Hooves smashed into cobbled stones as four riders galloped hard down the icy roads of Fenryr. The sky was alight with a gleaming wave of colour suspended in the night gloom. The Gods road as the locals called it, and the colours of the chosen as the church knew them by. They were an ill omen this far out into the Tear, from the bastions to the coast they were marvelled at for their beauty, but for the men of the Northern Errantry, it promised nothing but a noisy night.

The small party had already encountered plenty of noise. When they set off from Claw Keep a fortnight ago they numbered twelve: six knights, four men at arms and two men of the faith. Only three fighting men remained and one brother of the Collegia. Hark didn’t dwell on the fate of the priest for he suffered a most ghastly death when a fissure tore itself open and spewed forth red-hot magma, the Mother, her horse and the reliquary she guarded with such zeal went into the crack. The Jussian monk dove off his mule and damn near threw himself into the fire to join them, but wordlessly the priest handed him the silver box, as her horse died the most horrible death that Hark could imagine and her legs were engulfed in molten rock she didn’t make a sound. He had been with the Errantry for over five years and it was one of the most disturbing sights he had seen.

“I like this not,” Krim grumbled from atop his horse.

“You’ve not liked anything since we left the Claw,” Hark replied pulling his horse to a halt and motioning for the others to do the same.

“This is the worst ranging I’ve seen in over fifteen years. The Tear doesn’t want us here and we would do well to listen Lord.” Krim turned his eyes upon the younger man with a feral intensity only obtained from battle fatigue.

“This is no ranging Krim, the Faith asked the order to deliver the Mother and the monk to the Shattered Barrow,” said Ser Roland Highcroft. The lordling looked off into the distance narrowing his eyes and tensing his brow. Hark thought it was a good way of keeping the fear from sitting plainly on his face.

“Seven. We have built seven funeral pyres for our brothers. They have died to arrows, swords, spears, wolves, bears, damn fissures and rivers have cut our numbers down to this pathetic group.”

“And turning craven is no way to honour them. Are you unmanned by some colourful clouds in the sky?” The young knight's voice was low and measured, he sounded almost bored as he kicked his destrier into a trot.

“We’re no use to the order dead, we lost Sers Yres and Farrow to raiders in the colours of the Clan-King. The Grandmaster has given explicit orders to report all clan sightings.”

“And he gave us orders to see the monk to his destination. Are you not a man of the faith Krim, do you wish to do the chosen a disservice.” Highcroft turned his languid eyes fully to the older man. Krim returned the look with a hard stare and Hark sighed internally. The two men represented the extremes of the Errantry well, Highcroft was the third son of a Baron destined for a life of war or cloistered in some monastery scribing for the rest of his days. He still kept his house crest quartered with the chevrons of the Errantry on his thick tabard. He was wrapped head to toe in gleaming riveted mail, a great helm hung from his saddle and his mail coif hung about his shoulders. A vast fur cape fluttered behind him as he rode as if his shadow clung to him.

Krim was cut from a decidedly different cloth, joining the order to escape the bitter work of serfdom in the windswept fjords of Fenryr. He was Fenryran, and with that came a healthy mistrust of the faith. The man was short, stocky and old, whereas the knight was young, tall, and lithe. A simple gambeson of padded cloth covered him, yet a similar furred cloak flapped about his shoulders.

“I am your commander. And you will cease with the incessant complaining. Learn from Hark’s example, keep your eyes to the horizon lest we be beset by savages once more.”

Hark didn’t hear the compliment as he was busy looking down at the monk. The reason he had been dragged from his bed and hurled into the hels that were the Tear. A small scrawny man with a face locked in perpetual surprise, his shaved pate slowly growing back after weeks away from a razor. Ever since the priests death he had clutched the little silver reliquary and not set it aside once. The man’s little eyes twitched left and right, refusing to meet Harks. He resisted the urge to reach down and strangle the little man.

“Hark” Highcroft called.

“Lord.”

A bare hand motioned to the broken road in front of them. “You’ve travelled these paths before, seen this barrow with your own eyes. Tell me what is coming.”

Hark looked off into the distance, remembering the first year of his service. The order marched in full strength that day to scatter the Clan-Kings army. Old Orsin was Grandmaster at the time, Hark remembered the fierce debating between the captains. Their foe was a full ten times their size and they advised a pause to allow for the Great Wolf of Vinterheim and his banners to join with their host. Orsin ignored them and attacked. Hark was on the wings and watched as the vanguard crashed into the clan's pockmarked defensive line and scattered them to the winds. It was a great day for the order.

“The road ends in about a mile, from then its rough broken ground we’d be best dismounting and walking. The barrow is at the bottom of a decline, like a bowel carved out of the earth. It's not much to look at in truth just some old stones and winding crypts, a freshwater stream.” Hark knew it would be a good place to make camp.

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“Will there be any clansmen?”

“After the death of the last Clan King and the drubbing we gave them they’ve been too scared to go back.” Hark gave a mirthless chuckle.

“Good.” He fingered the pommel of his sword. “Ride ahead Hark and dismount at the road end, we will catch up.”

Hark was unsurprised at the command, off all the men assembled for this outing his selection was most deliberate. Most men have a reason for signing up with the Errantry and aside from the likes of Ser Highcroft few of them are good. Hark had been a reiver in Mittenreiq, an unofficially sanctioned raider who targeted enemies of any count who could afford the price. He burned crops, stole cattle, extorted pilgrims and swindled priests. He lived large until some knights of the Alderfen caught up to him and offered him a simple choice, the noose or life in the Errantry. In the end, he made no choice and was sent in lieu of some high-born lad; Hark didn’t complain too much, the order had been good to him and it made good use of his particular skills.

He nodded and kicked his horse forward. Krim continued his grumbling as Hark left the three of them behind. The broken road came to an end and Hark hoisted himself from his horse and found his sword wrapped tightly in one hand. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. What was it? A slight edge to the breeze, the distant howl of a wolf pack on the prowl, maybe the multicoloured lights above him had finally gone beyond beauty and into the dark corners of his mind where fear reigned.

With a slight click of his tongue, his horse trotted off to a safe distance, it was an old reiver trick, the horse would be far from danger but ready to swoop in if things went awry. With one hand he gathered up his cloak and held it close to his body, it wouldn’t do to create a flapping silhouette to anything out on the hunt. In a low crouch he swept forward making for the barrow, his chain hauberk clinked softly against his sword belt. As he neared the rim he slid onto his belly, he carefully peaked down into the cauldron of earth that housed the oldest structure in the known world. The hammering of his heart distracted him from his task, his vision swam as he spotted the familiar standing stones.

Suddenly his heart stopped, his vision cleared and he was no longer alone. Above his shoulders was the Clan-Kings battle line, the same line that Errantry lancers broke five years ago. Leather-soled heels shuffled back and forth, burly men wielding great axes shoved the others into a rough line, circular shields overlapped and spears were forced into the ground. Hark remembered it differently from this, it was disorganised chaos right up till the moment Orsin cut through them like a hot knife through butter. These men wouldn’t be unmade so easily. He looked back down at the barrow and saw a child. She was with the others wrapped in a sealskin blanket looking ahead with a flat stare. As if she could feel him, she turned and her eyes were glowing red.

As fast as it came it dispersed, like waking from a dream Hark blinked and they were gone. He was a simple ranger looking down at some old rocks.

“All clear.” The whisper was lost in the howling wind.

The monk insisted on going down into the barrow immediately.

“No. Brother I understand your eagerness but we are still in enemy country. Once you go down into that pit it will take your mule too long to come out were we to come under attack. Krim and I shall descend first, then you once we know it is clear.” Highcroft kept the irritation from his voice by speaking quickly.

The monk stayed silent but gave a shallow nod. Their lord had given Hark the task of keeping watch, atop his horse he circled the rim of the barrow, he did not allow his eyes to stray down into the ruins he didn’t wish to see visions again. The Tear was a place of savage beauty, the ground was hard and bereft of grass. The only vegetation which could survive out there was gnarled trees and withering bushes. For millennia it had been considered a land of the dead in the south, But Hark knew better, it was a hard place that bred hard people, clans of barbarians and wild men lived there long before the migrations. The ranger found himself lost in thought as he circled slowly, trying desperately to rid his mind of earlier delusion, he would speak of them to no one. Men of the order who admit such things find themselves locked in their cells and sent to institutions of the Collegia for study.

He was brought back to reality with a start when he heard a bone-chilling scream from below. He recognised the deeper tone as Krim and felt the water in his stomach turn to ice. His head snapped around and his sword flashed into his hand. There must be clansmen in those tunnels or traps leftover from previous occupation. Hark jumped off his horse and began to scramble down the side of the banks. He could see nothing so pedestrian, the monk had disobeyed Highcroft’s orders and dragged his silver reliquary down into the ruins and meant to place it upon a stone altar covered in weathered runes. Krim was cutting his way through old vines and shoving passed stone cairns to get to the diminutive man, shouting and screaming all the while. Hark could see the violence in his motions, he meant to cut down the monk. Ser Highcroft began shouting and Hark added his voice shouting at Krim to stand down. Despite this, he felt a voice in the corner of his mind shouting out at the monk to stop. He could not put into words why but that reliquary must not touch the stones of the barrow.

“Stand down damn you I am your lord and commander, Krim this insolence will not sta-” Highcroft’s voice was silenced as the silver chest was placed delicately upon the stones. The whole world went silent as the monk placed the reliquary down with a soft clink.

Hark stopped dead in his tracks. The tip of his sword pressed softly into the ground as he wrapped both hands around its hilt and prayed. A soft breeze rustled his hair and before he turned to run he saw them, rising from the ground. Phantoms, wraiths, the dammed. In a hazy fog of red and white, they stood there, defying the wind and the moonlight. Defying all sense of progress and rationality.

Krim was the first to fall, as he reached the monk he simply keeled over dead, a wrinkled hand clutching his heart. The monk was next as he dived forward and wrestled with the lid of the reliquary an ethereal blade shimmered through his chest. He died with a look of such profound desperation it made Hark's heart weep.

The last knight in the Tear, Ser Roland Highcroft, died on his feet. With blade and shield in hand he marched into certain death without hesitation. The man was young, he was vain, and Hark and the others had laughed at his empty boasts in their cups but in that moment he stood as the greatest knight in the whole world. Without a word, he swept forward and swung his sword in a lethal arc toward the head of the nearest glowing figure of orange-red. With a resolute cry, his blade flew and was cut clean in half by a lazy parry. Hark did not wait to see the blow that killed his commander. He could not bear it when the ghostly figures turned to look at him. And before he could reach his horse, he found he could see nothing at all.