Gareth’s back ached as he lifted the wooden beam from where it lay in the rubble. His arms burned with the aftermath of the day's exertion, even with the three other Rangers assisting him as they worked to clear what had once been a home. The stone underneath them was cracked from where the rot walker had stomped furiously, and the coppery smell of blood wafted around them as they heaved the log, throwing it away from the heap of ruined stone and wood.

He knelt, pulling chunks of shattered rock away, his hands covered in dirt and dried blood from the cuts that scored his knuckles. This had been the house of a farmer. His name had been Reoul, husband of Ysla and father of Henri and Lyle. This house had stood for over a hundred years, new by village standards. From where he stood, he could imagine that the view of the sunrise, light washing over the town square in waves of orange, would have been enough to drive away whatever sorrows could befall him. Now, Reoul and his family lay buried under cold and shattered stones, and the sunrise provided no comfort as it crept red and clouded over the trees.

Gareth grunted as he pulled a large chunk of stone, heaving with his legs and throwing it behind him with a thud. Around him, people wept. Women wept for their husbands, whose blood his men washed from the streets with buckets of well water. Men wept for brothers and friends, who they carried into the outpost to be prepared for burial. Some wept for children, and others simply wept for the horror of it all.

A rot walker, loose in the safewood, crept past the Rangers to wreak fury and destruction upon the village. Things like this didn’t happen. The Rangers caught the rot walkers before they got this far. The Rangers died so that Falderfell could rest. Yet, the village square lay in heaps of rubble and blood, a gruesome shrine to how they had failed. How he had failed.

Gareth pushed the thought away, the self-loathing pressing into a corner of his mind to be unpacked later. There was no time to ruminate on his failures as a leader. He pulled more stone from the wreckage, his knees aching as he crouched. The air was cold and wet, the promise of rain looming in the dark clouds that overlooked the village. Something to wash the blood away, at least.

“Captain!”

Gareth stood, turning to see Helrir approaching. The lieutenant's dark, scarred face was strained and furrowed as he walked. Like Gareth, he wore no cloak, only a tan undershirt. The bulky fabric tended to get in the way of manual labor. Helrir wearily brought a fist to shoulder in a sloppy salute.

“We’ve run a count, as you ordered.”

Gareth nodded, bracing himself for what would come next. “How many?”

“Twelve dead, five dying, eight injured.”

Gareth cursed under his breath, his body feeling heavier with the gravity of the dead. We could have stopped this. He pushed the thought away, standing tall despite the weight. Someone needed to stand with it all. Someone needed to hold firm. “News from the scouts?”

Helrir wiped the sweat from his brow, smearing dirt across his forehead. “The safewood seems clear. The pair from Camp Baelon tracked it from the circle stones and didn’t spot any traces. We’ve yet to find the senior stationed with them.”

Gareth nodded. “Fyrn. He sent the raven.” Even with the warning, they had been too late. By the time they spotted the fires and mounted a response, too many were dead. His shoulders ached, reminding him of his lost youth. A house nestled within a hollow. A fire. The smell of bread.

“Gareth,” Helrir whispered as his old friend took him by the forearm, pulling him close. “I’ve fought more rot walkers than I can hardly count.” His eyes were pained, barely restrained panic hidden within their depths for only Gareth to see. “I’ve never seen one that big. Jeorge said that if it wasn’t for that girl…whatever that was…”

“Hold your tongue, Helrir!” Gareth hissed. “You think I don’t know how big the damned thing was? The villagers are strained enough.” He looked around as people picked through the ruins of the town square. Smoke curled up from the rubble of the town hall. The acrid taste coated his tongue and burned the inside of his nostrils. “The last thing we need is a mass panic.”

Helrir nodded, inhaling slowly. “Sorry, sir. I’ve just…seen too many dead.”

Gareth squeezed his shoulder. “As have I, brother.”

Helrir straightened, his eyes darting uncomfortably. “About the girl. The Mothers forbid us from speaking to her.”

Gareth closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. “I figured as much.”

“They want to speak with you, sir.”

Gareth sighed, dusting off his hands. Best get this over with. He stood tall as he prepared himself for what was to come. Already, he could feel the accusing stares of the villagers, the rage in their eyes as they cradled their dead, the betrayal as they picked through their homes. You promised them safety from the deepwood. You failed them.

The stares followed him, weighing down his steps as he walked to the squat stone building of the Rangers outpost where the Mothers tended to the wounded. The beacon towered over it, the tower casting a long shadow in the morning light. The door was open, and the smell of blood and decay overtook him as he walked into the outpost.

The windows were open to let in light and to let out some of the smell. The men lay in cots, and the Mothers, with the help they had recruited, rushed clean rags and water to them. Many were bare-chested on their cots with black veins that shot up from wounds that had festered overnight. Anyone who had been so much as nicked by the rot walker’s ebony blade would be dead within a few days.

Mother Reila stood in the corner, a rag over her mouth as she watched the women care for the doomed men. Her hair was pulled into a black bun streaked with grey, and her skirts were stained brown with blood. She met his gaze with weary eyes and wove her way through the cots of wounded, resting her hand on the shoulder of a blonde woman choking back tears as she tended to who Gareth could only assume was her husband. She brushed past Gareth silently, walking into the open alleyway.

She removed the rag from her face and breathed deeply, back turned to Gareth as he turned out of the outpost. “So many dead.” Her voice was soft as she stared at the sky. “So many dying. We’ll hardly have enough men to rebuild.”

Gareth took his place beside her. He had known Reila since childhood, growing up with her and even courting her before joining the Rangers. “My Rangers will help rebuild. We’ll double the guard. Station more Rangers in the town, patrol the safewood more extensively.”

Reila turned to Gareth, her face ashen and eyes tearful. She had shed the mask that Gareth had held desperately to since seeing the fires rising through the trees. The mask that he was holding things together. The mask that he was in control. “What then, Gareth?” Her voice was shaky. “You’ve never seen one that big. And don’t lie to me like you have everyone else and say you can protect us from that.” She leaned against the stone of a wall, sliding down until she sat on the ground.

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Gareth grunted as he sat beside her, pulling a waterskin from his belt and handing it to her. She opened it and drank deeply from it before handing it back. He took a long gulp, the cool water washing away the taste of smoke and dirt.

“Are you just going to sit there stoically?” Reila demanded, wiping bloodstained fingers on the grass. “I know you, Gareth. Better than anyone in the village. Some of them blame you. Blame the Rangers for not spotting it.”

“Do you?” Gareth poured water onto his hands and tried to wipe the dirt from his face. He wished he could be like Reila, taking off the mask in a familiar presence and washing it off with cool water. No. He knew that if he took it off and stopped carrying it for a moment, he would fall to the floor and never get up.

A cold hand wrapped in ivy.

“No. I saw it when it attacked. Even if you had caught it, what could you have done? Ioleth’s mercy was the only thing that saved us. The thing tore through houses like paper.”

Gareth turned toward her. She had wiped away the tears, still refusing to cry in front of him, mask or not. She had always been beautiful, from when she danced in Festival as a girl to even now as they sat old, covered in dirt and blood. She was a calm, steady beauty like an oak. Nights spent running through the safewood, fire moths pulsing around them like stars as they laughed.

“We’ll find a way, Rei. We always do. The Rangers, we’ll protect the village.” He stared at the sky, which bled shades of red as the sun lifted itself above the horizon, witnessing the night's bloodshed.

Reila’s hand closed around his, the simple touch threatening to shatter the mask. She squeezed tightly, closing her eyes as she rested her head against the stone wall. They sat there for a moment, hands clasped together. She traced her fingers around his scarred knuckles, the sounds of the dying calling out from the makeshift hospital. “Those men. They’re going to die. Aren’t they?”

Gareth nodded. “Takes a few days. It would be kinder to end it now.”

Reila’s released her grip. “You know they won’t do that, Gareth. The people.” She pulled down her bun, letting her hair fall in a grey-black sheet. Pushing her hair back underneath a star-speckled sky. Gareth pushed the thought away. The time for thoughts such as that had long passed. “Too many have died already. Doomed or not, they’ve known these men their entire lives.”

The mask was falling. Gareth sighed, his chest feeling heavy as he drank from the waterskin. “How do I it, Rei?”

“Do what?”

“How do I face them? I can see their faces.” Gareth clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles going white. “You said it yourself. They blame me. They blame the Rangers. We failed them. We let that thing slip past us. We’re the reason their husbands, fathers, and friends are dead.”

Reila paused, ripping a piece of grass from the ground. “We’re supposed to be leaders,” her voice was quiet as she spoke. As they sat together, she was no longer Mother Reila, head matriarch of the Mother’s Council. She was simply Rei, the girl Gareth had chased with sticks as a child. Though youth was long behind her, that same warm light shone in her eyes. It was faded by the day's tragedy, but still the glimmer that had entranced him as a boy.

“We’re expected to be faultless, never to let anything horrible happen to those around us.” She tore at the grass in her fingers, separating it into smaller and smaller pieces. “But we always will. Leaders will always fail their people.”

Gareth grunted. “So, I’m supposed just to accept it? Just write off the deaths of so many because I was bound to fail at some point?”

Rei shook her head, the shredded grass blowing from her open palm as a gust of wind blew through the village. “You have to hurt. You have to feel for the people you’ve wronged. Otherwise, you weren’t fit to lead to begin with.” She turned to Gareth, her eyes glinting in the light like green crystal. “How the people you lead will remember you isn’t by if you failed, but what you did after you failed.”

The wind blew stronger, whipping Rei’s hair as it passed through the alleyway. The sky darkened as clouds began to creep over the village, rumblings of thunder echoing from their depths. Rei took his hand and squeezed it tightly as she stood up. “I know you’ll protect us, Gareth. The people will hurt, but like you said, we’ll survive.” She ran her hand along his shoulder as she began to walk back toward the sounds of the dying.

As Reila left, Gareth sat momentarily, breathing in the wet air before the rain and listening to the song the trees sang as they creaked in the wind. It was slow and solemn, a song of mourning in the face of destruction and chaos. Why are you bound to earth?

He closed his eyes and rested his head against cool stone. The wind whistled around him as it passed between the buildings, the moaning from the outpost mixing with the mournful crackling of the trees to create a symphony of sorrow in anticipation of cleansing rain. The sound of footsteps and labored breathing opened his eyes.

Two Rangers were approaching, carrying a third in between them by the arms. Gareth recognized the pair, a girl with flame-red hair and a tall lad with a patchy brown beard, as the trainees from Camp Baelon. Gareth shot to his feet as he saw they carried Jeorge, his face a mask of pain.

His cloak was discarded and his chest bare. A web of black veins ran from underneath his trousers, where Gareth could see a slash on his upper thigh where a blade had nicked the cloth. The lines of black trailed up his entire chest, protruding like foul snakes that throbbed underneath his skin. Gareth ran to the wounded Ranger, grabbed him from the pair, and lowered him against the wall. A few other Rangers from the party that had arrived with Gareth had followed and were watching with sorrowful faces.

The lad, Seren, crouched beside Gareth as Jeorge coughed, blood splattering from his mouth. “He collapsed while we were trying to clear the wreckage of the bakery, sir. We didn’t even know he’d been hit.” The boy's voice was flat and lifeless, his panicked eyes darting at every sound.

Jeorge groaned, his muscles tense and hot as Gareth gripped his shoulder. “It…It was just…just a scratch.” He opened bloodshot eyes, panting. “Thought I’d get lucky or die trying.”

Gareth placed a hand on Ranger’s forehead. His skin was hot enough to cook on. Aelio’s light, the man had likely been in agony for hours but had now collapsed. “Other men would have long fallen to the pain. You’re built from strong roots, brother.”

Jeorge forced a pained smile, spasmed, and fell into a coughing fit. Gareth heard something crack within his chest, and more blood spilled from his nose as he hacked violently. “Sir,” his voice was raspy and breathless. “Give me a clean death. A good one. Don’t let me die like this.”

Gareth gripped the back of Jeorge’s neck, resting his forehead against his as he slid a dagger from his boot. So many dead. The Mother’s council would do as they willed their people, but he would not condemn his own, his brothers, to days of agony. The Rangers were stone as they watched. The rest of them had stopped their work to watch, ` to honor the passing of their brother.

Jeorge shuddered, his breathing rapid. Gareth could feel his heart pounding underneath his hands.

“Jeorge.” He projected his voice so that the other Rangers could hear him. “You have served your vigil, watched under Fyrun’s night, fought within the guiding light of Aelio, sacrificed upon the soil of Ioleth.” He pressed the tip of the dagger to Jeorge’s bare chest, just to the left, above his heart. “Your brothers and sisters watch you now in honor. Say the words, brother.”

Jeorge coughed again, his eyes fluttering as he spoke through gritted teeth, his voice strained as he pushed out the words. “My hands in service. My heart in honor. My life in vigil.”

Gareth looked him in the eyes, one hand on the dagger, one hand on Jeorge’s shoulder. “May your honor guide you beyond darkened skies.” He thrust the blade forward. Jeorge jolted as the blade pierced his heart, blood spilling out of his mouth as his eyes glazed over. In a second, it was done. Gareth pulled the dagger from his chest and stood, facing the watching Rangers.

“A vigil has ended,” he called out. The mask returned as he stood tall, the blade in his hand stained with his brother's blood.

The Rangers saluted, echoing his cry. “A vigil has ended!”

Gareth ran his fingers along the blade, wiping the blood onto his forehead with a quick motion. “He will be taken to the fort to have a proper burial. I will wear the blood of his sacrifice until then.” He sheathed his dagger. “Take his body somewhere safe in the meantime.”

The pair that had carried him nodded, each grabbing an arm as they took his limp body, his blood spilling onto the ground. The other Rangers pressed their hands to the pools of blood on the ground or grazed his broken chest as he passed, wiping the blood onto their foreheads. They would wear it in solidarity to honor him.

Gareth motioned for Helrir to follow him as he returned to the village square. He had failed; the blood on his forehead proved that to him. Rei’s words echoed in his head with every step as he moved forward. It’s not about if you fail. It's about what you do after.