Page 471 of Of Empires and Dust

“Calen, how are you here? How is Haem… What happened?”

“I need to take him home, Dann,” Calen whispered, tears quietly rolling down his cheeks. “I need to… I need to lay him next to them.”

“By Varyn…” Tarmon whispered over Dann’s shoulder.

Dann looked over Calen’s body, still unable to see how any of this could truly be real. “I watched you die, Calen. I saw it.”

Calen leaned down and pressed his forehead to Haem’s, his shoulders convulsing. He lifted his gaze and once more stared into Dann’s eyes, and in that moment, Dann threw his arms around the brother he had lost and pulled Calen closer, Haem’s body between them.

“Can you help me?” Calen asked, cold tears rubbing against Dann’s cheek. “Can you help me bury him?” Calen shook his head. “I can’t do it alone.”

Dann nodded. A thousand questions floated in his mind, and for the first time in his life, he knew not to ask them. There would be a time, but that was not this time. “We’ll do it together.”

More sounds shuffled around them, and Tarmon dropped to a knee beside Calen without uttering a word, his hand resting on Calen’s shoulder. Lyrei, Erik, and Vaeril followed.

Dann glanced over his shoulder, noticing Therin’s absence. He found the elf just standing there, staring down at Calen and Haem, cheeks wet, eyes wide.

Above, thunder cracked again, rolling across the skies, and for a short while, even the dragons were silent.

Chapter 110

The Eversnow

29thDay of the Blood Moon

The Hearth, Drifaien – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Alleron Helmund lifted his shield,sending an arrow bouncing off the iron boss and skittering into the snow. He dropped his left shoulder, twisted, then hacked his axe into the torso of the man before him, the blade burying between two ribs.

Baird swooped past him, wielding twin bearded axes, a patch over one eye, Audun and Destin with him.

Through the dense snowfall, Alleron could just about see Gudrun and Sigrid leading their warriors through the second gate.

The fortress of The Hearth protected the mouth of Drifaien. It was the province’s most important chokepoint. If they could take it, they would cut off Alleron’s father’s supplies from the rest of the continent – at least by land. They would control all who entered and left Drifaien, and Calen’s reinforcements couldenter freely. They had failed in taking Arisfall, but there was more than one way to skin a kat.

The battle was already a bloody one, but his father had long hoarded the vast majority of his might in Arisfall and the surrounding regions, leaving sparse few warriors garrisoning the ancient fortress. Were it not for the Lorian forces that had ventured south following a fierce battle on the Arythn Plain, The Hearth would already belong to the rebellion.

“These Northern bastards have never fought in the snow,” Baird shouted as he ripped his axe from a Lorian face, blood spurting from the trench carved from eyebrow to mouth. “I bet they’ve never even seen their piss freeze.” He looked down at the dead Lorian. “Should have stayed at home, little lion.”

Alleron looked down at the maimed corpse, then about the blood-stained yard. Bodies lay everywhere. Most bore the black lion of Loria on their breasts, though many were his own warriors, his friends, his followers.

A brief pang of guilt probed at his heart, finding an icy wall formed by the memory of Leif’s head rolling in the snow. Rebellions had a cost that could only be paid in blood. But that did not mean a man should shy away from what must be done. If a man didn’t stand for what he believed in, didn’t stand for what was right, then what was the point in standing at all?

Frozen blood would glitter across Drifaien, and Alleron would be the hand that spilled it. His soul would bear the weight because someone’s had to. His father could not be allowed to keep bleeding their people dry. The Lorian parasite needed to be killed. The people of Drifaien deserved a chance at life, and for that Alleron was willing to carry the burden of death.

“We must take the keep swiftly,” Destin said, drawing up beside Alleron, his face splattered with fresh blood. “It will be easy for us to lose far too many lives. I suggest…” Destin trailedoff as he spoke, tilting his head sideways. “What in the gods is that?”

A sphere of light floated near the far wall of The Hearth’s main yard, spreading outwards with each passing heartbeat until it looked as though Alleron were staring out through a window framed in white light. But there was no snow on the other side, only rocks and green trees. Four men and two women stepped through, boots crunching in the bloodied snow.

“Tssk, tssk, tssk.” One man stepped forwards, lean and tall. He looked about the yard, ignoring Alleron and the five hundred strong who stood alongside him. “This is not the path at all.”

“Who are you?” Alleron called out.

“I have been called many names,” the man responded, glancing up briefly towards Alleron. “I suggest you order the retreat, little Lord Helmund. Otherwise you will not like what happens next.” He turned to one of the women with a ring of worn red skin around her neck. “Boud, the night is a bit clear, don’t you think? Surely the ‘Eversnow’ should be ever snowing?”

“Indeed,” Boud responded. She raised her arms, and her eyes turned a milky white. In the span of a breath, the snowfall grew heavier as though a blizzard had formed from thin air.

The man turned to another, who stood almost a head and a half taller than Alleron, with wiry muscles and a deep scowl on his face. “Vhorkel, if you please.”

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