We made quick work of the forest, and soon we came upon the shadow of the mountains. The trees still surrounded us all around, covered again in snow, but now I could glimpse the mountains through gaps in the treeline.

Perhaps I hadn’t noticed the mountains before, since we were so stricken with cold. I remember seeing them for the first time that day, wondering how something could stretch so tall and not fall over. The coast where I was from was a flat place. But here, the mountain was everything.

The top was covered with white snow, and the impossibly tall mountain was framed by more mountains, and more, and more until I couldn’t see anything beyond. They were jagged, rough creatures, sewn with crevices, and crags, and it was hard not to lose myself staring at them. The thought of entering such a range filled me with unease.

I felt Rebert’s eyes on me, and I turned to him.

“Never seen the mountains before, have you?”

I shook my head.

Rebert nodded, and then smiled. When Rebert smiled, he looked younger, despite the gray in his hair. It made me wonder how old he really was.

“The Gnomen mountains and the trade paths used to be a common route. The gnomes would bring their metals down into Mildor, and the Mildorian traders would bring their own wares - pigs, animals, horses - things not as common in the mountains,” he gestured around in a vague sense.

“I myself had traveled the route once or twice in the old days with my brothers,” Rebert grinned. “But then the church grew greedy.” Rebert’s fleeting smile turned into a frown. He glared at the road ahead of us, and it seemed as if he had lost the will to continue his story.

“What happened?” I asked.

Rebert waved a hand dismissively. “The Church grew in power and eventually wanted more in return for less. The gnomes felt they weren’t getting a fair deal, and a war broke out.”

Long moments passed after that, and I thought that the man might be done speaking. I could sense the pain in him, long since buried perhaps, but still there.

“Who won?” I asked.

Rebert raised an eyebrow. “Who do you think?” He shook his head. “After winning that war, the church realized how profitable war can be. And so, they started more.”

Rebert’s hands relaxed a bit on the reins, and it was as if he was staring into another time. He just stared forward, holding the reins, lost in his thoughts and dark past.

We rode in silence through the forest, and even though we traveled at a steady rate up the mountain, it was slow going. Sometimes we would stop, and rest. The views were breathtaking. Thousands of feet down, and all I could see was more and more trees.

Finally the road led up the hill and then widened out. We hugged a tight curve around a bend in the road, and came upon them.

There were five men clad in dark leathers sitting around a fire. They had their own wagon close by, and a crudely set up tent. At first, I thought they might be bandits, but attached to the wagon was a tall flag. The purple background and the gold cross set a lump of fear in my stomach that burned. I felt like I was going to gag. I remembered the standard from my short time with Roth’s men.

They looked at us in surprise, and neither they nor us said or did anything for a few seconds. Then, Rebert jumped down from his place in the wagon, and the men jolted into motion. One of the men, a smaller one, dove for the tent and took out a small sword. Two of the other churchmen stood up, these were bigger, broad, and muscled, and two others simply watched us—not bothering to even get up.

“Well met!” Rebert called out. He jumped off the cart, rolled his shoulders, and stretched his back. “Didn’t know there were any fellow churchmen this far out in the mountains.”

The men looked at one another, then back at Rebert in confusion. Rebert strolled forward confidently and put his hand forward to shake a hand.

The first man to respond was one that had not bothered to get up. He made a show of dusting off his rear and cracking his neck, then he strolled over to Rebert, and he looked him up and down. He had hair so blonde it was almost white. The man was slender—almost painfully so, and his nose was hawk-like on his skinny, angular face. The man smiled at Rebert—and I noticed his smile was black, and his teeth were rotted.

“Didn’t think the church had the Shinarin in their ranks,” the man sneered at Rebert and the men behind him chuckled.

Rebert laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder, causing the man to jump in surprise. As Rebert withdrew his hand, the man relaxed. However, as his hand left the man’s shoulder, Rebert slipped his other hand behind his waist and pulled out a knife, plunging it into the man’s skinny stomach. The small blade made a sick squelch as Rebert twisted and wrenched the knife around the man’s bowels.

The man screamed and pushed Rebert back, stumbling a few feet before looking down at his bloody stomach. He began to dribble and blood frothed out of his mouth as he fell over.

One of the larger men grabbed a shield propped up against the wagon. The formidable object, made of wood and fine steel, was then used as a battering ram as the man charged towards Rebert.

Shay screamed as the man barreled into Rebert, the force slamming them both to the ground. Rebert and the big man grappled on the ground, but it was evident that the man’s weight was too much for Rebert. The big man was pressing Rebert’s arms back and looked like he was about to headbutt him.

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Suddenly, I heard feet hitting the ground behind me, and as I turned, I saw Clidale rushing over to Rebert. Without hesitation, Clidale swung his wooden practice sword as hard as he could down onto the man’s head. The sound reverberated in the air as the hardwood splintered onto the man’s skull, causing him to crumple on top of Rebert.

As Rebert struggled to get out from under the limp man’s body pinning him to the ground, Clidale picked up the shield the man had used and looked around wildly as the other two men advanced towards him and Rebert. Clidale met my own eyes.

But as he looked at me, one of the men took that as an opportunity to lunge towards him. Clidale managed to bring the shield up in time to block a sideways thrust at his neck from the man who had managed to procure a sword.

The cut was strong, and some of the wood from the shield chipped off. The other man, who bore a striking resemblance to the one on the ground, had a huge piece of wood in his hands. It was almost the size of a log, easily 6 feet tall.

I realized then that the men had been using it as a bench by the fire. It didn’t look like any sort of real weapon, but it was heavy, and the body doesn’t need to be sliced or torn open. Sometimes an angry enough man with enough weight in his hand can do the job just fine.

The man advanced on Clidale and swung the piece of wood at him. It was a heavy, slow movement, but Clidale was forced to jump back and somehow the movement made him lose his grip on the shield.

The man with the sword made to advance on Clidale again, but by this time Rebert had finally regained his bearings. "Get in the cart, you fool!" he yelled hoarsely, and Clidale looked at me. Then, his eyes looked behind me, and I turned to see Shay clutching a knife.

"Stay up there!" Clidale yelled.

I turned back to see Rebert charging towards the man with the sword. The man poked forward but Rebert seemed to expect the thrust and carried his momentum around the blade, punching his hand into the man’s throat.

The man coughed and clutched at his throat, and I could tell by the shape of his neck that Rebert had broken his windpipe. The other man looked between us, trying to see if we might be an easier target. His eyes wavered on Shay, but then he grunted and moved towards Rebert.

The huge man threw the log at Rebert. He was able to duck and avoid it but the man followed up and his fist hit Rebert in the gut. Rebert crumpled into the man, and in one smooth motion, the man picked him up and threw him off the cliff.

Shay screamed behind me, and my stomach seemed to fold in on itself in horror as the gruff warrior vanished from my sight.

The man looked down at his companion who lay on the ground, clutching at his neck still, his face purple and his eyes bulging. He shrugged and picked up the man’s sword.

Clidale was no fool, and as soon as the man picked up the sword, he tried to run over to the cart with Shay and me. But the man who he had hit in the head had managed to roll over and regain consciousness, and he grabbed Clidale’s foot, tripping him.

The man with the sword found this tremendously funny and roared with a deep, throaty laugh.

The other man stood up on his knee and pulled Clidale by the foot, hefting him up by the armpits and showing him to his brother. "Fancy this little guy took me out? Bet the lads back home would never let me live that down."

"Stop him!" Shay grabbed my arm, and her nails bit into my flesh. But the fear had taken hold of me, and I could do nothing as the huge man brought his sword to Clidale.

The smaller man who had recovered pinned him on the ground and was giggling. The bigger man kneeled down and brought down the sword with almost a surgical precision.

Clidale screamed out in pain, and it was a sound that I would never forget. It seemed to tear through the air and into my chest, and I could do nothing but watch as the huge man dug the point of his sword into Clidale's eye.

The sound was high-pitched and feral, devoid of any inflection that I knew from my friend. I had never heard someone in so much pain before.

I tried to reach for the strange magic in my body, not knowing how or what it would do. When I had saved Shay, it wasn’t a conscious effort, but as Clidale’s scream began to die out and the brothers started laughing, I reached harder, and a sudden pressure seemed to evaporate around me.

It was as if the world got quiet, and everything became washed out and muddy. Colors themselves seemed to die, and the air lost its flavor of wood, sand, and leaves. I hadn’t moved, but it felt like I was no longer on the ground, or placed against it with force—and the people surrounding me were little more than bright lights vaguely resembling humans.

I could see their bones, their hearts, their life pulsing in and out, and I could see everything else around me as well. Life pulsed, and flowed, and grew, and died, and I was there to see it all.

Without fear, I moved forward to the man holding Clidale on the ground. I touched his arm, and held it there for a moment, trying to recreate that feeling I had when Shay had touched me, but this time, I was the one pulling instead of pushing her away. The man seemed to freeze, and then just like Shay, he began to glow. It was then that he could see me. He looked confused, then looked around, and terror filled his eyes. “Where am I? What have you done to me?” His voice echoed as if we were in a large room and his eyes looked up to me standing above him. Then I gripped him tightly and pulled harder than I ever had before, still hearing Clidale’s screams in my head even though we existed in a void of silence.

Before I had felt the cold of the void steal the life of my arm away, but now, it was different. It was if white hot energy surged into my stump and then before my very eyes, my arm began to grow back. It was if I was some sort of lizard--the bone growing out and the flesh and muscle knitting around it. Before long, it seemed I had never lost my arm. Somehow in the quiet void it was hard to feel any emotion. It was as if the quietness of it all dulled every sense, but also the senses of my mind. Perhaps had I been in the living world things would have been different. Perhaps I would have felt sorry for the man, but in the void, in the quiet, I could not feel anything. And so I pulled and pulled and the man withered in the living realm and his glowing began to fade in the quiet one.

I focused on the other man—ignoring the dying one—and willed myself to him. The feeling was odd, since the form suddenly appeared before me and the shift in my surroundings suggested I had just appeared there. I wasn’t sure how I knew I could do that. But I was not surprised either.

This was the big man. His form glowed much brighter, and this time I decided to try something different. I reached forward towards the man’s neck and instead of pulling him into me, I pulled him into the air. I was surprised it was so easy, but at the same time, I didn’t expect to find any resistance where I was. The rules were different there, if there were any at all. And then I threw the man as hard as I could. His form flew through the air and hit the tall, glowing form of a tree.

I sensed something else, but this time, it wasn't movement or one of the other visible forms. Outside the quiet world, I would compare the feeling to a tingle down the spine, but here, it felt different, more jarring, as if something had just materialized that didn't belong. Whatever it was, my entire being shuddered.

The air seemed to tighten, stretch, and then relax, but behind me, I could still sense a heavy presence. A part of me, the part that still managed to feel anything, urged me to leave the quiet world and run away.