkhound, we may be able to scavenge brick dust from the manor in the day time.”

The front entrance of the stables opened easily. The locks had long been broken by scavengers. Inside, the stable house had two rows of stables on each side, meant to house individual horses, although most of the doors were now rotting or hanging loose on their hinges. There was shutters on the windows. On the wall near the house there was a hallway inset leading to a reinforced door that must lead into the Sleepless House itself. Above the doorframe was metal shutters.

The two Child of Light sweeped in, torches in hand. They investigated each stall and corner. The place has long been ransacked of everything not bolted down. Viellain tested the window shutters to find they were still quite secure. After their initial survey, Viellain filled the two lamps with oil. They closed the stable door behind them, and closed the bar. From a depleted sack, Villain found the last of his brick dust and laid a thin layer at the threshold of the gate as well as to the door that led to the main house. The exhausted lathered horses were given a stable each, and given the last of the feed

“This place reeks less of evil.” Halfhand studied the empty stalls. “It is obvious that the Lord of the Manor valued his horses more than his actual denizens.”

“Let’s hope it leaves us alone tonight.” Viellain studies the shutters above the connecting door to the main house. “Murder holes. For if the house is sieged.” He laid a thin layer of brick dust below the connecting door as well.

They barricaded the entrance door with a trough. The three began to settle down for the night. There was a water pump that seemed to still work and they at least had water for the night, if not food. They waited weapons ready for two hours for the Darkhounds but there was no violent siege, so presumably the moat barrier was complete.

Viellain's elixir had left Jena at this point, but freed from the aura of the Darkhound, she simply felt drained and empty. She found a stall of her at the corner, the furthest from the door as she clutched her legs to her. She wanted to feel angry, scared, something, but for now she just felt heavy and wanting to let the exhaustion of sleep take her. She had felt this before, but now could put a name to it: battle shock. She had once build a cage for her mind to retreat, but it lay in wreckage when she was forced out of it. She could rebuilt it, retreat once more behind its comforting walls. She would feel safe again. But, she would be useless to the two Child of Light sitting in the room who gave an occasional glance at her. She could not be useless again, nor be abandoned. So, as soon as she heard them talking about the night shift, she interjected, “I will take the first shift.” Her voice was steadier than she felt, her heart quivering.

“Jena.” Halfhand’s voice was strangely soft. “You have gone through more than most war recruits see on the first day of the lines. You should sleep. We can reassess in the morning.”

“No.” Her voice was firm but tinged with desperation. “I can do it.”

“You have nothing to prove, Jena.” Halfhand said. But at the fierce look in her eyes, he acquiesced. “Very well, wake me after two hours.”

With that, the two Children finished securing the stables. With weapons within reach, curled up in their cloak and hay and went to an uncomfortable sleep, leaving Jena on watch.

The girl sat with her back against the wall, watching the barred door, alone with her thoughts. There was a part of her that regretted volunteering for the watch. She was exhausted. But she also knew she would not have been able to sleep either. Always in the back of her head she could still see the glowing eyes and malevolent aura. It almost felt that if she blinked too long, that a creature of shadow would appear immediately after. Yet, holding Shrike in her seemed to give her strength, the steel dagger an affirmation of her abilities to survive.

Her brooding was interrupted by a gentle scratching sound. There was always a harsh whisper of the wind scraping past the many cracks of the stable wall, but this was different, it seemed carried a tempo that was unnatural.

She was immediately on her feet, Shrike held in both hands, surveying the stables. She looked at the two Children asleep in the cloaks. They looked like corpses so still they slept. She was hesitant to wake them up. And as abrupt as the scratching began, it seemed to stop as she listened for it. Was imagination running wild, feeding on unresolved fear?

She picked up the lighted lantern next to her, and began to pace the perimeter of the stables with soft steps, listening and checking the walls and doors. She stilled the moving shadows in her visual periphery. She knew it was just from her lantern’s moving light.

She carried the lantern steadily, casting a tepid light over the walls, covered in small scratches and carving at the height level of children. Most of them were initials and names as a testament to those who were brave enough to come here. Over one of the shutters, the Sleepless House nursery rhyme was carved. Someone had scratched over the word Lord, and written in Lady. Her light also swept over an uncomfortable amount of carved “don’t sleep” admonitions.

Unbidden, she could hear the nursery rhyme in the back of her mind. Ten Nine, mind your spine
Don’t sleep in the House of Pine. Eight Seven, I so reckon the Lord to come to hear confession. It dug into her mind like an ear worm. But, she clenched Shrike in her hands hard, and fought against it with the LItany of the Child that Halfhand taught her. I am the Fire of Righteousness. The Bane of Chaos. The words always felt pretentious to her and she never took it very seriously, and yet tonight those words offered a shield that calmed her racing imagination.

Six Five, poke the hive, Leave by sunset to survive. I walk the Path of Order. She continued her tentative patrol. The front door and the shutters seem quiet and secure, although for a second she almost hallucinated shadows behind the door.

Four Three, kiss your knee, He will drink your blood for tea. I speak the Word of Truth. Her last stop was the connecting door to the house. Her heart almost dropped as she heard the incessant barely audible scratching start again, but she could not resolve the direction.

Two One, need to run, Bone to dust your life be done. In the Creator’s Shelter, I fear no Shadow or Evil. She paused, leaning down to examine the brick dust line underneath the door. It seemed intact.
As she began to stand up, her light swung over four words carved on the door itself at child height.
“Do not look
Do not scream”

A liquid dripped down from above. As she looked up, she saw the empty slats of the murder hole. There was a presence in its shadow.

Cutting off Jena’s scream, the shadow reached down and pulled her in.

+4qp awarded for Chapter 8

CHAPTER TEN
“...warned us to flee. [Redacted] fell on us all with [redacted]. His eyes, oh Light, what was wrong with his eyes. Still wearing that bloody white cloak. We had to [redacted]”
- Eyewitness Account #33. Edited Report from the Casnian survivors. Hand of LIght Matis. 924 NE.


“What is a soul, you ask?” The Archivist General echoed Halfhand’s question. “That is a most intriguing and ancient question of the ages, my venerable young Captain.”

Child Halfhand sat at the dusty table in the Third Sanctum of the LIbrary, surrounded by books and tomes. The only occupant was the robed Archivist General who managed this most exclusive of sanctums. The library was perhaps the most neglected tower in the Fortress of Light and the majority of the ranks have never stepped in here. But over the years of procurement, whether by seizure or clandestine excavations, the Library has gathered one of the Westland’s most extensive collections of occult, the most dangerous of them locked down here in the Third Sanctum. Despite sitting high in a tower, there was no window, but galvanic steel sheets laid on brick masonry. Under each shelf of forbidden tome ran a shallow trough of oil. In the eventuality of the compromise of the sanctum, a single flame is enough to destroy it all in an instant.

The Librarian leaned on his tall raised staff, topped with a hanging lantern with a soft flickering flame that danced dangerously every time the staff moved. It was the sworn duty of the Archivist General to destroy all the dangerous literitic weapons here at the slightest sense of a dangerous incursion. Halfhand had the only other light source, a tiny cup of a wax candle that barely illuminated the table. The Archivist General paced slowly behind Halfhand, his light casting dark shadows across the room. He wore the cloak of a Child of Light and a sword scabbard swayed in his belt. He was the only one allowed to be armed in the Sanctum. Normally, he would be seated at his desk, but he liked to pace when he talked.

“What is a soul? That question has been taken up by scholars over the century. But it has special meaning here in the heart of the Children of the Light. Patron Lothair Mantelar in his later writings posited that each soul is simply a fragment of the Light, the manifestation of the Creator. And I tend to agree with the Patron.
“Take, if you will, the black night sky, filled with the void of the lonely eternity. But, yet, it is filled with countless stars, each glimmering, each separated by unfathomable distance. But when you take the stars in the sky together, in a collective, the form of the Light United shine through the void.
“There are some scholars that have believed that if each soul is a piece of the Creator’s Light, then each individual can host a great, vast power that is untapped and unused. Through the years, many sects of the Children have believed the soul can be weaponized, that a soul can be strengthened, honed, and manifest the powers of the Light in the world, just like its physical container.”

“Like what the witches in Tar Valon do with the One Power? Would that not be anathema to the creed?” Halfhand dutifully replied.

“Pah, there is more to the world’s powers than that of the so-called One Power. Only Tar Valon and the true simple-minded think it is the source of all extraphysical powers. It is true that there is enough raw strength there to break the world asunder thousand times, but there are enough Powers that run through this world. There are cases of empaths who can command animals, hypersensitives that can detect auras and prophecies, and dreamers that can manipulate the Unseen World of Dreams, all Talents extrinsic from their One Power. The only true thing that connects them is the necessary component of a Soul.“

Halfhand countered as was used to with matching words with the librarian. “But every man, woman, and child have a soul. Millions upon millions just in the Westlands. What power is there that can be found in something so common? So intangible?” Halfhand pivoted in his stool to turn and face the Archivist General.

A smile flickered on the Librarian’s face. “Are you familiar with Natural Laws? It is a natural law that all systems eventually dissolve into chaos and cease to function. Take an oil lamp as an ordered system. A mastercrafted lantern lights a beautiful flame and lasts for decades. But it only lights for a certain time before it requires more oil. And while you can refill the lamp, the lamp will break down a bit with each use. You can repair it, but with every cumulative repair, it becomes a little more functional until it is an unrecognizable pile of timber and glass ”

“There are no infinite systems. It is obvious.” Halfhand frowned at the tangient. Sometimes it can be frustrating to talk to the Archivist who is prone to meandering into intellectual wilderness. There is usually a final point, but it may take a long time to reach it.

“But there are systems that supercede natural laws, with the ability to create a lamp that will light forever.” The librarian stopped his pacing.

“The Creator.”

The librarian nods approvingly. “Certainly, however any discussion of the Creator outside of the theological nature is of little practical use. His power is unfathomable, immeasurable, and beyond comprehension of our little minds. But, we can comprehend the two systems that directly link us to the Creator. The first is the Wheel of Time, a perpetual motion machine that is driven by the True Source.”

“Which the Dragon used to break the world. ”

“Indeed. The second is the cycle of souls, which each of us interact so intimately. You know the theology. When we die, our soul is regenerated into a new life. It is an eternal cycle, and yet each new soul is without degeneration or flaw. So, then, theoretically each soul too is an infinite lamp. Even a tiny shard of infinity is still infinity. And as powerful in each way as the True Source, if one can learn to tap it. Theoretically of course.

“That would be the holy grail. Access to untapped and incorruptible power. It is a desperate time in a hostile world of demons and black magic, where steel lance and zealotry can only take you so far. “

“But does not a Power like that, accessible, run into the same risks as the One Power that broke the world?” Halfhand pointed out the obvious.

The librarian nods, “Perhaps, but the argument advanced is that this is the gift given by the Creator to his children, and that the power comes from within their intrinsic soul. Not where Tar Valon witches steal and divert the power of the Creator that is meant to drive the world.
“It is not a new belief or theory. Over the centuries and many lost, there were those that worked to unlock the power of soul, of one’s personal Light. Many of these artifacts have been recovered, and studied here. With the goal and purpose to create true Children of the Light, those that can manifest physically the strength of their soul. Unsurprisingly, there were many failures. But I have heard that there were a few whispers of success. Of the secret creation of actual conduits of the Light.”

Halfhand’s heart skipped a beat at this and mouth felt like sand. “How…did they accomplish that?” His throat felt tight like it was under the pressure of a noose.

“Ah.” The Librarian leaned back slowly until his face was almost in the dark and his face unreadable. “There are no records of it, so one may only guess based on the most popular theory that has not been formally ruled out. If one were to innoculate a soul with a terrible consuming evil, it leaves the soul two choices. Self preservation or annihilation. A soul with the intrinsic will to defend itself and destroy its invader might intrain in its human container an immunity as well as etch a mental pathway. Of course you would have to burn through a lot of souls, so I imagine that it would leave a lot of unexplained corpses to bury, or a high tolerance for the sacrifices. But in no way, is the Children of Light leary of sacrifices, or short of volunteers, or as desperate in the current age for its own survival.
“But even in the most successful project, there is a rub. There is also a cost. Too late did they realize that when you create a conduit, that it becomes a two-way path. By the time they created Thirteen, the First fell unexpectedly to corruption. The acolytes made a fundamental mistake in theory. Once you expose an uncorrupted source to the external world, that source is no longer incorruptible. No matter the strength and immunity you have built, eventually, or almost inevitably, it will fail before the ageless patience of the Dark One’s craft.
“It is terrible for a soul to fall to the shadow, if you understand the perpetual nature of reincarnation. Scholars of the soul believe in fact that there was no greater danger in all of creation than the Forsaken Aginor. More damaging than the Kinslayer or the Betrayer of Hope. It is not the action of creating the shadowspawn, but the irrevocable theft and corruption of the river of souls from the Wheel of Time to indwell his twisted creations. Imagine the bright stars of the Light united in the night sky void blinking out by the thousands. Permanently in every subsequent turn of the wheel.” The librarian’s description chilled Halfhand with the half remembered dream-vision of the colossal maw consuming the stars that haunted his dreams.

The Archivist continued. “And that is just ordinary souls. To the corruption of a soul that was crafted to be the Order’s lifeline against the Shadow, that…that is hundred-fold worse and anathema to the Tenets. So, Thirteen conduits would be all there would be, and all written records of their creation purged. It is whispered that a Questioner was assigned to each subject, to watch and to monitor them for the rest of their mortal lives. With one goal, to never have another weapon in the hands of Shadow. The Questioner’s duty is to do everything in service of that goal, no matter the sacrifice or cost.”

“And every one of these subjects had a Questioner?” Halfhand’s mind flashed to a familiar smirking face.

“Whether they know it or not, they would be shadowed for the rest of their life. For the greater good.”

Halfhand spoke without realizing. “Then it is inevitable.”

“That would be the fatalistic view, Lord Captain. But you know Da’vat. We cannot fall into a predestination trap. Some may say it is the desperation of clinging to any floating debris in a sinking ship, but others may call that hope. There is always hope in the core of the soul, and the Dark One can never take that away without breaking the Wheel. Where there is Darkness, there is Light. Never one without the other, and this world is getting darker and darker with every passing breath, so we must kindle what embers we still possess. And few precious embers we have left. And lo, it is said that while the First walks the darkness, none of the other twelve have followed that path. Oh, many have died in sacrifice, perhaps every single conduit.” The Archivest General paused meaningfully, “I would imagine that if there was any left, they would continue to resist the shadow to their last breath.”

There was a long pause. Child Halfhand could not formulate the right words in his mind. The librarian clearly knew much more than he let on, and had drawn the Child into dangerous territory. Halfhand knew the dangers of ill-advised questions, revealing himself with each question he spoke. But the lingering question finally fell and he did not dance around the obvious. “Why now? I have gone through each of the books here over twice. By your skills, you must have easily deduced what I seeked just by the pattern and order of books I perused over the decade. What finally released your tongue?”

The librarian leaned on his staff. His sleeve shifted so his light revealed a small tattoo on his wrist, a Seeing Eye. “Just a bit of knowledge too soon is as dangerous as too much. But so is knowledge squandered. My tenure draws close. My fate calls me soon and the stench of death waits me at every corner here. And what use is there of any kernel of knowledge that I treasure so deeply except to decay in my skull? No, is is time to let it fly free like a sparrow and see where it lands, for better or for worse.”

“If you fear for your life, librarian, I will see what I can do to protect you.” Halfhand said. He knew the politics of the Children was built on a path of daggers, but he did have some favors to call if the Archivist was threatened.

“Fear?” The librarian chuckled, as he walked back towards his desk and rested on his throne-like chair. “It is more liberating. I do not need or desire your protection. But it is enough idle chatter for today. I will be closing the Archives today early for some much needed maintenance, Lord Captain. You can leave the books on the table and I will sort them as usual.”

Hundreds of questions still swam in the Child of Light’s head, but he could tell the Archivist was done. Perhaps, now that the damgate was open, there will be more in the future, assuming his cavalier prediction of the librarian’s demise was not accurate. Reluctantly, Halfhand pushed his books away and stood up, saluting the now silent Archivest before making his way to the exit. He unbarred the heavy metal door, and pulled it open.

He walked into the lighted corridor and blinked his eyes to adjust. The heavy Sanctum door closed behind with a groan and a click of the heavy bar resetting. Across the hallway, Hand Viellian detached from the opposite wall where he was lounging in wait like a sleeping leopard. He fell into Halfhand’s stride, “Did you find what you need? On the Koloi? You spent more time than normal today.” He shook his empty flask meaningfully.

“I got what I needed. At least for today. What I need to for the Koloi hunt.”

“Do you need me along?”

Halfhand slowed in his gait, side eyeing the Questioner, thinking and considering. “You have been with me for many years, brother. We have survived much together, yes?”

“And many more to come, Fratis. To the ends of the world.” Viellain chuckled. “Cursing and grumbling, but I shall cover your back to the end.” HIs words were of sincerity. But when were they not?

Halfhand nodded, more to himself than the Questioner. “I would have it no other way then, fratis. I will always rely on you to do what you need to do.” And though he tried to let his doubts wash away, he could feel them percolating in the back of his mind. The seed has been planted by the Archivist, and his words would echo in his head for the rest of his life.

When he went to visit the Sanctum the next day, he found the Archivist General sprawled on the stairs leading up to the Tower, his lanturn shattered. Ruled an accident by the investigating Inquisitor. But Halfhand had his doubts. All of the librarian’s finger bones were broken. Whatever knowledge he still held was silenced forever. But the seed planted would grow insidiously until its payoff in a decade.

CHAPTER NINE

“Ring, ring. The Old Grim bell. Here comes souls of ink and eyes of coal. Run, child, run. The Wild Hunt comes.”
Shienaran children’s tale, author unknown.

Child Halfhand touched the side of his head as he felt the Light-cursed headache returning. It seemed to come more often midday, likely exacerbated by the swaying saddle. He could already sense the creeping aura announcing its presence. He could glimpse the crackling spider web forming in the periphery of his vision, almost like something was pressing against the glass pane of reality to break through. Viellain had once called them a “scintillating scotoma” but Halfhand could not recall the technical explanation. Regardless of what these annoying phenomena were, they always heralded the splitting headaches he had inherited from Tefike.

The annoyed Child of Light reached inside a pocket inside his traveling cloak until his fingers found the small paper wrapped package. He opened the wax paper and took out a piece of the willowbark resin and tucked it into his cheek, to allow its bitter juice to seep in his mouth. This seemed to be the only thing able to keep the migraines at bay. He glanced to see that there were only two sad crumbling pieces left. He will have to see if Viellain can decant more, otherwise the long days of travel will soon become nigh intolerable.

The three rode in blessed silence through the deserted Illian forest-lined road with Jena perched in front of Halfhand’s saddle in her usual seat. It was she who first noted the large furred body lying still in the middle of the road ahead.

Viellain gave a small whistle to Matese, and the pair trotted ahead to investigate. The Inquisitor looked down at the form briefly, without bothering to dismount. He looked back at Halfhand and gave a nod, “Just a dying wolf. Just give it a wide berth.”

As Halfhand rode by, he paused briefly to see that it was indeed a massive body wolf sprawled in the middle of the stone road. It was one of the largest wolves he has seen, and he has hunted his share. It has a dappled powder gray fur like a plume of smoke in a cold sky. It would be a pelt any trophy hunter would envy, except its body was covered in vicious wounds and caked blood as if it was turned through a lumber mill. Its chest rose just so slightly, and bubbles can be seen in its gaping chest wounds. It gave a soft groan.

“Wait.” Jena said, as she slipped down from her seat, landing next to the creature.

“What are you doing, child?” Halfhand looked in consternation. “Beware a dying beast. They do not understand your intentions. They are likely to lash out.”

“It do be in pain.” She says, glancing back up at him. “It do be a creature of the Creator. It should at least get the Last Rites and a merciful passing.” She had a familiar fierce look of defiance. Halfhand knew there was no point arguing with her with that look. And who is to argue against her interest in the didactics, at least.

The Child merely grunted, and gave his horse a nudge forward. “The Rites are not for animals. Catch up when you are done playing.”

Viellian had stopped ahead, watching in amusement while drinking from his flask. He gave a arched glance to Halfhand as he joined him, “You better check Materese the Healer for fleas when she is done there before joining us in camp.”

“I know of nothing that can drink your blood and survive.” Halfhand retorted. Let the girl have her childish compassion before this country crushes it from her. He continued on, “I would hate to run into whatever Illianer animal did that to a fully grown wolf.” He looked back at Jena, who was kneeling next to the beast’s head. She had a hand on top of its gray mane, the other on her knife hilt. She was whispering the Last Rites.

“Yes, that has been bothering me as well.” Viellain pondered, “Odd behavior for a wolf to crawl to a road.”

It was at this that Halfhand’s horse whinnied and stumbled on a shallow crater in the road. He swallowed a curse as he glanced down, to see that the crater was an imprint of a giant paw print in the stone pavement as if it was soft mud. That imagery immediately charged his mind with realization and his stomach with dread. It passed through his mind in an instant. The dying, savaged wolf, and the stone pawprints.

“Darkhounds.” Viellain’s mind was not even a second behind.

“Jena, get away!” Halfhand roared as he reigned his horse back towards Jena and the dying wolf incubating the birth of a new Darkhound.

It was too late and too far. As he raced desperately back towards Jena still tending to the incubating darkhound, a black storm of psychic energy exploded out from the wolf’s body as it finally succumbed to its cursed wounds.

For a brief second, with his awakened eyes, Halfhand could swear a tiny glimmer of ethereal energy winging skyward like a departing soul. But that would be impossible. Animals did not possess souls, especially not a base animal like wolves. But, it was overshadowed by multiple black tendrils rippling up from the swirling dense form covering the body. They pursued its target, a black maw high into the sky which snapped close like a towering bear trap.

Then the extension of violent energies sucked rapidly back into it source, which was now encased in a boiling pool of primordial evil that was the proto-darkhound. Its reanimated body’s eyes blinked open, filled with infinite void. With its first instinct on the corporeal plane, it raised its jaws and snapped at the thin girl who was the closest witness of its raising.

It is to Jena’s credit and to Halfhand’s pride that the young girl acted in the only way that ensured her survival. Her prized hunting knife came down, piercing through the snout of the new Darkhound and nailing it to the ground. That bought her one second, but that was enough time for her to roll back and dive into the nearby treeline before the Shadowspawn recovered, shaking its bear-sized head free.

Jena had paid enough in her studies to clearly recognize what she faced and its danger, even if she had never seen one before. Jena had read through Rakin’s Complete Threat Dossier cover to cover at least thrice. At the time, Halfhand has been amused about her interest in fantastic creatures that she would never encounter in the southlands in her lifetime, but it was her curiosity that saved her life now.

But even being aware of their existence was rarely enough. A darkhound by itself was an apex creature of the shadow that few were equipped to handle. For Halfhand and Viellain, a week’s preparation with specialized tools may be enough. To face one unprepared on the open road, would be a suicide run. A normal Darkhound was impervious to most mortal weapons, and even a glancing bite or splash of blood could be lethal. This giant black beast, covered in a rippling black sentient ooze before them could only be a Greater Darkhound.

The only sane move was for the two Children of Light to flee on horseback, to sacrifice the Troiasian girl, and to put enough miles between them. Better two survive, then three to die. A lesson for a girl’s wasted empathy in a cruel world.

But as the embryonic Greater Darkhound howled its chilling cry, black ichor dripping from its snout, and pounced after Jena, Halfhand found himself quickly dismounting from his horse. He grabbed his Iron Warhammer, the only available weapon with enough stopping power for a Darkhound. He raced after the beast, his mind racing, trying to form a desperate plan.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Viellain with the same mind galloping to the edge of the treeline, and leaping from the horse’s back to grab a tree branch, his sharp Manus claw allowing him to grab the bark easily, quickly vanishing into the canopy. Halfhand hopes the Questioner had a better plan than him.

Sightings of isolated Darkhounds through history were spotty as there are few witnesses surviving any encounters. They were harbingers of doom, capable of great destruction, and a relentless hunter. Once a Darkhound had its prey in its sight, it was a matter of inevitability. Born from the tortured and corrupted wolves, they possessed blood and saliva filled with life poison, speed and an unnatural regenerating body that makes most mundane attacks useless.

So it was due to an intersection of many luck factors that Jena was lucky today to survive so long, a feat that few others in history could even boast. She was well acquainted with woods such as these from childhood, and she navigated as she fled through a practiced zig-zag maneuver that allowed her precious minutes. And importantly, she kept her mind a level below pure panic, likely due to the entrained memory burned into her from a similar flight through the woods.

But most importantly this was a Darkhound in its infancy, unfamiliar with the new corporeal body that it inhabited and the new physics of the natural world. While the liquid evil consumed the mortal flesh and replaced it with preternatural machinery, it was still learning the body. The biologic nightmare moved in a jerky halting movement like a novice puppeteer, smashing into trees and tumbling on the ground, leaving chunks of its decaying wolf flesh scattered on brambles. It had not yet mastered its sight and senses as it tumbled clumsily but still eerily fast after the fleeing Troasian girl, closing the gap second by second.

Twice, it approached close enough to snap at her heel, and even a glancing scratch would have been quickly lethal. The first snap was barely deflected by a sharp projectile from the treetops that struck its head with enough momentum to turn its jaw at the last second.

For the second close miss, Jena felt the hot breath at her nape and made a gamble to dive between the forked trunk of a tall, aged oak. She managed to clear it before the Darkhound slammed into the oak’s bulk, cracking the tough old bark nearly in half, and tumbling to its side, stalled briefly.

It was at this opportunity that Halfhand charged in, letting his Regalia of LIght flow through the Warhammer, hoping for a lucky strike. But, almost as if it could sense the Child of LIght’s approach, the Darkhound’s liquid-like body twisted, moving in a way impossible for a canine’s skeleton, its spine popping and snapping unnaturally. More akin to a snake uncoiling and striking, it leaped through the air to meet the Child of Light.

With no other choice, Halfhand swung with his charged warhammer, but as if distance and time stretched around the spectral beast, the hound seemed to slip just around the cold iron as if the weapon was moving in slow motion. With the venomous maw closing in on his face, Halfhand let the momentum of the missed swing twist him as he dropped hard to the ground.

He could see the black obsidian teeth closing empty barely inches above his falling face, the glowing bottomless eyes that briefly looked down at him, before the momentum of the hound carried him past Halfhand as he slammed hard into the ground.

The fall knocked Halfhand’s breath away, and it took him a dangerous second to roll back onto his feet, knowing his intense vulnerability. He turned just to see the Darkhound springing again through the air when a heavy gray blur slammed into the shadowspawn.

The mass of gray fur and teeth wrestled with the shadowspawn on the ground, and six of its kin appeared around them. Large gray wolves. Halfhand hesitated as the new threat, as he debated switching to his longsword. It seemed he got a brief lucky reprieve but odds were even slim now with a pack of feral wolves too.

But the ferocious newcomers seemed to pay little attention to him. The wolves circled the two locked combatants, scruff arched, deep growls brewing, their intense predator eyes only for the darkhound. Was it possible that the wolves were drawn here by the Darkhound?

There was a crack and a pained whimper, as the initial gray wolf fell limp at the foot of the Darkhound. It regarded the newcomers with a wide grin filled with blood daggers, its black body grew larger, swelling until it was twice their size, rippling with undulous spikes. It was an intimidating sight, but the rest of the wolf pack did not hesitate. They charged it as a unit, jaws ripping at the lurking Evil wearing their skin, as ichor and blood splattered over the forest floor, charging the air with stench of sulfur and iron.

These wolves were apex predators of the Westlands, muscle, sinew and teeth crafted and honed by thousands of years of the Creator’s hand for the purpose of killing. But, they were like toys compared to Darkhound. It was something else, of an Ancient Evil and cunning that mortals could not challenge, and these wolves were mortal flesh . And it was starting to now master its corporeal shell to reach the cruel potential of a Greater Darkhound.

The wolves showed no lack of ferocity or courage, almost more than just animal instinct. But in the end they could not surpass the clear gap in strength. It was a slaughter, from which Halfhand could not look away. The Darkhound tore into the canine assailants with glee, inflicting wounds designed for pain and torment. Wolf after another fell in terrible writhing agony, as the Darkhound gleefully rolled in the blood and entrails as it bounced from one target to the other. Its jaws and teeth seem to morph and change from jagged shredded lances to cruel lamprey suckers, the more to inflict pain.

Halfhand just wanted to scream at the remaining wolves to run, but the wolfpack continued to the bitter end. Through the horrors, he could see Jena seemed to be hiding behind the damaged oak.

Halfhand raised his warhammer again and approached the terrible slaughter, knowing that this blood may have bought him the only chance to end it.

As the Darkhound sent the last standing wolf flying limp like a ragdoll through the air, there was a huge crack. Behind him the cracked oak tree began to fall. Jena’s face peaked around the falling trunk from where she had leveraged the leaning tree with her legs. Above, Viellian leaped away from the tree’s top where he had steered its fall.

However, the Darkhound sensed the shadow falling upon it, and leaped out of the way. In mid-flight, it lurched as one of the still wolf bodies lunged up with its last strength and locked its jaw on its haunch, dragging the Darkhound down.

The Darkhound twisted around like a boneless viper, shredding at the wolf with its razor teeth. But even nearly sawed in half, the wolf refused to let go until the oak finally crashed down on them both. The pinned Shadowspawn raised its blood-drenched muzzle and howled, a haunting chill of a wail that froze the blood of everyone in the area.

Halfhand roared through the howl, and slammed his warhammer down on the beast’s head with all his strength and will. It was like striking pure rock. There was a peal of energy blacklash from the collision of two opposing forces that bounced the hammer back, almost tearing his shoulder out of its socket. The Darkhound’s head was flattened into a dark liquid which seethed and boil with agitation, starting to reform.

Halfhand fought the numbness in arm, holding steady to the warhammer, charging it to bursting with the power of his Light, and then sending it crash once more down on the reforming Darkhound.

There was a violent storm of malevolent psychic energy from the strike as the ambient light around almost seemed to dim to twilight, as the primordial being explosively dissipated. Halfhand stumbled backward, but stayed on his feet. It was ended.

Robbed of its shadow possession, the decayed shell of the darkhound was now nothing but rotting flesh that crumbled to fetid dust in front of him.

Halfhand let his warhammer fall to the forest floor. He breathed out the heat of battle. The entire front of the warhammer was caked in thick red rust as if it was exposed to a decade of corrosion.

He looked up at the aftermath at the bloody wolf bodies scattered around Jena unharmed, but her clothes soaked with mud and covered in scratches from tree branches. Viellain slid down a nearby tree, his Manus carving a trail down the bark to slow his ascent. He jumped down the last few feet, landing softly, and with a tug, retracted his hook-and-chain with his off hand. He moved from one wolf body to the other, with a surgical cut at the top of their spine to ensure their complete death, and not to be another Darkhound seed.

“You okay, Jena? You did not get a injury from the darkhound?” Halfhand asks. Jena merely nodded, still half stunned, her face blanched at the bloody slaughter in front of her.

“We should go.” Viellain says. “You have dispelled it, but who knows what it may draw.”

“You two go to the horses. Give me one second.” Halfhand leaned against the oak tree and pushed until it rolled off slightly, exposing the last wolf, the one that held onto the Darkhound to its end. It breathed raggedly, its body a tortured mass of wounds. Somehow, it had shifted so it could touch the decaying shell of the Darkhound, her snout resting intimately next to the crushed skull. But, it looked back at the Child with its fading golden eyes, with too much intelligence for a wild animal. He could swear he could see a sign of resignation in those sad eyes. It locked its gaze with him

It neither struggled or whined, but just concentrated on its labor of breathing. But it was as if it knew what must be done. It had a look of acceptance of its fate. Even in its abject state, it had a sense of nobility, its brilliant red mane no less beautiful which could not be marred by its ugly wounds.

It closed its eyes knowingly as Halfhand drew his sword, as the Child of Light granted it the stroke of mercy.

But before he turned, he paused. He has never done this for an animal, but he laid his blessed hand on the peaceful body and he spoke the Last Ritual of Peace for the red-maned wolf. But he did not feel silly. He felt a presence of something that is anathema to the Tenets. The reflection of a soul leaving the broken body. It touched back at him for just a somber moment. There was a sense of sorrow and regret. It was only for a fraction of a second before it dissipated, but it was enough to carve a deep trough of doubt in his heart.

He carried that heavy doubt as he left the woods, following the trail of destruction back on to the road to the waiting horses.

Viellain and Jena were there, he watched mutely as the Questioner hand the girl her hunting knife that he had recovered. “I have cleaned it of the poison, child. This weapon is suited to you, worthy of a Name, bathed in Darkhound blood. Shrike.” This was as emotional as Viellain could get.

This seemed to have brought Jena out of her exhausted stupor, she received it with a tired flicker of pride.

And then a distant howl interrupted this somber moment, a familiar howl of ancient evil that chilled the blood. Then a second and a third. Closer and closer.

There were no words lost between the three. The Darkhound had sent out a cry of help and now a full pack of nightmares were approaching.

They fled as fast as the horses could gallop, trying to outrun what could not be outrun. And yet even with the certain knowledge of the approaching terrors, Halfhand was still haunted by the uncertain meaning of a wolf’s soul.

The howls behind grew louder and louder.